We can form no absolute judgment from the records at our disposal, as to the precise date at which this lady exchanged the practices of open celibacy for those of problematical matrimony. The most likely suggestion is that it was early in the spring of the year 221, at a time contemporaneous with the alliance celebrated between Elagabal and Minerva. The Alexandrian coins bearing her name are dated LΔ, subsequent to 29th August 220, while the coins “Aequitas Publica”—which also bear her name—were issued early in 221, obviously for the third distribution of money which was held in honour of the double marriage. No games or excitements such as celebrated Antonine’s first alliance were at this time attempted; the Emperor had quite enough to do in allaying the trouble caused by the marriage itself, and in considering projects for the furthering of his religious schemes. Of the lady’s position and influence we know nothing, though we can quite believe that she was no friend of the elderly Maesa, or the cross-grained mother of Alexianus, both of whom wished her so ill. Serviez is by no means complimentary to Severa, on account of the avidity with which she changed her position. He calls her ambition unbounded, though it is very doubtful whether, placed in a similar position, any one of us would have refused the flattery, and undoubted compliment made to our superlative worth. The title of Augusta, of which Julia Cornelia Paula had been relieved, was conferred on Aquilia, and doubtless the Emperor looked forward to some considerable degree of felicity in the company of a woman of whose marriage every one disapproved. As we know, Antonine found out quite soon that he had made a vital mistake; that he had attacked the one superstition that Rome would not allow to be touched, and, with extreme reluctance, he sent both the Goddess and her Vestal back to their appropriate dwellings. Antonine has been censured right royally both for his marriage and for the consequent divorce. Now, if the marriage were wrong, as all the authors say, surely the divorce was right; certainly Rome thought so, since his compliance with national wishes seems to have won men over, and appeased their minds, thus restoring the Emperor to his popularity. Why then did he further alienate them by remarrying Severa in the early part of the next year, as Dion and the coins relate? It is a mystery.