On the Alleged Treachery of Julia Domna and Septimius Severus’s Failed Siege of Hatra

Bertolazzi, Riccardo

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75877-0_5

On the Alleged Treachery of Julia Domna and Septimius Severus’s Failed Siege of Hatra

Riccardo Bertolazzi⁵

Chapter
First Online: 22 May 2018

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Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

Abstract

The enmity between the empress Julia Domna and the powerful prefect of the guard, Fulvius Plautianus, seems to be the origin of certain unspecified accusations of treachery that were brought against Domna during the reign of her husband Septimius Severus. The latter ordered Plautianus to hunt down the supporters of his former rival, Pescennius Niger, in the East, but Plautianus took advantage of this role to accumulate riches by pillaging Syria and Mesopotamia. This probably caused the hostile reaction of Domna, who was close to the middle-eastern communities owing to her Syrian origin and cultural background. It is, therefore, not surprising that Plautianus accused the Augusta of conspiracy with the enemies of the Emperor. The case of the unsuccessful siege of the Mesopotamian city of Hatra, which Severus attacked for having supported Niger, may be indicative of the conflict that was taking place at court between Domna and Plautianus.

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Notes

1.
Abbreviations of ancient authors, works, and collections of documents are those used by the Oxford Classical Dictionary; abbreviations of journals are those found in L’Année Philologique, available at http://www.annee-philologique.com/files/sigles_fr.pdf. Alfred Von Domaszewski, Die Religion des römischen Heeres (Trier: Verlag der Fr. Lintz’schen Buchhandlung, 1895), 72–3.
2.
Erich Kettenhofen, Die syrischen Augustae in der historischen Überlieferung; ein Beitrag zum Problem der Orientalisierung (Bonn: Habelt, 1979), 9–28, 75–143; Francesca Ghedini, Giulia Domna tra Oriente e Occidente. Le fonti archeologiche (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1984), especially 185–93, with further references on the previous scholarly debate on this topic.
3.
Jane Fejfer, “The Portraits of the Severan Empress Julia Domna. A New Approach,” Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 14 (1985): 129–38; Susann Lusnia, “Julia Domna’s Coinage and Severan Dynastic Propaganda,” Latomus 54.1 (1995): 119–40; Erica Filippini, “Il ruolo di Giulia Domna nell’ideologia imperiale. La documentazione numismatica,” Società Donne & Storia 4 (2008): 1–69; Anna L. Morelli, Madri di uomini e di dèi. La rappresentazione della maternità attraverso la documentazione numismatica di epoca romana (Bologna: Ante Quem, 2009); Erica Filippini, “‘Imagines aureae’: le emissioni in oro di Giulia Domna,” in Oreficeria in Emilia Romagna: archeologia e storia tra età romana e medioevo, ed. Anna L. Morelli, and Isabella Baldini Lippolis (Bologna: Ante Quem, 2010), 79–96.
4.
Barbara Levick, Julia Domna. Syrian Empress (London: Routledge, 2007); Julie Langford, Maternal Megalomania: Julia Domna and the Imperial Politics of Motherhood (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).
5.
Aurelius Victor: De Caesaribus, translated by Harry W. Bird (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994). This information probably passed from Aurelius Victor to the Historia A ugusta (hereafter HA) (Sev. 18.8): Domi tamen minus cautus, qui uxorem Iuliam famosam adulteriis tenuit, ream etiam coniurationis (“[Severus] was less careful in his home-life, for he retained his wife Julia even though she was notorious for her adulteries and also guilty of plotting against him” Scriptores Historiae Augustae, translated by David Magie, vol. I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921)). On Aurelius Victor as source for this section of the HA, see Anthony R. Birley “Further Notes on HA Severus,” in Historiae Augustae Colloquium Genevense, ed. Giorgio Bonamente, François Paschoud (Bari: Edipuglia, 1994), 34–6; André Chastagnol, Histoire Auguste. Les les empereurs romains des IIe et IIIe siècles, traduction par André Chastagnol (Paris: Laffont, 1994), 305–6; Michel Festy, “Aurélius Victor, source de l’ ‘Histoire Auguste’ et de Nicomaque Flavien,” in Historiae Augustae Colloquium Genevense, ed. François Paschoud (Bari: Edipuglia, 1999), 123.
6.
On the correspondence of these facts to what is reported by other sources, see Aurelius Victor, 109. Aurelius Victor was probably gaining his information from the so-called Kaisergeschichte, a putative early-fourth-century historical work covering the period from the second century onward: see Harry W. Bird, Sextus Aurelius Victor. A Historiographical Study (Leeds: Cairns, 1984), 16–23; Aurelius Victor, xii–xiv.
7.
Ghedini, Giulia Domna, 9–10; Levick, Julia Domna, 75–6. On Plautianus (PIR ² F 554) in general, see Fulvio Grosso, “Ricerche su Plauziano e gli avvenimenti del suo tempo,” Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche. Rendiconti 3 (1968): 7–58; Mireille Corbier, “Plautien, comes de Septime-Sévère,” in Mélanges de philosophie, de littérature et d’histoire ancienne offerts à Pierre Boyancé (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1974), 213–18; Anne Daguet-Gagey, “C. Fuluius Plautianus, ‘hostis publicus’: Rome, 205–208 après J.-C,” in La “crise” de l’Empire romain de Marc Aurèle à Constantin: mutations, continuités, ruptures, ed. Marie-Henriette Quet (Paris: Presse de l’université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2006), 65–94; Maria Letizia Caldelli, “La titolatura di Plauziano: una messa a punto,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 178 (2011): 261–72; Rafael González Fernández, and Pedro David Conesa Navarro, “Plauciano: la amenaza de la domus Severiana,” Potestas 7 (2014): 27–50; Sandra Bingham, and Alex Imrie, “The Prefect and the Plot: a Reassessment of the Murder of Plautianus,” Journal of Ancient History 3.1 (2015): 76–91. This is not the only case of negative propaganda against Domna preserved by fourth-century sources. Letta has attributed the story of her alleged incest with Caracalla (recorded by Carac. 10.1, Caes. 21.3, Eutrop. 8.20, and Epit. 21.5) to the propaganda of Macrinus, who during the civil war against Elagabalus (218) tried in this way to discredit the lineage of his rival. On the topic, see Cesare Letta, “Caracalla e Iulia Domna. Tradizioni storiografiche come echi di propaganda politica,” Abruzzo 23–28 (1985–1990): 521–9 (contra Gabriele Marasco, “Giulia Domna, Caracalla e Geta: frammenti di tragedia alla corte dei Severi,” L’Antiquité Classique 65 (1996): 129), and Caillan Davenport, The Sexual Habits of Caracalla: Rumour, Gossip, and Historiography,” Histos 11 (2017): 75–100.
8.
Dio’s Roman History, translated by Earnest Cary, vol. IX (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, London: William Heineman, 1969). Kαὶ οὕτω καὶ ἐς τὰ ἄλλα πάντα ὁ Πλαυτιανὸς αὐτοῦ κατεκράτει ὥστε καὶ τὴν Ἰουλίαν τὴν Αὔγουσταν πολλὰ καὶ δεινὰ ἐργάσασθαι: πάνυ γὰρ αὐτῇ ἤχθετο, καὶ σφόδρα αὐτὴν πρὸς τὸν Σεουῆρον ἀεὶ διέβαλλέν, ἐξετάσεις τε κατ᾽αὐτῆς καὶ βασάνους κατ᾽εὐγενῶν γυναικῶν ποιούμενος. I preferred to translate βασάνους ... ποιούμενος with “inquiring” rather than “torturing”, which appears in Cary’s edition. In my view, crediting Plautianus with the power of torturing matrons from the high society of Rome does not sound very plausible.
9.
Levick, Julia Domna, 76. Scholars have already stressed that accusations of sexual misconduct are a very popular topic in the accounts of Roman historians. Among the most famous cases are those of Julia the Elder, Valeria Messalina (María José Hidalgo de la Vega, “La imagen de ‘la mala’ emperatriz en el Alto Imperio: Mesalina ‘meretriz Augusta’,” Gerión (vol. extra, 2007): 395–410), and Faustina the Younger (Barbara Levick, Faustina I and II: Imperial Women of the Golden Age (London: Routledge, 2014), 80–2). In general, see also María José Hidalgo de la Vega, “Princesas imperials virtuosas e infames en la tradición de la corte romana,” in Costruzione e uso del passato storico nella cultura antica, ed. Paolo Desideri, Sergio Roda, and Anna Maria Biraschi (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2007), 387–410.
10.
Grosso, “Ricerche,” 14–15.
11.
Geta 4.3–4: [Geta] ait:“tum plures ergo in civitate tristes erunt quam laeti, quod vicimus.” Et obtinuisset eius sententia nisi Plautianus praefectus vel Iuvenalis institissent spe proscriptionum, ex quibus ditati sunt (“[Geta] remarked, ‘Then there will be more in the state to mourn than to make merry at our victory.’ And he would have carried his point, had not the prefect Plautianus, or rather Juvenalis, stood out against him in the hope of proscriptions, for which they became enriched.” Scriptores Historiae Augustae, translated by David Magie, vol. II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924). The Juvenalis quoted in the passage should be identified with Flavius Juvenalis, who was Prefect of the Guard in 193 (PIR ² F 300). According to an inscription from Rome (CIL VI 224), however, in 197 Plautianus was already the sole Prefect; on the topic see Grosso, Ricerche, 17–24. Carac. 1.7–8: Antiochensibus et Byzantiis interventu suo iura vetusta restituit, quibus iratus fuit Severus, quod Nigrum iuverant. Plautiani odium crudelitatis causa concepit (“It was at his plea [i.e. of Caracalla] that their ancient rights were restored to the citizens of Antioch and Byzantium, with whom Severus had become angry because they had given aid to Niger. He conceived a hatred for Plautianus because of his cruelty,” HA).
12.
Sev. 18.3–4: In Syriam rediit, ita ut se pararet ac bellum Parthis inferret. Inter haec Pescennianas reliquias Plautiano auctore persequebatur (“[Severus] returned to Syria in order to make preparations to carry on an offensive war against the Parthians. In the meantime, on the advice of Plautianus, he hunted down the last survivors of Pescennius’ revolt,” HA). According to Dio (77 [78].1.2), a part of Plautianus’ enormous riches was paraded through the streets of Rome on occasion of the wedding between his daughter Plautilla and Caracalla, an event that took place soon after the imperial court had returned from the East.
13.
On the chronology of these events, see Cesare Letta, “La dinastia dei Severi,” in Storia di Roma, vol. II, 2 (Torino: Einaudi, 1991), 665; Anthony R. Birley, The African Emperor: Septimius Severus, 3rd edn. (London: Routledge, 1999), 130–2. On the siege of Hatra, see also Duncan Campbell, “What happened at Hatra? The Problem of the Severan Siege Operations,” in The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East, ed. Philip Freeman and David Kennedy (Oxford: BAR Publishing, 1986), 51–8.
14.
Cary, Dio’s Roman History. Ἐκώλυσεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Σεουῆρος τοῦτο πρᾶξαι, τορῶς πανταχόθεν τὸ ἀνακλητικὸν σημανθῆναι κελεύσας: δόξα τε γὰρ τοῦ χωρίου ὡς καὶ πάμπολλα τά τε ἄλλα χρήματα καὶ τὰ τοῦ Ἡλίου ἀναθήματα ἔχοντος μεγάλη ἦν, καὶ προσεδόκησεν ἐθελοντὶ τοὺς Ἀραβίους, ἵνα μὴ βίᾳ ἁλόντες ἀνδραποδισθῶσιν ὁμολογήσειν.
15.
Clare Rowan, Under Divine Auspices. Divine Ideology and Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 241–5.
16.
See Levick, Julia Domna, 6–22 with further references.
17.
Langford, Maternal Megalomania, 42–4. The original verse is Aen. 11.371.
18.
Emily Hemelrijk, review of Maternal Megalomania: Julia Domna and the Imperial Politics of Motherhood, by Julie Langford, The Classical World 108.1 (2014): 143.
19.
Langford, Maternal Megalomania, 43–4.
20.
On Emesa, see Richard Sullivan, “The Dynasty of Emesa,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung II 8 (1978): 198–219; Levick, Julia Domna, 6–22. See also Irfan Shahîd, Rome and the Arabs. A Prolegomenon to the Study of Byzantium and the Arabs (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1984), 41–2, 167. On Hatra, see Lucinda Dirven, “Aspects of Hatrene Religion: A Note on the Statues of Kings and Nobles from Hatra,” in The Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East, ed. Ted Kaizer (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 209–46 with further references there.
21.
See Sullivan, “The Dynasty of Emesa.”
22.
Cesare Letta, “Dal leone di Giulio Alessandro ai leoni di Caracalla. La dinastia di Emesa verso la porpora imperiale,” in Studi in onore di Edda Bresciani, ed. Sandro Filippo Bondì, Sergio Pernigotti et al. (Pisa: Giardini, 1985), 294.
23.
According to the HA, Septimius Severus married Domna because her horoscope had predicted that she would marry a king (Sev. 3.9; Geta 3.1; Alex. 5.4). Levick (Julia Domna, 29) has observed that the family of Domna might have invented the story in order to present her in a more attractive light for pretenders. It seems nonetheless more plausible to attribute the horoscope to the fact that Domna could boast a royal ancestry, as noted by Letta (“Dal leone,” 294). On the marriage between Domna and Severus, see also Danuta Okoń, “Mariage de Septime Sévère avec Julia Domna au fond des strategies matrimoniales des familles sénatoriales romaines à la charnière des II^e et III^e siècles,” Eos 97 (2010): 45–62.
24.
For a history of Hatra, see Han J. Willem Drijvers, “Hatra, Palmyra und Edessa. Die Städte der syrischmesopotamischen Wüste in politischer, kulturgeschichtlicher und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung II 8 (1977): 803–37; Stefan Hauser, “Hatra und das Königreich der Araber,” in Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse, ed. Josef Wiesehöfer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998), 493–528; and Michael Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze: Palmyra, Edessa, Dura-Europos, Hatra: eine Kulturgeschichte von Pompeius bis Diocletian (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005).
25.
John Walker, “The Coins of Hatra,” Numismatic Chronicle 18 (1958): 167. Cf. also Dirven, “Aspects,” 213–17 with further references.
26.
Javier Teixidor, The Pantheon of Palmyra (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 64–7; Ted Kaizer, The Religious Life of Palmyra: A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in the Roman Period (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), 99–100, and 107–8.
27.
Teixidor, The Pantheon, 68.
28.
Michel Prieur and Karin Prieur, A Type Corpus of the Syro-Phoenician Tetradrachms and Their Fractions from 57 BC to AD 253 (London: Chameleon Press, 2000), 116–17.
29.
BMC Galatia 81.
30.
Ghedini, Giulia Domna, 142; Eckhard Meyer, “Die Bronzeprägung von Laodikeia in Syrien 194–217,” Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 37–38 (1987–1988), 68; Eva Christof, Das Glück der Stadt: die Tyche von Antiochia und andere Stadttychen (Bern–Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2001), 154–7; Levick, Julia Domna, 130–1 have already stressed this connection.
31.
On this topic, see Fergus Millar, “The Roman Coloniae of the Near East: A Study of Cultural Relations,” in The Greek World, the Jews, & the East. Rome, the Greek World, and the East, vol. 3, edited by Fergus Millar, Hannah M. Cotton, and Guy M. Rogers (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Scholarship Online), 164–222.
32.
Julia Domna: BMC Phoenicia 370–1. Septimius Severus: BMC Phoenicia 367–8.
33.
BMC Galatia 1–2. See also Meyer, “Die Bronzeprägung,” 68 n. 54; Christof, Das Glück, 155.
34.
SNG Levante 1613. It is interesting to know, however, that Eirenopolis had already dedicated coins to Domna between 195 and 196 (SNG Levante 1612; SNG Levante–France 2265), more or less when the imperial family was returning from Syria to Rome after the war against Pescennius Niger and the first Parthian campaign of Severus; see Letta, “La dinastia,” 655–9.
35.
SNG ANS 867. With regard to previous imperial women honored by coins of Caesarea, only a type for Poppaea Sabina representing a Tyche within a temple is documented (SNG ANS 858).
36.
Ascalon: SNG ANS 732. Similar coins for Faustina Minor are also documented in this city (BMC Palestine 226; SNG ANS 730). Sebaste: SNG ANS 1079–80.
37.
BMC Phoenicia 78. No coins for previous imperial women are so far attested in this city. Tripolis struck coins for Severus a little later, between 203 and 204 (BMC Phoenicia 71).
38.
Lindgren & Kovacs 2559. Although the coin cannot be dated to a precise year, the fact that Severus awarded the city colonial status (Millar, “The Roman Coloniae,” 200) might suggest a dating to the Parthian campaign of 197–8.
39.
On the topic, see Ricci “Una conferma all’Historia Augusta; il dio Lunus,” Studi Classici e Orientali 32 (1983): 179–87; Olivier Hekster and Ted Kaizer, “An Accidental Tourist? Caracalla’s Fatal Trip to the Temple of the Moon at Carrhae/Harran,” Anatolian Studies 42 (2012): 89–107.
40.
CIL III 154. On the travels of Domna, see Marcella Bonello Lai, “I viaggi di Giulia Domna sulla base della documentazione epigrafica,” Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia della Università di Cagliari 2 (1978–1979), 13–45 (travel to Syria in 197: 18–19) and Levick, Julia Domna, 35–56.
41.
AE 1950, 230. Since no other similar statue bases are so far documented for Severus, Caracalla or Geta, the statue for Domna was probably the only monument that was actually set up.
42.
IGLS XVII/1, 157.
43.
Object no. 1956.19.
44.
Ulrich W. Hiesinger, “Julia Domna. Two Portraits in Bronze,” American Journal of Archaeology 73 (1969): 39.
45.
Hiesinger, “Julia Domna,” 41–2.
46.
On the representation of Domna on the Arcus Argentariorum see Ghedini, Giulia Domna, 25–53. On the gesture and its importance in the Near East see Dirven, “Aspects,” 237–8, and Ghedini Giulia Domna, 33–5 with further references there.
47.
Cary, Dio’s Roman History. Eἱστιάθημεν δὲ ἐν ταὐτῷ ἅμα, τὰ μὲν βασιλικῶς τὰ δὲ βαρβαρικῶς, ἑφθά τε πάντα ὅσα νομίζεται, καὶ ὠμὰ ζῶντά τε ἄλλα λαβόντες.
48.
Riccardo Bertolazzi, “The Depiction of Livia and Julia Domna by Cassius Dio: Some Observations,” Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 55 (2015), 428–430. Dio, who was present at the event, says that the banquet took place at the imperial palace. This indicates that Plautilla had moved from her paternal home (her rich dowry was paraded through the forum) to the house of her groom, whose family had presumably organized the banquet.
49.
AE 1962, 229 = AE 1962, 241.
50.
CIL VI 708.
51.
Eutyches, Augg. lib., dedicated a statue to Balbillus, who is called “dearest friend” (optimus amicus), on January 1, 199 (CIL VI 2270). It is also worth noting that Balbillus was on good terms with the Vestal Virgins. He dedicated a monument to one of them, Numisia Maximilla, in 201 (CIL VI 2129), and to another one, Terentia Flavola, “for the many benefactions he had received from her” (ob plura eius in se merita) in 215 (CIL VI 2130). Finally, in 201 he set up a statue for the Prefect of the Corn Supply, Claudius Julianus (CIL VI 2130).
52.
See François Chausson, “Vel Iovi vel Soli: quatre études autour de la Vigna Barberini: (191–354),” Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’école Française de Rome, Antiquité 107.2 (1995), 686–91.
53.
Chausson, “Vel Iovi vel Soli,” 698–701.

Abbreviations

AE :: L’Année Épigraphique
BMC Galatia:: Warwick Wroth, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Galatia, Cappadocia and Syria (London: British Museum, 1899)
BMC Phoenicia:: George F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Phoenicia (London: British Museum, 1910)
CIL :: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
IGLS :: Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie
Lindgren & Kovacs:: Henry C. Lindgren, Frank L. Kovacs, Ancient Bronze Coins of Asia Minor and the Levant from the Lindgren Collection (San Mateo: Chrysopylon Publications, 1985)
PIR ² :: Prosopographia Imperii Romani (2nd edn)
SNG ANS :: Ya’akov Meshorer, Sylloge nummorum Graecorum. American Numismatic Society, 6, Palestine–South Arabia (New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1981)
SNG Levante:: Edoardo Levante, Sylloge nummorum Graecorum Switzerland. Cilicia. (Berne: Crédit Suisse, 1986)
SNG Levante–France:: Edoardo Levante, Sylloge nummorum Graecorum. France, 2, Cilicie. (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale. Cabinet des Médailles)

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University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Riccardo Bertolazzi

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Riccardo Bertolazzi
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Department of History, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
Caroline Dunn
Department of History, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
Elizabeth Carney

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Bertolazzi, R. (2018). On the Alleged Treachery of Julia Domna and Septimius Severus’s Failed Siege of Hatra. In: Dunn, C., Carney, E. (eds) Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75877-0_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75877-0_5
Published: 22 May 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75877-0
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