The precise date of the divorce is unknown. As we have said, there are
coins struck at Alexandria with Julia’s effigy and inscription, after
29th August 220, and others at Tripolis in Phoenicia, after October in
that year. The most likely supposition is that Antonine divorced her
somewhere in the beginning of 221, after he had made up his mind to take
to wife the Vestal, Aquilia Severa, in accordance with his religious
scheme or ideal.
Julia Cornelia Paula is the only wife of Antonine mentioned in
inscriptions, and, as we hear nothing of her in any other way, it is
improbable that she had much importance at Court. Possibly she was found
to be of no use either to Antonine, Maesa, Soaemias, or Mamaea, each in
their separate ways, and as such was relegated to unimportant obscurity,
neglected as a cypher. Her coin types are equally unimportant. They make
reference to the Concordia which was supposed to exist between the
pair, and introduce the deities protective of matrimony. Her portraits
vary from those of a woman of sixty odd years to the representation of
a woman about thirty years old, which latter age is almost confirmed by
her so-called bust in the Borghese collection at the Louvre; but no known
author can really do more than guess at what this lady was as careful to
conceal as her less fortunate sisters.
Lampridius tries to leave one with the impression, that on the divorce
of this Augusta (the Senate had accorded the title at the time of the
marriage) Julius Paulus was banished. Unfortunately, he mentions him a
little later on as being tutor to Alexander (in the beginning of the
year 222). The inference is, of course, that Lampridius took the two
impressions from conflicting sources. In all probability the great
jurisconsult, having exchanged his position as Praefect of the Praetorium
for a Court sinecure as Alexander’s tutor, did not re-emerge into public
life until his thick-headed pupil was safely seated on the throne. Quite
what office he then occupied Pauly has not determined. It may have been
once again the Praefecture of the Praetorium, a position second only to
that of the Emperor himself, and one which carried with it practical
sovereignty, in the Tudor sense, only excepting the one element which
went to solidify Elizabethan greatness, the assumption of the powers,
dignities, and privileges of the ecclesiastical headship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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