Julia Urania

Julia Urania () was Queen of Mauretania by marriage to the Berber King Ptolemy of Mauretania.
Life
Urania became Queen of Mauretania through her marriage to Ptolemy. She married Ptolemy at an unknown date in the 1st century and bore him a daughter, Drusilla, in 38.
Julia Bodina
Urania is only known through a funeral inscription of her freedwoman Julia Bodina found at Cherchell, in modern-day Algeria. Cherchell was then known as Caesaria, the capital of the Berber client kingdom of Mauretania in the Roman Empire. In Bodina's funeral inscription, the freedwoman calls her former mistress Queen Julia Urania. She was ascribed Queen as a local courtesy or probably a posthumous honor as a dedication to the memory of the former ruling monarch. The inscription reveals that Bodina was a loyal former slave to Urania, and she appears to have taken the gentilicium of her former mistress.
Origins
Modern historians have developed two theories about the origins and status of Julia Urania. She may have been a mistress from the lower class, as Urania was a nickname sometimes given to a favorite mistress in a harem. The nickname is derived from the eponymous Muse.<ref name=fn10 /> She may have been a member of the royal court in Mauretania.
The other theory is that Urania may have been an Arabian princess from the Royal family of Emesa. Emesa was at that time a leading kingdom in the Roman East.
Name
Urania is an ancient Greek word meaning 'Heavenly', 'Sky' or 'Universe 'and is an ancient and modern Greek name. The name Urania is of Emesene origin.<ref name=fn10 /> Two other Emesene priest kings shared the name Uranius, the male variant of Urania: Uranius Antoninus, who reigned from 210 until 235, and Lucius Julius Aurelius Sulpicius Severus Uranius Antoninus, who reigned from 235 until 254.
Julia wasn't the only queen to have the name Urania. The Parthian queen and wife of Phraates IV of Parthia had the name .<ref name=fn10 />

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