Julia Domna, a Syrian priest's daughter, lived in army camps as Roman empress
Roman empresses usually stayed home, but Julia Domna followed Septimius Severus on campaign and slept in camp beside his troops. Born in Emesa to a family of priest kings, she went on to gather more official titles than any other empress, among them Mother of the Invincible Camps.
She was born around 160 AD in Emesa, today's Homs, the youngest daughter of Julius Bassianus, high priest of the sun god Elagabalus, who was worshipped in the form of a black stone. Her name comes from an archaic Arabic word for black. The family was enormously rich and had been raised into the Roman senatorial class, and before her marriage she inherited the estate of a great-uncle, Julius Agrippa, once a leading centurion.
According to the Historia Augusta, Severus, widowed around 186, heard a prophecy about a Syrian woman who would marry a king and sought her out. They wed in the summer of 187 at Lugdunum, modern Lyon, where he was governor, and the match was a happy one; he prized her political opinions. Two sons followed, the future Caracalla in 188 and Geta a year later. Commodus's murder in 192 threw the throne open, Severus claimed it in 193, and his victories over Pescennius Niger at Issus in 194 and Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum in 197 made her empress.
Domna won a brilliant reputation through letters and philosophy. She encouraged Philostratus to write his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, though she probably died before he completed its eight volumes. Her hairstyle was later copied by the empress Cornelia Salonina and by Zenobia of Palmyra, and she seems to have made wigs fashionable among Romans. From 207, medallions tied her to Vesta, perhaps stressing her role as mother of the heirs.
When Severus died at York in 211, the brothers were meant to rule jointly with their mother as mediator. By December Caracalla's soldiers had killed Geta, whose name was then scrubbed from inscriptions. Domna remained at court, handling Caracalla's correspondence at Antioch during his Parthian war of 217. On hearing of his assassination she took her own life, a choice perhaps hastened by breast cancer. Her sister Julia Maesa restored the dynasty in 218. Cassius Dio judged her life a joyless one, a verdict he granted only one other figure, Marcus Aurelius.
Source: Julia Domna
