Life
Nothing certain is known of Ulpia Severina before her marriage to Aurelian. It has been suggested that she was the daughter of Ulpius Crinitus, a figure appearing in the Historia Augusta. This Ulpius is said to have been a descendant of the line of Trajan and to have supported and adopted Aurelian. However, the Historia Augusta is notoriously unreliable, and the story, and perhaps Ulpius himself, may have been invented by propagandists trying to connect Aurelian with the "Good Emperor" Trajan. Some scholars believe that Ulpia Severina was from Dacia, where the nomen Ulpius was common due to the influence of Trajan.
At any rate, Ulpia Severina married Aurelian probably before he became emperor in 270. It is known they had a daughter. According to coinage depicting her, Ulpia gained the title Augusta in the autumn of 274, though it is possible she had the title even before that. She also received the titles of Pia ("pious") and mater castrorum et senatus et patriae ("mother of the barracks (armies), senate, and country").
There is considerable numismatic evidence for Ulpia Severina ruling in her own right between the death of Aurelian and the election of Marcus Claudius Tacitus. Sources mention an interregnum between Aurelian and Tacitus, and some of Ulpia's coins appear to have been minted after Aurelian's death. As such she may have been the only woman to rule over the whole Roman Empire in her own power.
Read more about this topic: Ulpia Severina
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“[Man’s] life consists in a relation with all things: stone, earth, trees, flowers, water, insects, fishes, birds, creatures, sun, rainbow, children, women, other men. But his greatest and final relation is with the sun.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“As the two boys walked sorrowing along, they made a new compact to stand by each other and be brothers and never separate till death relieved them of their troubles. Then they began to lay their plans. Joe was for being a hermit, and living on crusts in a remote cave, and dying, some time, of cold, and want, and grief; but after listening to Tom, he conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)