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Zenobia of Palmyra: the Queen Who Defied Rome
In the third century CE, as Rome teetered on the brink of fragmentation, a woman from the desert city of Palmyra rose to challenge the empire itself.
Her name was Zenobia — scholar, strategist, queen, and for a brief, extraordinary moment, empress of the East.
Vibia Sabina: Empress, Wife of Hadrian
I bet that if you think of Emperor Hadrian, you think about his great wall in the north of England. Possibly you might think of the Roman decadence of villas and statues made from marble. Yet beside him, often erased from the narrative, stood Vibia Sabina, his wife and Rome’s empress for more than four decades.
Her likeness survives on hundreds of coins, but her voice does not. She remains one of antiquity’s most silent women.
Claudia Procula, Pontius Pilate’s wife
Most of us know Pontius Pilate — the Roman governor who condemned Jesus to death. But how many of us know the woman who tried to stop him?
Claudia Procula (sometimes called Procula or Procla) appears only once in the New Testament, yet her brief act of conscience made her one of the most intriguing women in early Christian history, a woman caught between empire, superstition, and moral conviction.