Aureus (Coin) Portraying Empress Julia Domna (196-211, issued by Septimius Severus): Artwork and History

Aureus (Coin) Portraying Empress Julia Domna (196-211, issued by Septimius Severus) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Roman, minted in Rome.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Aureus (Coin) Portraying Empress Julia Domna
• Date: 196-211, issued by Septimius Severus
• Artist attribution: Roman, minted in Rome
• Place of origin: Rome
• Medium: Gold
• Dimensions: Diam.: 2 cm (13/16 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1922.4883

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.