Representing the Severan Empresses: Women as Rhetorical Devices in the Narratives of Roman Imperial Historiography

Abstract

This thesis examines the narrative and rhetorical functions of the Severan empresses – Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, Julia Soaemias, and Julia Mamaea – in the historiographical works by Cassius Dio, Herodian, and in the Historia Augusta. These works have fundamentally shaped our perceptions of the Severan empresses and the Severan era at large. These depictions, however, should not be taken at face value and are, as this thesis aims to show, best understood as rhetorical devices. By placing the depictions of these women in the broader context of the aims of Roman imperial historiography as a genre and the Roman historiographers’ respective narratives and theses, this thesis argues that the characterisations of the Severan empresses were first and foremost determined by their rhetorical functions in the assessments of their male kin – particularly their imperial (grand)sons. The portrayals of the Severan empresses were furthermore formed by subverting the ideal of the Augusta and the official Severan representations of these women, by eastern stereotypes, and earlier historiographical depictions of other imperial women.