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Message:: [QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 4277841, member: 110350"]Vestal Virgin?  You mean his wife?  Even if the story is true, I still ask why the general condemnation by 19th and early 20th century writers above and beyond so many emperors who did far worse? Don't tell me that bigotry had nothing to do with it.  And let's not pretend that raping a Vestal Virgin even enters into the discussion in most writers' -- specifically including writers of numismatic catalogs* -- treatment of his reign, as opposed perhaps to the scandal engendered by his marrying one.  Furthermore, I disagree with your analysis of the view of same-sex relations in the Roman Empire.  It had at least as much to do with the active vs. passive role as with the age of the participants.  "Scandalized" is an exaggeration with respect to Hadrian and Antinous. (Not to mention that the latter was quite young himself.)  If that were all really true, why weren't people equally scandalized, and Hadrian's reign equally endangered, by all the temples set up after Antinous's death for his worship, and the cities named after him? * For example, if you think David Sear's reference to his "sexual depravity," and his description of him as "the perverted young priest-emperor," were primarily based on his alleged rape of a Vestal Virgin, or were intended to reflect only the contemporary Roman view of Elagabalus, I would suggest that you're wrong.[/QUOTE]