When you think of ancient Rome, the image that springs to mind is usually that of stoic senators and battle‑hardened generals. Yet beneath the marble columns, a handful of women slipped into the shadows and wielded power with a ferocity that would make even the toughest legionary blush. These 10 ruthless women mastered intrigue, manipulation, and outright murder to keep the throne within their grasp.
10 Ruthless Women Who Dominated the Empire
10 Messalina
Messalina is forever linked to scandalous rumors about her prodigious sexual appetite, a trope Roman writers loved to weaponise against anyone they wished to discredit. Pliny the Elder even boasted that she managed to sleep with twenty‑five men in a row simply to outdo the city’s most infamous courtesan.
The reason such gossip clung to her is that, by the mid‑first century AD, Messalina had become the most influential woman Rome had ever seen. Her husband, the unassuming Claudius, had ascended the throne largely because his more ambitious relatives dismissed him as a simpleton and never bothered to eliminate him. After Caligula’s assassination, Claudius was discovered cowering behind a curtain and was plucked from obscurity to become emperor.
From the moment Claudius took the purple, Messalina seized the reins, steering his administration with an iron grip. She could have anyone arrested on fabricated charges, and she even convinced the emperor to execute her own stepfather after claiming a prophetic dream that painted him as a conspirator.
Her ambition, however, overreached in AD 48 when she secretly wed another nobleman, apparently plotting a full‑blown coup to supplant Claudius. The bureaucrats of Rome, preferring the pliable emperor, persuaded Claudius to order the execution of the conspirators. They also barred Messalina from seeing her husband before her death, fearing she might sway his decision.
9 Agrippina
Following Messalina’s downfall, Claudius rewrote Rome’s incest statutes and married his own niece, Agrippina, a seasoned veteran of imperial scheming. (Her sister had met a grisly end, starved to death on Messalina’s orders.) As before, the emperor proved a malleable figure, while Agrippina swiftly commandeered the empire, even signing official documents and handling foreign ambassadors on her own.
Agrippina’s ultimate goal was to see her son Nero, born of a previous marriage, ascend the throne. She persuaded Claudius to adopt Nero and to favour him over his biological heir, Britannicus, systematically eliminating any opposition to her chosen successor.
When Nero was finally granted equal imperial authority, Agrippina decided she no longer needed her husband and served him a banquet of poisonous mushrooms. A sudden bout of severe diarrhea saved Claudius from the lethal concoction, but his physician later slipped a feather‑laden dose of poison down his throat, ensuring Nero’s rise to power and cementing Agrippina’s triumph.
8 Poppaea Sabina
Once Nero claimed the throne, Agrippina continued to pull strings from behind the curtain, but she soon ran head‑to‑head with her son’s ambitious lover, Poppaea Sabina. Poppaea coveted marriage to Nero, yet he was already wed to Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina.
Agrippina had laboured tirelessly to secure that very marriage, even framing Octavia’s first fiancé for treason, and she refused to let her son dissolve the union. Meanwhile, Poppaea—whose mother had been forced into suicide by Messalina—detested Octavia and pressed Nero to defy his mother.
Cornered between these formidable women, Nero chose Poppaea and even commissioned a collapsing boat designed to sink and kill his mother. Agrippina survived the trap, swimming to safety, but she recognised the ploy because she had witnessed the “rescue” crew brutally clubbing survivors with their oars. In a panic, Nero abandoned the ruse, ordering his mother’s murder outright; legend says she faced her assassins bravely, urging them to strike first at her womb.
7 Julia Domna
After a century dominated by male rulers, the Severan dynasty ushered in a renaissance of female influence, with Julia Domna, wife and confidante of Emperor Septimius Severus, leading the charge. While Septimius ruled, Domna acted as his trusted adviser, but her true authority blossomed after his death in AD 211.
When the empire passed to their sons, Caracalla and Geta, Julia Domna stepped into the administrative arena, effectively steering the empire while Caracalla campaigned abroad. She was recognised as an official ruler, managing state affairs with competence and poise.
Unfortunately, tragedy stalked her family. Caracalla, in a fit of rage, murdered his brother Geta, and later, the prefect Macrinus assassinated Caracalla. Overwhelmed by the cascade of bloodshed, Julia Domna chose to end her own life upon hearing the grim news.
6 Julia Soaemias
Following Caracalla’s murder, the usurper Macrinus claimed the throne, underestimating the resolve of the Severan women. Julia Maesa, Domna’s sister, and her daughter, Julia Soaemias, plotted revenge and set about restoring their family’s dominance.
Through a whirlwind of intrigue, Soaemias and Maesa persuaded the Eastern legions to back Soaemias’s son, Elagabalus. Although Elagabalus bore no blood relation to Septimius Severus, they fabricated a rumor that he was Caracalla’s illegitimate offspring, a claim that somehow swayed the troops.
Macrinus rushed to suppress the rebellion but met defeat and execution outside Antioch. Elagabalus ascended as emperor, yet the fourteen‑year‑old showed little interest in governance. In reality, Soaemias and her mother Maesa pulled the strings, running Rome from behind the throne.
5 Julia Maesa
While Soaemias helped steer the empire, the young emperor Elagabalus indulged in a spree of decadence, reputedly prostituting himself within the imperial palace and marrying a charioteer named Hierocles. Cassius Dio even claimed he offered a fortune to any surgeon brave enough to create a vagina for him.
On another occasion, Elagabalus fell for the athlete Zoticus, famed for his prodigious endowment. Jealous Hierocles poisoned Zoticus’s drink, leading to an embarrassing night wherein the emperor was unable to achieve an erection, prompting his exile from the palace, Rome, and eventually Italy.
Whether these tales are factual or embellished, it is clear Elagabalus alienated the Roman elite, and his mother refused to rein him in. Eventually, his grandmother Maesa intervened, orchestrating a coup that deposed Elagabalus in favour of his cousin Alexander, the second emperor she installed. In a chilling display of ruthlessness, Maesa ordered the execution of both her own daughter Soaemias and grandson Elagabalus to cement Alexander’s rule.
4 Julia Mamaea
After Maesa’s death, her daughter Julia Mamaea inherited the reins, becoming the mother of Emperor Alexander and the final matriarch of the Severan dynasty to wield real power. Historians agree that Mamaea “totally dominated” her teenage son, steering the empire alongside a council of senators.
Defying convention, Mamaea even accompanied the army on campaigns, a rarity for a woman of her era. However, the military ventures faltered, and the legions eventually mutinied. In the resulting chaos, soldiers slew both Alexander and Mamaea as they clung together inside their tent, bringing the Severan line to a violent close.
3 Ulpia Severina
Ulpia Severina was married to Emperor Aurelian, a celebrated general whose reign ended when his own soldiers assassinated him in AD 275. Beyond this brief marriage, little is known about her, and most of what we do know comes from monuments and coinage suggesting she may have briefly ruled after Aurelian’s death.
During Aurelian’s rule, Roman mints produced coins bearing both his and Severina’s names—a common practice. Yet after his demise, the mint issued coins solely in Severina’s name, displaying imagery that appears to portray her shoring up her authority.
Ancient sources note a gap between Aurelian’s death and the accession of Tacitus, leading some historians to speculate that Severina briefly held power before being erased from the official record. Her coins, however, remained in circulation, hinting that she could have been the first woman to rule the Roman Empire in her own right.
2 Aelia Pulcheria
Aelia Pulcheria was a prodigious teenager who, at just fifteen, declared herself regent for her brother, the emperor. She maintained a tight grip on authority for the next forty years, bolstering her position by taking a lifelong vow of chastity and cultivating a reputation as a pious, religious figure.
When her brother died in 450, Pulcheria, who had already been the true power behind the Eastern Roman throne, faced the unprecedented challenge of ruling alone—a scenario almost unthinkable for a woman at the time. To preserve her authority without breaking her vow, she eventually married the senator Marcian, who became her co‑emperor after publicly agreeing never to consummate the marriage.
1 Galla Placidia
Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius, lived through the waning days of the Western Empire. As a young woman, she demonstrated her steel by confirming the execution of the woman who had raised her. Years later, the Visigoths sacked Rome and abducted Placidia, intending to ransom her to her brother, Emperor Honorius, who refused to pay. The Goths dragged her across Europe for six long years.
In 414, Placidia married the youthful Visigothic king Athaulf. Their union seemed genuine, yet Athaulf was murdered within a year. Returning to Rome, Placidia wed Emperor Constantius. After his death, a usurper attempted to snatch the throne from her infant son, prompting Placidia to flee to Constantinople, where she persuaded her niece Pulcheria to furnish an army.
Back in Rome, Placidia installed her son as emperor and governed as regent for the ensuing fourteen years, cementing her legacy as a formidable power behind the throne.