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Faustina Filia, Aureus
(gold coin replica) 161 - 175
OBV: Dr. bust right,
FAVSTINA AVG PII AVG FIL.
R: CONCORDIA, dove? left.
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia:
Annia Galeria Faustina,
"the Younger", (c. 125/130
- 175) was
the younger daughter of the Roman
Emperor Antoninus
Pius and Faustina
the Elder, wife of his successor Marcus
Aurelius, and mother of Commodus.
Originally promised by Hadrian
to Lucius
Verus, Atoninus betrothed her to his cousin Marcus Aurelius in 139;
they married in 145.
She was raised to an Augusta the following year.
She was said to have had
a lively personality, but the late and unreliable Augustan
History impugns her character, relating stories of adultery
with sailors
and gladiators,
suggesting that Commodus was either the son of a gladiator (as
explanation for his interest in gladiatorial combat), or that Faustina
washed herself with the blood of an executed gladiator and then lay with
Aurelius in that state.
Faustina went with
Aurelius on his campaign to the north (170-174)
and then to the East, where she died (175). Aurelius consecrated her and
founded a new alimenta (charity) in her name: the second Puellae
Faustinianae (a first one of that name was founded by Antoninus
Pius in rememberance of Faustina
the Elder). |
