433, Lot: 451. Estimate $100. Sold for $320. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Julia Paula. Augusta, AD 219-220. AR Denarius (20mm, 3.46 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck under Elagabalus, AD 220. Draped bust right / Concordia seated left, holding patera; star to left. RIC IV 211 (Elagabalus); Thirion 452; RSC 6aEF. EF.

The daughter of Rome's Praetorian prefect, Julia Cornelia Paula was betrothed and married to the newly installed emperor Elagabalus in the summer of AD 219. The marriage was arranged by the emperor's powerful grandmother, Julia Maesa, who wished to make the reign of a 15-year-old Syrian youth of ambiguous sexuality palatable to the Roman populace. The wedding was accompanied by extravagant public spectacles and Julia Paula was immediately granted the title of Augusta, or empress, making her one of three women bearing the title in the female-dominated regime. But the marriage soon foundered as Elagabalus found his new bride's sexual mores too conventional for his liking. He summarily divorced her late in AD 220 or early in 221 in order to marry the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa, a move which scandalized the Roman world all the more. Julia Paula retired from public life and seems to have survived the chaotic and comical reign of her former husband with her virtue and reputation intact.