Fausta
289 – 326 · Generation III · Empress · Constantinian
Fausta, a daughter of the emperor Maximian and Eutropia, was a Roman empress as the second wife of Constantine the Great, the husband who had her put to death. Her date of birth is not recorded, and scholars place it anywhere from about 289 to the late 290s. In 307 her father married her to Constantine to seal their alliance in the struggle for the Tetrarchy, and after Maximian’s suicide Constantine began to spread a story that Fausta had played a part in her father’s downfall, which Timothy Barnes judged to be invented.
She bore Constantine five children, among them the three emperors Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans. She was called nobilissima femina until 324, when Constantine made her Augusta together with his mother Helena.
In 326, soon after Constantine had his eldest son Crispus executed, Fausta was killed too, locked in an overheated bath. The reason was never stated. Some ancient writers thought she had accused Crispus and Helena’s grief for her grandson drove Constantine to punish her, Zosimus claimed she and Crispus were lovers, and the twelfth-century Zonaras told a version echoing Phaedra and Hippolytus. Constantine had both their memories condemned, so no contemporary account of her end survives.
Place in the family
- The archive records 5 of her descendants, across 2 generations.
One of 11 people of Constantinian (246–366) in this archive. The house that founded Constantinople and ruled from it.
Parents
Siblings
- Maxentius (283 – 312)
Partners
- Married Constantine I (272 – 337) in 307 — 4 children together
Children
- Constantine II (316 – 340)
- Constantius II (317 – 361)
- Constans I (320 – 350)
- Helena (326 – 360)
Life
- 289 — Born
- 307 — Married Constantine
- 326 — Died
Sources
- Flavia Maxima Fausta · Wikipedia
- Crispus · Wikipedia
- Eutropia · Wikipedia