Adrianus,
I don't believe the
INDVLGENTIA AVGG IN CARTH goddess is meant to be
Julia Domna, rather she represents
Carthage which is named in the
legend!
Similarly the
rare INDVLGENTIA AVGG IN ITALIAM
type, also occurring for Sept.
Sev. and
Caracalla at around the same time as the IN CARTH
type, depicts a normal
Italia seated on globe, whom we have no reason whatever to associate with
Julia Domna!
The
inscription you quote, however, is interesting. I would indeed like an offprint of your article and am sending you my address by PM!
From a number of encyclopedia articles, I find that depictions of Dea Caelestis/Virgo Caelestis/Juno Caelestis riding a
lion are known from
Rome, even though
Tanit, the original Carthaginian goddess, was not depicted that way. There is a statue of
Tanit from
North Africa where she herself has the
head of a
lion, however!
I was excited when I read in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie that the Syrian
Astarte, from whom
Tanit descended,
had close connections to WATER, both in her myths and in the placement of her temples and altars on islands or alongside ponds or lakes.
However I don't think this can explain the water in the IN CARTH
type, because this seems to be the ONLY known representaion of Dea Caelestis or
Tanit associated with water, which was evidently NOT a
standard element of her iconography.
As to what benefits
Severus and
Caracalla bestowed upon
Carthage, I believe we know they built an odeon for
Carthage and allowed the city to celebrate games.
If I remember correctly, there are ruins of an aqueduct at
Carthage, but no evidence that it was built by the Severans.