Julia Mamaea

180 – 235 · Generation XII · Severan

Julia (AD 180 – AD 235). Ruled in all but name for her son Alexander; mother and son were killed together by mutinous troops. The younger daughter of Julia Maesa and Julius Avitus, she grew up in Emesa and married twice; her second husband, Gessius Marcianus, was killed by Macrinus’s partisans around 218, and it is unclear which marriage produced her son, born at Arca Caesarea in 208. As Elagabalus lost the Praetorians’ favour she paid them gold on Alexander’s behalf and shielded him from his cousin’s plots. Named Augusta at his accession in 222, she steered affairs after Maesa’s death through a council of sixteen senators and the Syrian jurist Ulpian, whom the Guard nonetheless murdered. Herodian claims she drove her daughter-in-law Orbiana from the palace and had the girl’s father executed. She sought instruction in Christian doctrine from Origen, and the soldiers came to blame her for her son’s timidity in war and tight hold on their pay.

One of 9 people of Severan (145–235) in this archive. Septimius Severus’s line, held together by the Syrian priestly family of his empress Julia Domna.

Parents

Julia Maesa (162 – 224)

Siblings

Julia Soaemias (180 – 222)

Children

Severus Alexander (208 – 235)