Julia Domna

<p>This book covers Julia’s life and charts her travels throughout the Empire from Aswan to York during a period of profound upheaval and seeks the truth about this woman who inspired such extreme and contrasting views exposing the instability of our sources about her and characterizing a sympathetic courageous intelligent and important woman.</p><p>This book contains a fresh re-assessment of the one of the most significant figures of her time and questions:</p><p>• Was Julia more powerful than earlier empresses? <br>• Did she really promote despotism? <br>• How seriously is her literary circle to be taken? </p><p>As part of a dynasty which used force and violence to preserve its rule she was distrusted by its subjects; as a Syrian she was the object of prejudice; as a woman with power she was resented. On the other hand Domna was the centre of a literary circle considered highly significant by nineteenth-century admirers.</p>