Women in Rome

I seemed to be drawn a lot in this week's reading to the women in Rome. First off, I noticed that a couple times some very conniving women were placing their sons in power so that they could actually hold the reins. The first one was Julia Maesa and her 15 year old son, Elagabalus (a very colorful character and interesting to read about). At times I wondered if she actually had power over her son or not. At first she did, but then he took some matters into his own hands. His five marriages in three years were definitely his mother's doing though. The second one was called a "Vestal Virgin." I wasn't sure what that was so I looked it up. Here's where i found the info I was looking for:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:vestal+virgin&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
basically it's a chaste woman who spends her whole life tending to the sacred fire of the goddess vesta. How Elagabalus (or I guess his mother would have) scored that one, I don't know. The second mother\son ruling power was Julia Mamaea and her son Severus Alexander. It was mentioned that Julia Maesa helped put Severus into power too, but I thought she had been killed with her son... that was a little confusing. Does anybody have clarity on this? Women ruling through the face of their sons probably happened more than just these two times I mention here, though. For being such strong-willed, conniving women, they are a far cry from what Aristotle mentions in Oikonomikos on what a good wife should be. It reminded me a lot of what the bible says about what a virtuous women is. but, that part of the bible was written after Aristotle... I wonder if they influenced each other at all. It would be hard to know. Just as a closing little tidbit, I really liked the first poem by Sulpicia. I thought it was a beautiful love poem.