xThe Third Century was marked by tumultuous reigns and short-lived successions between emperors. Philip I (“The Arab”) rose to power in 244 CE, after most likely murdering his predecessor, the teenage Gordian III. While he deified the youth, he most likely did so as a means of reducing suspicion on himself. Philip’s wife, Marcia Otacilia Severa, is relatively unknown other than her appearance on coins. She is featured on this antoninianus looking serene, with her hair elaborately styled in rigid waves, placed atop crescent. This moon imagery refers to the goddess Luna, suggesting that the empress is likewise reverable. The reverse portrait of the coin further ties Otacilia’s virtues of imperial femininity to the divine. Juno, wife of Jupiter, was the queen of the immortals, and goddess of women and marriage. Here she is portrayed as the “Preserver,” the mother figure of the Empire. In 249 her son and husband would be killed and overthrown. Her fate is unknown, though the entire family received damnatio memoriae – the damnation of memory – when Trajan Decius won Philip I’s place. As a result, many of Otacilia’s portraits, coins, and inscriptions were deliberately (and literally) defaced. KHK.