The UC Santa Barbara Undergraduate Journal of History

The Severan Dynasty of Ancient Rome (AD 193-235) is in part known for the increased involvement of its females, the Julias Domna, Maesa, and Mamaea, in the politics of the empire as compared to previous imperial dynasties. By examining the involvement of the Julias Maesa and Mamaea in Alexander Severus’ reign, I seek through this paper to examine what this involvement looked like, why it took certain forms, and what those forms can tell us about Roman society of the time more broadly. I used Herodian’s early 3rd century History of the Roman Empire and the early 4th century collection of biographies termed the Historia Augusta in doing so, and large sections of this paper discuss the issues with these sources and how they need to be read into in order to gather accurate information about the events they discuss.