Orbiana the super hottie

Even at the tender age of 15, Severus Alexander would had access to countless women, yet he was totally obsessed with his wife - Orbiana.

History tells us the emperor's mother Julia Mamaea was mean to Orbiana. When she pleaded for help from her father, Julia Mamaea had him executed for treason, then forced Orbiana to divorce Alexannder and exiled her to Libya.

Julia Mamaea came from a long line of well educated and powerful laddies, especially her mother and aunt. If she had plotted to get rid of her daughter in law (whom she had selected at the first place btw), there must had been more reasons than some titles given to Orbiana.
The logical explanation: Severus Alexander's obsession was affecting his ability to rule, so his mother had to get rid of the distraction in order to get him focused on his job.

Severus Alexander had no spine and obeyed his mother, but never forgone his love for Orbiana. He went on to live another 8 years, married twice during that time, but never struck any coin for his later wives.


All coins of Barbia Orbiana are rare except this denarii with seated concordia, this is super common and therefor I was able to afford one
I have coins of Aquilia Severa and Julia Paula as well. Since it's pointless to hope for anything with portrait of Annia Faustina, this mini series can probably be count as complete.


Please share your coins of roman hotties

 

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Very sweet OP-coin, brassnautilus ... congrats

... sadly, I don't have an Orbiana example to toss into your cool thread, "yet"

Oh, but I do have a couple of Severus Alexander examples ...

Pontus Amasia, Severus Alexander



Cilicia Ninica-Claudiopolis AE37 (w c/m)
Severus Alexander with Julia Maesa

 

She was hot and it's my favorite coin too.


Orbiana (225 - 227 A.D.)
AR Denarius
O: SALL BARBIA ORBIANA AVG, draped bust right.
R: CONCORDIA AVGG,Concordia seated left holding double cornucopia and patera.
Rome
19mm
3.8g
RIC IV 319, RSC III 1, BMCRE VI 287, SRCV II 8191


Aquilia Severa (221 - 222 A.D.)
AR Denarius
O: IVLIA AQVILIA SEVERA AVG, draped bust right.
R: CONCORDIA, Concordia standing half left, sacrificing from patera in right over lit altar, double cornucopia in left, star left.
Rome 221 A.D.
19mm
3.2g
RIC IV 226, BMCRE V 184, RSC III 2, SRCV II 7679

Die Clashed Reverse

 

Not so much a hottie but this coin clearly reads Annia Faustina starting at the left behind the head. Unfortunately, Annia Faustina was also the name of the woman we know as Faustina II, wife of Marcus Aurelius and a very few of her coins include the name Annia. This is an AE28 of Diocaesarea.

 

I can see why Sev Alex found her distracting, but I find the portraits of Plautilla to be very pleasing. Too bad Caracalla treated her so badly.

 

Faustina Minor the impostor!
Actually the other way around right? Didn't Annia get her name from Faustina the younger? Who was her great grandaunt IIRC.
The Faustinas were descendants of Claudian. I wonder if they had a distinct look. Lots of inbreeding in that family...
While imperial coins of Annia are impossible to find, there are some tets, from time to time...

Plautilla was another tragedy. Pretty girls tend to have tragic lives in ancient times?

I think that statue you posted was julia domna?
plautilla had cornrows like your coin depiction

 

I don't have an Orbiana, but she's on the list. Nice example!

Faustina II probably isn't often thought of as hot, but unlike her mother, we have coins showing her as a young woman,
and she looks quite comely on some of them.

 

=> Wow, Julia Mamaea seemed a bit nasty, eh? (sounds like Orbiana dodged a bullet ... gawd, I wouldn't want that loose-canon as my mother in law!!)

EGYPT, Alexandria. Julia Mamaea. Augusta
BI Tetradrachm
222-235 AD
Dated RY 11 of Severus Alexander (AD 231/2)
Diameter: 23 mm
Weight: 12.92 grams
Obverse: Diademed and draped bust of Julia Mamaea right
Reverse: Draped bust of Serapis right, wearing calathus; L A (date) behind, palm before
Reference: Köln 2526; Dattari (Savio) 4511; K&G 64.74; Emmett 3224



... and she wasn't much of a looker (according to my coin)

 

No one has shown a Julia Domna (other than Bing's statue) but her coin portraits vary from attractive to ugly. I guess it is just because there are so many dies over so many years but the earliest ones are not always the most attractive by today's standards. I'll show a few that are more attractive than some.
Early Rome

Early Rome AE


Syria ("Emesa")


Laodicea late style c.198


Last part of Septimius' rule


Late Rome (under Caracalla)

 

Nice women folks

Orbiana was quite nice looking, judjing from the portraits we have of her. Some other empresses (or Emperor related women) were good loking too. As to say whether they were hot or cold, as most of their husbands were insane jerks, I prefer not to know...

Antonia :




Plautilla :




Even Maesa in her young days :




Orbiana :




Mamaea :



Q

 

Ancient marriages among influential families were more like political deals, where look probably didn't matter much.
I also find it hard to believe that all these noble women showed no sign of obesity. It's not like they had gyms or liposuction...
In the few cases, where the emperor chose his own bride (octavian, elagabalus) or shown serious affections (severus alexander, caligula), I think we can believe the girls were genuinely good looking.

Actually, we aren't sure whether Elagabalus was really attracted to Aquilia Severa, it could be a religious/symbolic union. Elagabalus wasn't really testosterone driven.
Nevertheless, she was a vestal virgin. I'm sure they didn't pick ugly girls for that.
Punishment for a vestal virgin who broke her vow of celibacy was death by getting buried alive. Not only did she get out of that, she also survived Elagabalus' death, in that sense she was extremely fortunate.


In this sense, at least Julia Mamaea didn't go out of her way to kill Aquilia. One can imagine her state of mind after death of her sister and nephew, yet she left the girl to live, despite she was directly linked to the whole thing.
I think Julia Mamaea had some good qualities, unlike her son who was just down right despicable. She also accompanied her son to the battlefield like Julia Donna before her. Foolish, perhaps, but these women had guts.

 

I should buy more empresses

Here's a provincial I hadn't shown before. The portrait is very nice (not really a "hottie" in any portrait I've seen) but the reverse is the main attraction.


EGYPT, Alexandria. Julia Mamaea
year 13, CE 233/4
tetradrachm, 24 mm, 14.36 gm
Obv: IOVMAMAIACEBMHTECEKCTPA; Draped bust right, wearing stephane
Rev: Serapis enthroned left, holding scepter, extending his right hand toward Cerberus seated at his feet; on throneback, Nike standing right, holding wreath and palm frond; L IΓ (date) to left, palm frond to right
Ref: Emmett 3226.13 (R4); Köln 2540; Dattari (Savio) 4517; K&G 64.119

The obverse legend is a slight variant and this will be a plate coin in Emmett's next book

 

There is just so much wrong here. I assume the above was meant to refer to Julia Maesa who was sister of Domna and Grandmother of both Elagabalus and Severus Alexander. Maesa had no son that made history at least so we might insert grandson. We really do not know just how strong was the influence of these women on their male children/grandchildren but I tend tobelieve that this is one area not poorly depicted in Game of Thrones where we see strong women and stupid boys with titles. The problem is that the stupid boy gets older and takes his place as king without being ready. That make us suspect Maesa of being implicit in changing grandsons in the purple since she was equipped with a spare. I really do not know what influence Soemias or Mamaea had in the matter but do suspect that Mamaea was smart enough not to cross Maesa while she lived.

Considering that Maesa's first coins were issued when she was a grandmother, I have to agree. Assuming she was born in 165 and a young grandmother of a young teen emperor, she would have been 43 or more here. She died in 226 or only age 51 so the span of her portraits is not terribly great. There are a lot of differences in hers like there are for Domna but timely accuracy is hardly expected. We know little for certain. Was Maesa's death hastened by Mamaea?

Opinion: A coin to seek is the antoninianus of Maesa. Caracalla introduced the denomination but shortly into the reign of Elagabalus, they were discontinued so there are none again until 238 (Balbinus and Pupienus). Those of Elagabalus are not rare but we have to wonder why the change was made and whose idea it was.

 

You meant Julia Mamaea killed her mother?
Maesa was over 60 when she passed, I thought she died of natural causes. Breast cancer ran in some of the roman noble families.

I mean it's plausible. Maesa was active during the entire reign of Elagabalus so Soaemias couldn't had a lot of real power. Perhaps Mamaea didn't want to end up like her sister, who was pretty much a puppet of her mother.

 

I apologize for bad math. 226-165=61.

 

Wow!! => ummm, has it become a chick-free-for-all? ... I'm all fired-up and I feel like asking someone to dance!!



Plautilla? ... hmmm yah, that chick always kinda liked me ...



... man, I love that coin ...



Jeopardy-coin-trivia => that Plautilla-coin was the coin that got me kicked-out of that "other" coin-site ... well okay, it was the "coin-thread" that proved to be the catalyst for my misunderstood exit, stage-left!! ... ummm, but despite the rumours that I got kicked-out for posting PAN humping a goat (which I did post, earlier)

=> I only got a temporary-suspension for that PAN thingy ...

I actually got booted-totally-out for posting my classic "my cat's name is Mittens" picture ... I know, eh? ... that is what finally got me booted-out of that coin-site (apparently the mods got amazingly frustrated that I didn't know how to use photo-bucket ... so my photos were taking-up a lot of space on their site!!) ... yah, I got booted-out because I wasn't techy-enough for that site (good riddance to bad smells)

 

So glad you and the rest of your trouble-makers showed up!

 

=> Bing has really always been the trouble-maker (his name used to be JWHarper, but the cops caught-on, so he changed it to Bing)

... I'm just sayin'

 

H E Y! Don't give out my real name. The cops will find me. Shhhhhh.