Severan

As she prepared to end her life Julia Domna might have expected to be remembered as the first and last of the Severan empresses.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

The great eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon believed that the Severan dynasty was responsible for setting the Roman Empire on a path to decline, though Gibbon reserved his criticism for the “pride and avarice” of the Syrian women who succeeded Domna; by contrast, he praised her as a woman who “deserved all that the stars could promise her.”

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

The portico has long since vanished, but a surviving fragment of a marble plan of Rome dating from the era of the Severan dynasty has preserved for us the existence, location, and general floor plan of the building It was built in the shape of a rectangle 115m by 75m around a courtyard garden.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

Julia Domna and her female relatives have appeared to many modern historians to have held such political influence that the Severan dynasty has often been painted as a matriarchy, in which first Domna herself, then her sister Julia Maesa and great-nieces Julia Soaemias and Julia Mamaea held the apron strings of their baby-faced progeny.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

Alexander was the last Severan emperor, and Mamaea its last empress.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

With the death of its ruling emperor and queen mother and the accession of Macrinus, the first Roman emperor without a senatorial background, the snapped thread of Severan succession looked beyond repair.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

See Newby 2007, 222–24 on Severan dynastic portraits.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

The rise of the Severan dynasty spearheaded by Septimius Severus and Julia Domna is one of the more remarkable chapters in Roman imperial history.

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

The Severan dynasty, or perhaps we should say the Emesene dynasty, was back in business.80

Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

While many may not see what's going on here, the reality is this: any Republican who can listen to that and not feel a responsibility to say something is allowing Buchanan, Tancredo, Gingrich, Rush, Severan and Cheney to define their party.

Jennifer Donahue: Where is the Rest of the Republican Party? Is This Who You Want to Be? 2009