By the time Julius Caesar became emperor of Rome in 49 BC, he was already a successful general and a social reformer. The Orange Julius, that weird orange drink you can buy in shopping malls was curiously not named after Julius Caesar, but after Julius Freed who was just some guy who liked oranges and invented the orange smoothy. But Julius Caesar, being an emperor, was sensitive about his public image and when aristocratic scoundrel Publius Clodius Pulcher bragged he was going to seduce Caesar’s wife, Pompeia, Julius divorced her. Although Pompeia was perfectly innocent, he explained that Caesar’s wife “must be above suspicion”.
A similar fate seems to have befallen Maggie Begbie who was crowned Mills County Fair queen and was planning to compete for the title of Iowa State Fair queen until July 13 when she was informed that she had been dethroned. After only a few days of presiding over contests and performing public relations for the fair, the contest board said she had been disqualified over an anonymous complaint that a Facebook photo showed her holding a container of alcohol, a violation of Iowa State Fair Queen Competition Rules.
It states that the “Iowa State Fair Queen is expected to conduct herself in a manner that reflects positively on herself, her family and on the Iowa State Fair.” And she may not engage in any activity “including a drug, alcohol or tobacco related offense….” There is also stuff about how she can’t be a professional model and can’t be married as long as she’s queen and she doesn’t have to be a member of 4H (but I bet it helps). And definitely no drinking.
Begbie protested that she had not been drinking and took the Mills County Fair Commission to court, claiming the picture of her holding a mini booze bottle was part of a wedding photo in which all the bride’s maids were to look like they were toasting the bride. The bride had said she wanted Begbie in the photo although she was underage and gave her an empty bottle to hold.
The Northwest Missouri State sophomore had, in terms of queen contests, always been the bride’s maid and never the bride. In the 2020 and 2021 Mills County contests, Begbie had been first runner-up. This year, when Mills County announced she had won, Begbie told the Des Moines Register she was “absolutely thrilled and excited.”
Begbie lost in court with Judge Jennifer Bahr ruling that whether or not she had actually been drinking was irrelevant. What mattered was that the photo gave the appearance of underage drinking and reflected negatively on the fair. It would seem that, like Caesar’s wife, regardless of guilt, a fair queen must be above suspicion.
To modern feminists it may seem that Pompeia was the victim of a double standard that demanded the appearance of purity from women though not from men. But it turned out she was lucky to be rid of Julius because just five years after becoming emperor, he had decided to disband the Senate and declare himself king. This irritated several noblemen and they stabbed him to death on the floor of the Senate. Had Pompeia stayed married to him, she would have become queen. And it probably would have been irrelevant to those nobles with their knives to say the whole thing had been Julius’ idea.