A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Julia Mœsa
JULIA MŒSA, Grandmother of the Emperor Heliogabalus,
A grand politician, and a virtuous woman; who, though her ambition was gratified by seeing him seated on the throne, chiefly by her conduct and courage, strove to counteract the bad counsels of his mother, and to bring him back to common sense and duty. She saw that the Romans would not long bear such a shameful yoke, and to retain the sovereignty, in that case, to her family, she engaged the emperor, who still retained his respect for her, to adopt his cousin Alexander Severus for his successor. Thus did the wisdom of Mœsa second her ambition; and, while Heliogabalus and his mother were massacred by the soldiers, she attained a happy old age, universally loved and respected, and the emperor Alexander Severus, her grandson, had her placed in the list of divinities.