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During her lifetime, Julia Domna was probably the most celebrated of all Roman women in history and received more honorific titles than any previous imperial female relative, including the first empress Livia. In numismatics, extensive issues were minted solely under her name, marking her significant role in her husband Septimius Severus' dynastic propaganda after he emerged victorious from the bloody civil wars of AD 193, the Year of the Five Emperors, following the assassination of emperor Commodus. She was designated Augusta immediately following Severus' accession, and the title appears in full on her coinage following AD 195.
Julia Domna's considerable coinage emphasised her vital function in the Severan dynasty of producing Severus' sons and heirs, Caracalla and Geta, and associated her with desirable qualities of fertility, piety and fidelity through combinations with female deities and personifications to highlight the rise of a so-called new golden age under a new, harmonious Severan dynasty. These were traditional types employed for female imperial relatives from Livia through to the Antonine empresses, although to an unprecedented extent: the traditionalism of her coinage belies both the abrupt circumstances of her husband's accession and their non-Italian roots [Domna was born in Syria to an Arab family, while Severus was born in Lepcis Magna in modern-day Libya].
This rare reverse type of Diana Lucifera holding a blazing torch highlights Domna's role as mother and guarantor of the imperial dynasty, for, as Cicero notes in De Natura Deorum, in this role the goddess was historically called on for assistance in childbirth. She also appears as Luna Lucifera elsewhere on coinage of Domna. The word lucifera or light-bringing, symbolic of new light and the birth of new life, was particularly appropriate for the early years of Severus' reign, where a new dynasty seemed to bring hope and stability to the empire after years of capricious brutality under Commodus and the violent struggle which followed his death. Diana Lucifera's role in childbirth was linked to her connection with the moon, whose cycle was associated even in antiquity with fertility and gestation. With the introduction of the antoninianus under her son Caracalla, which was marked by a radiate crown for emperors, Julia Domna was the first person to appear set on a crescent moon, the denominational mark for female authorities [De Nat. Deo. II.27]. DIANA LVCIFERA - Diana the bringer of light.
Julia Domna's considerable coinage emphasised her vital function in the Severan dynasty of producing Severus' sons and heirs, Caracalla and Geta, and associated her with desirable qualities of fertility, piety and fidelity through combinations with female deities and personifications to highlight the rise of a so-called new golden age under a new, harmonious Severan dynasty. These were traditional types employed for female imperial relatives from Livia through to the Antonine empresses, although to an unprecedented extent: the traditionalism of her coinage belies both the abrupt circumstances of her husband's accession and their non-Italian roots [Domna was born in Syria to an Arab family, while Severus was born in Lepcis Magna in modern-day Libya].
This rare reverse type of Diana Lucifera holding a blazing torch highlights Domna's role as mother and guarantor of the imperial dynasty, for, as Cicero notes in De Natura Deorum, in this role the goddess was historically called on for assistance in childbirth. She also appears as Luna Lucifera elsewhere on coinage of Domna. The word lucifera or light-bringing, symbolic of new light and the birth of new life, was particularly appropriate for the early years of Severus' reign, where a new dynasty seemed to bring hope and stability to the empire after years of capricious brutality under Commodus and the violent struggle which followed his death. Diana Lucifera's role in childbirth was linked to her connection with the moon, whose cycle was associated even in antiquity with fertility and gestation. With the introduction of the antoninianus under her son Caracalla, which was marked by a radiate crown for emperors, Julia Domna was the first person to appear set on a crescent moon, the denominational mark for female authorities [De Nat. Deo. II.27]. DIANA LVCIFERA - Diana the bringer of light.