Fausta
Augusta  AD 324 - 336

Flavia Maxima Faista (ca. AD 290 - 326):
Second wife of Constantine the Great;
Mother of Constantine II, Constantius II, Constans, Constantina (wife of Hanniballianus and Constantius Gallus) and Helena the Younger (wife of Julian II);
Daughter of Maximian and Eutropia;
Sister of Maxentius;
Stepmoter of Crispus;
Aunt of Romulus.

Flavia Maxima Fausta was daughter of Maximianus and became second wife of Constantine the Great in 307. She demonstrated her loyalty to her husband by revealing Maximianus' plot against Constantine in 310, and witnessed the head of her brother Maxentius raised on a pike after his defeat in 312. She gave the emperor three sons and two daughters, and in 325 he honored her with the title of Augusta. One year later, in 326, on his orders she was suffocated in an overheated bath, after a similar fate ended the days of Constantine's son of his first marriage, Crispus. Fifteen years his wife's senior, the ever suspicious emperor might have believed she either plotted to get rid of him and put Crispus on the throne, or that she lied about Crispus attempting to rape her to clear the way for her own progeny, and thus caused the unnecessary death of his favorite son.

Mints: Alexandria, Antioch, Aquileia, Arelate, Constantinopolis, Cyzicus, Heraclea, Londinium, Lugdunum, Nicomedia, Rome, Sirmium, Siscia, Thessalonica, Ticinum, Treveri.

List all Fausta coins in the Catalog.

« back