Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 60933-h.htm or 60933-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60933/60933-h/60933-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60933/60933-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/cu31924028299075 THE EMPRESSES OF ROME [Illustration: CRISPINA BUST IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM] THE EMPRESSES OF ROME by JOSEPH McCABE Author of “The Decay of the Church of Rome” With Twenty-four Illustrations [Illustration] New York Henry Holt and Company 1911 NOTE The period embraced by this work extends to the fall of the Western Empire, or to the middle of the fifth century. It was felt that a more extensive range would involve either an inconveniently large work or an inadequate treatment. While, therefore, the Empresses of the East have been included down to the fall of Rome, it seemed that the collapse of the Empire in Rome and the West indicated a quite natural term for the present study. The restriction has enabled the author to tell all that is known of the Empresses of Rome within that period, to enlarge the interest of the study by framing the Imperial characters in occasional sketches of their surroundings, and to weave the threads of biography into a continuous story. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAP. I. THE MAKING OF AN EMPRESS 7 II. THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 23 III. THE WIVES OF CALIGULA 46 IV. VALERIA MESSALINA 60 V. THE MOTHER OF NERO 79 VI. THE WIVES OF NERO 105 VII. THE EMPRESSES OF THE TRANSITION 122 VIII. PLOTINA 136 IX. SABINA, THE WIFE OF HADRIAN 149 X. THE WIVES OF THE STOICS 163 XI. THE WIVES OF THE SYBARITES 179 XII. JULIA DOMNA 194 XIII. IN THE DAYS OF ELAGABALUS 210 XIV. ANOTHER SYRIAN EMPRESS 222 XV. ZENOBIA AND VICTORIA 233 XVI. THE WIFE AND DAUGHTER OF DIOCLETIAN 250 XVII. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPRESSES 265 XVIII. THE WIVES OF CONSTANTIUS AND JULIAN 286 XIX. JUSTINA 306