(c. 170–217 CE [AD]),

Roman empress, wife of Septimius Severus, and mother of Caracalla. Julia Domna came from a prestigious family in Emesa (present-­day Homs, Syria) involved in the operations of the cult of the local sun god Elagabal. The Emesenes were originally of Arab descent, and the name “ Domna ” has been connected to an archaic Arabic word meaning “black.”

Julia Domna likely first met Septimius Severus in the early 180s when he was serving as an officer in the Roman army in Syria. Septimius Severus’ first wife, Paccia Marciana, was still living at the time. Not long after Paccia Marciana’s death later in the decade, Septimius Severus arranged with Julia Domna ‘s family to have the young woman sent to Gaul, where he was then a provincial governor. The couple seems to have been married in 187. Septimius Severus was roughly twenty-­five years older than his bride.

Two sons were born soon after the wedding: Bassianus, named for Julia Domna ‘s father and later known to historians as Caracalla, was born in 188; Geta was born in 189.

After her husband was proclaimed emperor in 193, Julia Domna regularly accompanied him through the empire. She was with Septimius Severus in 195 on campaign in the East when she was given the title mater castrorum (mother of the camps). She was also joined by other members of her family, in particular her sister Julia Maesa and Julia Maesa’s daughters, Julia Soaemias and Julia Mamaea.

During her husband’s reign, Julia Domna did not have an active role in his government beyond her frequent public appearances. No solid evidence supports some modern scholars’ suggestions that she led a literary salon. She was said to have been unhappy with the marriage arranged between Caracalla and the daughter of the Praetorian prefect Fulvius Plautianus, and she was not upset when Plautianus was executed and the marriage dissolved.

After Septimius Severus’ death in 211, Julia Domna became more politically involved. She unsuccessfully tried to mediate the feud between her sons Caracalla and Geta. She was said to have been unwittingly present when Geta was assassinated on Caracalla’s orders; her bleeding younger son was said to have died in her arms. The story may have been propaganda to remove any suspicions about Julia Domna’s possible culpability in the murder, because during Caracalla’s subsequent sole reign she continued to have a public role, even receiving embassies and petitions.

When Caracalla traveled to the East to campaign against the Parthians in 216–217, Julia Domna settled in Antioch, where she may have served as a conduit for communications from Rome to her son the emperor. By this time, she was suffering from breast cancer, and the advance of the disease was cited as a reason why she was unable to challenge the succession as emperor of the Praetorian prefect Macrinus after Caracalla was assassinated in the spring of 217. She eventually stopped taking food and died later that year, probably in her late forties.

[See also CARACALLA; EMPRESSES AND IMPERIAL WOMEN; and SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS.]

MICHAEL MECKLER

(167?–217 CE [AD])

Syrian‐born wife of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, mother of the emperor Caracalla and his brother Geta. Julia Domna was famous among Roman empresses not only for the sensational story of her fratricidal son but for her own qualities of cultivation and intelligence. Whether this information is true in any historically reliable sense is unclear because so little literary evidence remains from her own time, and later material is notoriously unreliable. According to writers, she had a literary salon and brought famous philosophers and orators to the court. Her son Caracalla is said to have murdered Geta, his brother and co‐heir to the throne, even as Geta was clinging to his mother for rescue. Geta’s portraits were destroyed and his name erased from public inscriptions, and Caracalla ruled alone from 211 until his own murder in 217. What role Julia Domna played, if any, remains a mystery.

The more reliable evidence for Julia Domna comes in the form of inscriptions and the visual arts. There are more portraits of her than of any other Roman empress except Livia; they depict her strong features, magnificent thick eyebrows, and densely coiffed hair so that she is immediately recognizable in a way unusual among the bland and idealized images of empresses. The portraits of Julia Domna occur not only as statues and busts on bases with honorific inscriptions, often set up to thank her for good deeds done for a town or an official, but also on coins (alone and with her sons) and as a participant on public monuments. Chief among these are numerous arches set up by town officials and corporate groups in Rome, Asia Minor, and especially North Africa. Although Julia Domna herself came from one of the most important priestly families in Roman Syria, her husband was a native of Leptis Magna in the African province of Tripolitania, and he seems to have been responsible for lavish civic gifts to communities from western Algeria to eastern Libya. Julia Domna ‘s name and statues were regularly part of the monuments set up in thanks to the imperial family, and her image is a frequent and noticeable part of the sculpted reliefs from the Severan
family arch at Leptis Magna. Her consistent representation as a necessary element of dynastic propaganda—as well as a recognizable and important imperial personage in her own right—thus emerges from both art and inscriptions. She received honors, recorded in texts and inscriptions, that were unprecedented in their lavishness. Although earlier empresses had occasionally been referred to as mater patriae, “mother of the homeland,” Julia Domna was called “mother of the Senate” and “mother of the army camps” as well.

Although Julia Domna is reported to have committed suicide after Caracalla’s murder, her relatives carried on the dynasty. Her sister’s daughters both bore sons, Elagabalus becoming emperor from 218–222, and Alexander Severus from 222–235. Although the emperors carried the family name created by Septimius Severus, the dynasty was Julia Domna ‘s.

NATALIE KAMPEN