ABSTRACT
There was not much of a role for a woman in the series of military coups and political crises that followed the murder of the childless Commodus at Rome at the end of 192. But if Domna’s later habit of travelling with her husband was already established, she would have been with him in Pannonia and at headquarters in Carnuntum on the Danube when Commodus died and when Severus put himself forward, accompanying him south as he advanced. It is not certain, and the fact that Severus had to summon his children to security from Rome when he was proclaimed emperor may suggest that their mother was also there.1 Other women besides Domna played small parts in the turmoil of 193, Marcia the most prominent of them; they illustrate what might be done, and what fates Domna might expect.
