Marciana died of natural causes around 186. Septimius Severus, now in his forties, childless and eager to remarry, began enquiring into the horoscopes of prospective brides. The "Historia Augusta" relates that he heard of a woman in Syria of whom it had been foretold that she would marry a king, and so Severus sought her as his wife. This woman was an Emesene Syrian named Julia Domna. Her father, Julius Bassianus, descended from the Arab Emesene dynasty and served as a high priest to the local cult of the sun god Elagabal. Domna's older sister, Julia Maesa, would become the grandmother of the future emperors Elagabalus and Alexander Severus.