Magnia Urbica

Portrait of Magnia Urbica on an Antoninian

Magnia Urbica was a Roman empress in the 3rd century AD, who is not attested in literary sources, but only known from coins and inscriptions.

In the summer of 283 she married the Roman emperor Carinus , who, after the death of his father Carus at the end of July that year , shared control of the Roman Empire with his brother Numerian . The exact wedding date is unknown, research opinions vary between late June and late August. The place of marriage is also given partly with Ticinum and partly with Rome . It is only possible, but not certain, that Magnia Urbica was the mother of Nigrinianus , a son of Carinus, who died shortly after his birth.

From 283 to 285 different coins ( aurei and antoniniane ) with her portrait and her name were minted as legends for the empress . It bears the title "mater castrorum, senatus ac patriae" ("mother of the army camps, the senate and the fatherland"), which in the 3rd century represented the highest possible honor for the wife of an emperor, but not once after Magnia Urbica was used more. Nothing is known about her fate after the death of Carinus, but she herself, like the entire imperial family, fell into the damnatio memoriae (“outlawing of memory”), and her name was chiseled (erased) on inscriptions.

literature

Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Magnia Vrbica 1. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 983.
Daniel Gricourt: L'adventus de Carin à Ticinum et son mariage avec Magnia Urbica. In: Revue numismatique. Volume 150, 1995, pp. 95-112 ( online ).
Dietmar Kienast : Roman imperial table. Basic features of a Roman imperial chronology. 2nd Edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1996, ISBN 3-534-18240-5 , p. 262.
Ursula Kampmann : The coins of the Roman Empire. Gietl Verlag, Regenstauf 2004, ISBN 3-924861-77-3 , p. 364.
Gerald Kreucher : Probus and Carus. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Crisis and transformation of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD (235–284). Volume 1, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 , pp. 395-423, here p. 422.

Web links

Commons : Magnia Urbica - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ CIL 000002 II, 3394 ; CIL 000008 VIII, 2384 ; CIL 000011 XI, 5168 ; CIL 000011 XI, 6957 ; Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques 1918, p. 143.
↑ Klaus-Peter Johne : The Empire and the change of rulers. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Crisis and transformation of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD (235–284). Volume 1, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 , pp. 583-632, here pp. 610, 613 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Magnia Urbica
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	roman empress
DATE OF BIRTH	3rd century
DATE OF DEATH	3rd century

[1] CIL 000002 II, 3394 ; CIL 000008 VIII, 2384 ; CIL 000011 XI, 5168 ; CIL 000011 XI, 6957 ; Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques 1918, p. 143.

[2] Klaus-Peter Johne : The Empire and the change of rulers. In: Klaus-Peter Johne (Ed.): The time of the soldiers' emperors. Crisis and transformation of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD (235–284). Volume 1, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004529-0 , pp. 583-632, here pp. 610, 613 f.