The First Ladies of Rome

by Annelise Freisenbruch

  3 See Varner (2004), 177.

  4 Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 622.

  5 Gorrie (2004), 66, n. 25 citing the publications by A. von Domaszewski which form the original basis for this view; see also Levick (2007), 1 and 167, n. 3. Gibbon’s view: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. J. B. Bury) Vol. 1, 139 and 171 (London: Methuen)

  6 Bowersock (1969), 102, n. 5, citing M. Platnauer (1918) The Life of Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus, 128. (Oxford; Oxford University Press)

  7 On Severus’s arrival in Emesa, and the general locale, see Birley (1971), 68–71; also Ball (2000), 36f and Levick (2007), chapter one, passim.

  8 Levick (2007), 18; Birley (1971), 72 and 222.

  9 Levick (2007), 19 on Julia Domna’s probable age.

  10 See Birley (1971), 73–6; Levick (2007), 28–9 on this sequence of events.

  11 See Zwalve (2001) and Birley (1971), 72 on legal dispute concerning one Julius Agrippa.

  12 Cassius Dio, Roman History 75.3; Historia Augusta (Severus) 3.9.

  13 Levick (2007), 34 on their property portfolio.

  14 Cassius Dio, Roman History 72.21.1–2.

  15 Marcia: Cassius Dio, Roman History 72.22.4; Herodian 1.17.7–11.

  16 Birley (1971), 97.

  17 Flavia Titiana: Historia Augusta (Pertinax) 6.9.

  18 Historia Augusta (Albinus) 9.5; Historia Augusta (Severus) 11.9.

  19 See E. Doxiadis, (1995) The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson), 88 and 225a on the Berlin tondo. It is housed today in the Staatliche Museen, in Berlin, where it was acquired in the 1930s.

  20 Historia Augusta (Severus) 19.7–9 on Severus’s appearance.

  21 Fejfer (2008), 348.

  22 Baharal (1992), 114.

  23 Gorrie (2004), 63–4 and n. 14. See also Lusnia (1995), 123 on Commodus’s wife Crispina also holding this title.

  24 Cascio (2005), 137–9.

  25 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.9.4. See Cooley (2007), 385–6.

  26 See Newby (2007), 224 and Cooley (2007), 385–7 on Severus’s attempts to link himself to the Antonines.

  27 Newby (2007), 222–4 on Severan dynastic portraits; Lusnia (1995), 138–9 on Julia’s key role in imperial propaganda.

  28 Birley (1971), 107.

  29 Cassius Dio, Roman History 79.30.3. On promotion of Domna’s relatives, see Birley (1971), 134; Levick (2007), 48.

  30 Birley (1971), 76 and 35.

  31 Historia Augusta (Severus) 18.8.

  32 See Hemelrijk (1999), 306, n. 130.

  33 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.1.2.

  34 Cassius Dio, Roman History 76.15.

  35 Herodian 3.10.8; Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.3.

  36 Varner (2004), 164–5 on Plautilla’s portrait typology.

  37 Cassius Dio, Roman History 76.15.

  38 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.3,.

  39 Whitmarsh (2007), 33 on talk of a ‘salon’ culture; see also Bowersock (1969), 101–2.

  40 Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 622. See also Hemelrijk (1999), 124.

  41 Bowersock (1969), 101–9, on Victor Duruy’s Histoire de Rome of 1879 as the root of speculation about Julia Domna’s circle; cf. Hemelrijk (1999), 122–4.

  42 Philostratus, Epistle 73: trans. Penella (1979), 163; cited in Hemelrijk (1999), 125.

  43 Hemelrijk (1999), 25 and 233, n. 38 on Julia Domna being the first woman since Cornelia known to have studied rhetoric; see also Levick (2002) on rarity of women philosophers.

  44 Lucian, De Mercede Conductis 36.

  45 Martial, Epigrams 11.19.

  46 Birley (1971), 149.

  47 Kampen (1991), 231.

  48 Croom (2000), 79–80. On the Severan arch at Lepcis Magna, see Newby (2007), 206–11; Varner (2004), 178–9.

  49 Lusnia (1995), 138.

  50 Kleiner and Matheson (1996), 152.

  51 Gorrie (2004), 69.

  52 Lusnia (1995), 120–1.

  53 Kleiner and Matheson (1996), 85–6, no. 46.

  54 Cassius Dio, Roman History 76.16.

  55 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.4.

  56 Varner (2004), 163–8 on the mutilation of Plautinaus’s and Plautilla’s portraits; see also Kleiner and Matheson (1996), 86.

  57 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.7.

  58 Birley (1971), 170.

  59 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.12.

  60 Herodian 3.14.2 and 3.14.9.

  61 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.16.5.

  62 Lusnia (1995), 131–2 on Domna as mater Augustorum, and on the new coin issue; see also Gorrie (2004), 64.

  63 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.14.7.

  64 Cassius Dio, Roman History 77.15.2.

  65 Herodian 3.15.6–7.

  66 Herodian 4.1.5; 4.3.5.

  67 Herodian 4.3.8.

  68 See Lusnia (1995), 133–4.

  69 Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.2.2–6.

  70 Varner (2004), 176–7.

  71 Varner (2004), 182.

  72 Varner (2004), 184.

  73 Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.2.5–6.

  74 Herodian 4.6.3.

  75 Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.10.

  76 Herodian 4.9.3.

  77 Hemelrijk (1999), 306, n. 130 on ‘Neronisation’ of Caracalla, as discussed by R. J. Penella (1980), in ‘Caracalla and his Mother in the Historia Augusta’, Historia 29: 382–5.

  78 Cassius Dio, Roman History 79.4.3.

  79 Cassius Dio, Roman History 79.23.1.

  80 Cassius Dio, Roman History 79.24; Herodian 4.13.4.

  81 Cassius 79.24. See Levick (2007), 145, and Varner (2004), 168, n. 116.

  82 Levick (2007), 145 on Julia Domna’s deification.

  83 Herodian 5.3.2–3; Historia Augusta (Macrinus) 9; Cassius Dio, Roman History 79.30. See Kosmetatou (2002), 401 and Birley (1971), 191–3 on this sequence of events.

  84 Herodian 5.4.1–4; Cassius Dio, Roman History 79.30f. A rumour was apparently planted that Avitus was actually the product of an affair between Soaemias and Caracalla: Herodian 5.3.10.

  85 Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.38. On destruction of portraits, see Varner (2004), 185.

  86 Historia Augusta (Elagabalus) 4.1.

  87 Icks (2008), 175.

  88 Historia Augusta (Elagabalus) 2.1.

  89 Historia Augusta (Elagabalus) 21.4; Herodian 5.5.5–7.

  90 Herodian 5.7–8.

  91 Cassius Dio, Roman History 80.20; cf. Herodian 5.8.9. Varner (2004), 199.

  92 Fragment of Zonaras 12.15. Trans. E. H. Cary (in translation of Cassius Dio, Roman History)

  93 Kosmetatou (2002), 399–400 and 414.

  94 Historia Augusta (Elagabalus) 18.3.

  95 Kosmetatou (2002), 402–11 on the public image of Mamaea in particular.

  96 Herodian 6.1.9–10; Historia Augusta (Alexander) 20.3; Kosmetatou (2002), 409–10.

  97 Historia Augusta (Alexander) 26.9; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6, 21, 3f.

  98 Kosmetatou (2002), 412.

  99 Herodian 6.8.3.

  100 Herodian 6.9.6–7.

  8 The First Christian Empress: Women in the Age of Constantine

  1 Speech at the Edinburgh Rectorial Election, The Times, 8 November 1951: cited by Drijvers (2000), 28, from Donat Gallagher, ed. (1983) The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh (London: 1983), 407.

  2 See Pohlsander (1995) and Harbus (2002) for detailed overviews.

  3 Drinkwater (2005), 28.

  4 Zenobia: Drinkwater (2005), 51–3 and Sartre (2005) 513–15.

  5 The key sources on Helena’s early background are Ambrose, De Obitu Theodosii 42; Eutropius, Breviarum 10.2; the anonymous Origo Constantini 2.2; Philostorgius, Ecclesiastical History 2.16; and Zosimus 2.8.2 and 2.9.2. See also Drijvers (1992), Pohlsander (1995) and Harbus (2002).

  6 See McClanan (2002), 180 on narrative patterns of redemption in the lives of female saints. In the sixth century, for example, the humble background of Justinian’s wife Theodora morphed
into the story of the reformation of a born courtesan.

  7 See Lieu (1998), 149f on this tradition.

  8 Pohlsander (1995), 15.

  9 See Drijvers (1992), 17–18 on legality of the marriage and use of the term uxor; also Leadbetter (1998), 78–9 on concubinage and legitimacy.

  10 Gardner (1986), 58 on imperial use of concubines; see also Arjava (1996), 205–10.

  11 On Constantine’s need to prove his legitimacy and discourage unfavourable rumours about Helena’s and Chlorus’s relationship, see Leadbetter (1998), 79–81. For the suggestion that Constantine deliberately suppressed details about his and Helena’s background, see Harbus (2002), 10.

  12 On the arrangement of the tetrarchy: see Bowman (2005), 74–6, and Rees (2004), 76–80.

  13 Leadbetter (1998), 77–82 for more on links between the marriages and the creation of the tetrarchy; see also Pohlsander (1995), 17, Harbus (2002), 19 and Lenski (2006), 59–60.

  14 See Lancon (2000), 18, and Panegyrici Latini 12.19.3.

  15 See Rees (2004), 46–51.

  16 Elsner (1998), 84–6.

  17 Croom (2000), 101.

  18 Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 7.9.

  19 For conclusions on this point, see Pohlsander (1995), 14–15 and Drijvers (1992), 21. E. D. Hunt (1982), 30 suggests she would have accompanied her son to Nicomedia, however.

  20 Zosimus 2.9.2.

  21 Drijvers (1992), 22–3; see also Harbus (2002), 44f and Pohlsander (1995), 7–8, and chapter 4, passim, on Helena’s links to Trier.

  22 Trier ceiling: M. E. Rose (2006); Ling (1991), 186f, Pohlsander (1995), 37–46.

  23 On changing attitudes to jewellery in late antiquity, see Fejfer (2008), 349–51 and M. E. Rose (2006), 101.

  24 Panegyrici Latini. 6.2; see also R. Rees (2002), Layers of Loyalty in Latin Panegyric, AD 289–307 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 168–171 on the ‘truth’ of the panegyricist’s claim.

  25 On the deaths of Prisca and Valeria in the summer of 314: see Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 39–41 and 50–1.

  26 The key accounts are Eusebius, Life of Constantine 1.28: Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 44. See Cameron and Hall (1999), 204–6.

  27 See Lenski (2006), 72–3 for an overview of Licinius’s downfall; Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.47 on Helena’s receiving title of Augusta.

  28 Beard, North and Price (1998), 298–9 on the female principle and Christianity, and on elite female adherents to the new faith. Augustine, City of God 1.19 scrutinises the example of Lucretia to reproach those critics of Christian women who did not commit suicide after the sack of Rome in 410.

  29 Constantine’s laws: see Gardner (1986), 120; Cameron (1993), 58; G. Clark (1993), 21–36; Evans-Grubbs (1995), 317-21.

  30 Elsner (199), 40–1 and 96 on the imagery of the Proiecta casket.

  31 Cameron (1992), 177; also Clark (1986), 25–6.

  32 On the new ascetic vogue and tension with traditional Roman values, see the excellent monographs of Cooper (1996) and Clark (1986).

  33 Gardner (1986), 78.

  34 G. Clark (1993), 51. Evans-Grubbs (1995), 137–8 on the political stratagem behind Constantine’s laws.

  35 E. A. Clark (1986), 47–52.

  36 E. A. Clark and Richardson (1996), 3; E. A. Clark (1986), 46–52.

  37 Cooper (1996), 113–15.

  38 Cooper (1996), 144, on prevailing importance of kinship; Elsner (1998), on art and imperial power in late antiquity.

  39 Brubaker (1997), 57–8. On nobilissima femina, see Pohlsander (1995), 20.

  40 On Helena’s and Fausta’s coin portraits, see Walter (2006), 20f, and Pohlsander (1995), 179–84. For reasons of time and clarity, I have omitted further mention of the younger Helena, but she went on to marry Julian the Apostate, and died in 360.

  41 It may, admittedly, represent another empress of the period, but I have leaned towards the interpretation of C. Kelly (1999), in G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: a Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap Press), 173.

  42 On Constantine’s rhetoric of legitimacy, see Leadbetter (1998), 80–1; on the inscriptions, see Drijvers (1992), 45–54.

  43 McClanan (2002), 16. On the evidence for Helena’s portraits, see Drijvers (1992), 189–94 and Pohlsander (1995), 167–78.

  44 Haskell and Penny (1981), 133 and fig. 69; C. M. S. Johns (1998) Antonia Canova and the Politics of Patronage in Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press), 112–16.

  45 McClanan (2002), 185.

  46 Mango (1994), 146 and Pohlsander (1995), 3–4.

  47 Helena and Rome: Drijvers (1992), 30–4; Pohlsander (1995), 73f; Brubaker (1997), 57–8.

  48 On the plundering of Rome’s artistic treasures for the beautification of Constantinople, see Elsner (1998), 73; on the refusal to make the sacrifice to Jupiter, see Lenski (2006), 79. The practice of sacrifice was finally outlawed by Theodosius I, in 391.

  49 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 10.9.4, trans. Pohlsander (1984), 98. On confusion of the two Helenas, see Drijvers (1992), 29.

  50 Pohlsander (1984), 98.

  51 For an overview of accounts of Crispus’s and Fausta’s deaths, see Pohlsander (1984) and Woods (1998).

  52 Frakes (2006), 94 on the Potiphar scenario.

  53 Woods (1998), 77.

  54 Lefkowitz and Fant (1992), no. 355.

  55 On the inscription from Sorrento, see Brubaker (1997), 59; McClanan (2002), 16–17; Frakes (2006), 94–5.

  56 Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.44. For Eusebius’s full account of Helena’s journey, see Life of Constantine 3.42–7. See also E. D. Hunt (1982); Drijvers (1992), chapter 5, passim; Pohlsander (1995), chapter 8, passim.

  57 E. D. Hunt (1982), 33; Lenski (2004), 16.

  58 Drijvers (1992), 34–7; Pohlsander (1995), 24; Lieu (2006), 303–4

  59 Helena as a trailblazer: see E. D. Hunt (1982), 49; Brubaker (1997), 58–62; Holum (1999), 70–5.

  60 Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.30–2.

  61 Helena’s involvement: see Pohlsander (1995), 102f; Harbus (2002), 20–1.

  62 E. D. Hunt (1982), 39.

  63 Ambrose, De obitu Theodosii 45.

  64 See E.

  D. Hunt (1982), 42–7; Drijvers (1992), 4–6; Pohlsander (1995), 107.

  65 For an overview of the arguments as to whether Helena really discovered the Cross, see Pohlsander (1995), chapter 9, passim.

  66 Drijvers (2000), 47–8; Harbus (2002), 20–2; Lieu (2006), 304–5

  67 Pohlsander (1995), 228.

  68 Pohlsander (1995), 217. Walter (2006), 37–52 on development of this type in art.

  69 Pohlsander (1995), 117 and E. D. Hunt (1982), 48.

  70 Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.46.2.

  71 Drijvers (1992), 73.

  72 Pohlsander (1995), 155.

  73 See Johnson (1992), 148–9 for argument as to why Rome must be indicated.

  74 Johnson (2009), 110–17 for further details on Helena’s mausoleum; also Elsner (1998), 21.

  75 Pohlsander (1995), 152–60; Drijvers (1992), 75–6.

  76 Pohlsander (1995), 160ff; Johnson (2009), 149.

  77 On Helena’s sainthood, see Pohlsander (1995), chapter 15, passim.

  78 Helena’s feast days: E.D. Hunt (1982), 28–9 and Harbus (2002), 3. Helena and King Coel: Harbus (2002), 1; Helena and Henry VIII: Harbus (2002), 120f.

  79 Pohlsander (1995), 11.

  80 Drijvers (2000), 44.

  81 Drijvers (2000), 31–6 on genesis and reception of Waugh’s Helena.

  82 E. D. Hunt (1982), 29, for example, on Pulcheria being hailed as a ‘New Helena’.

  9 Brides of Christ, Daughters of Eve: The First Ladies of the Last Roman Dynasty

  1 Thomas Nugent (2004) [1756] The Grand Tour: a Journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France, Vol. 3: 192.

  2 Rizzardi (1996), 106 on the poem by Gabriele D’Annunzio, Le
città del silenzio (The Cities of Silence): cf. Dante, Paradise XXXI, 130–2.

  3 Ricci (1907), 14–15.

  4 Richlin (1992), 81. Technically, Galla Placidia was Pulcheria’s half-aunt, by virtue of Pulcheria being the daughter of Placidia’s half-brother Arcadius.

  5 See Brubaker (1997), 54 and 60, and Oost (1968), 38.

  6 See Tougher (1998) on this speech; also James (2001), 11–12.

  7 Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 4.31. My thanks to Christopher Kelly for his help on this point.

  8 See Richlin (1992), 81f.

  9 Paulinus, Life of Ambrose; Sozomen 7.13. See James (2001), 93–4; E. A. Clark (1990), 24.

  10 See MacCormack (1981), 263–4 on new virtues of empresses.

  11 James (2001), 128.

  12 Sozomen 7.6.

  13 Theodoret 5.18. See also McClanan (2002), 18–19.

  14 Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.44.

  15 See Holum (1982), 32–4; Brubaker and Tobler (2000), 580; Brubaker (1997), 60; James (2001), 101–2; McClanan (2002), 26.

  16 Stout (1994), 86–7.

  17 Brubaker and Tobler (2000), 573 on appearance of ‘Victory’; Holum (1982), 28 on paludamentum. See also James (2001), 26 on similarities to the mosaic of Theodora in San Vitale in Ravenna.

  18 The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, 83.44–52. See Holum (1982), 41 and Mayer (2006), 205.

  19 Justina: Zosimus, 4.43. See Holum (1982), 44–6, Oost (1968), 46–50 and Curran, 105–7 on this sequence of events. The family tie to Constantine was through Constantia, wife of Gratian, who was in turn the half-brother of Valentinian II, Galla’s father. See James (2001), 60–1.

  20 Oost (1968), 1 on Galla Placidia’s probable year of birth. For a challenge to this, see Rebenich (1985), 384–5, who places her date of birth in 392 or 393.

  21 See Heather (2005), 216–17 on Stilicho’s rise to power.

  22 Her mother Galla had died in childbirth ten years earlier in 384.

  23 McCormick (2000) 136.

  24 McCormick (2000), 156f.

  25 Holum (1982), 25 on Flaccilla’s adventus, as described in Gregory of Nyssa’s Oratio.