The great historian of the Decline of the Roman Empire says that while the grateful flattery of these learned men has extolled the virtues of the wife of Severus, "if we may credit the scandal of ancient history, chastity was very far from being the most conspicuous virtue of the Empress Julia." But Gibbon rarely questions an allegation of this sort; on the other hand, Dion Cassius, who zealously reports every such accusation, is, for a wonder, silent on this. Julia's intellectual tastes, not to speak of her four children, would be likely to preclude her falling into any gross immoralities. Associated with the empress in the palace were her sister and two nieces, all bearing like her the name Julia. Her sister, Julia Mæsa, was no less remarkable than the empress; and in later days, by placing her grandsons on the throne, she presided over the destinies of the Empire as no other woman had hitherto done. Julia Soæmias is represented on coins as the Heavenly Virgin; but if the statement of Lampridius in regard to her mundane frailties is to be credited, her lightly adorned statue as Venus was more in character. Then there was Julia Mammæa, who reared one of the best, though not of the strongest, men who attained to the purple, and who, by her influence over his mind, held the reins of government greatly to the immediate profit of the Empire. Another lady of the court which surrounded Julia Domna was Plautilla, the daughter of Plautianus the prefect. Plautianus was the emperor's relative, and by him vested with powers almost equal to his own. He was an ambitious man, and, while probably faithful to his master, sought to secure his own position by marrying his daughter to the young prince Caracalla. This marriage was forced upon Caracalla much against his will, and proved disastrous to Plautilla; but it was an astoundingly magnificent affair. Dion relates that he saw the dowry of the bride carried into the palace, and declares that it was enough for fifty kings' daughters. The same historian tells of many tyrannous extravagances which Plautianus allowed himself on this occasion; but when he informs us that the latter caused one hundred freeborn Romans, many of them husbands and fathers of families, to be mutilated, in order that his daughter might be attended by a retinue of eunuchs in the Oriental fashion, our sense of what is possible, even in the most despotic circumstances, rebels. The ancient anecdotist further says that "the thing was not known until after Plautianus's death." It is surely inconceivable that the wives of these victims should have allowed such a thing to pass in silence.