Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Bassianus 2.
BASSIA´NUS 2. A Phoenician of humble extraction, who nevertheless numbered among his lineal descendants, in the three generations which followed immediately after him, four emperors and four Augustae, —Caracalla, Geta, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, Julia Soemias, and Julia Mamaea, besides having an emperor (Sept. Severus) for his son-in-law. From him Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus all bore the name of Bassianus; and we find his grand-daughter Julia Soemias entitled Bassiana in a remarkable bilinguar inscription discovered at Velitrae and published with a dissertation at Rome in 1765. (Aurelius Victor, Epit. c. 21, has preserved his name; and from an expression used by Dion Cassius, lxxviii. 24, with regard to Julia Domna, we infer his station in life. See also the genealogical table prefixed ot the article Caracalla.) [W. R.]