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Aureus (Coin) Portraying Empress Julia Domna
196-211, issued by Septimius Severus
- Medium
- Gold
- Classification
- Coin
- Dimensions
- Diam.: 2 cm (13/16 in.)
- Culture
- Rome
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
- Credit line
- Gift of Martin A. Ryerson
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The front (obverse) of this coin portrays a bust of Empress Julia Domna facing right and draped. The back (reverse) depicts the deity Pietas standing left, with her right hand over a lit and garlanded altar, cradling an incense box in her left arm.
Julia Domna was the wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus and the mother of Caracalla and Geta. This coin was issued during the joint reign of Severus and his elder son. As the self-assured portrait on this coin suggests, Julia's influence was openly recognized by contemporaries. Intellectual, ambitious, and steel-willed, the Syrian-born Julia was called "the philosopher". The figure of Piety on the reverse is a standard type, invoking the traditional Roman attitude of respect and duty toward one's family, country, and gods.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
