Faustina I (c. 90–141 CE)

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Faustina I (c. 90–141 ce)

Roman empress and wife of Antoninus Pius. Name variations: Anna or Annia Galeria Faustina; Faustina Maior; Faustina Mater (Faustina the Mother); Faustina the Elder; titled Augusta (Revered), Pia (Pious), and, after her death, Diva (Deified). Pronunciation: Fow-STEEN-ah. Born around 90 ce; died in 141 ce; daughter of Rupilia Faustina and M. Annius Verus; married T. Aurelius Fulvus Boionus Antoninus, later the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (r. 138–161), around 110; children: M. Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus; M. Galerius Aurelius Antoninus;Aurelia Fadilla (date of birth unknown); Faustina II (130–175).

Given the title Augusta by the Senate (138); died and was deified by the Senate (141); commemorated on surviving coins issued (138–141).

Only a few lines from less than reliable sources survive from antiquity to provide a view of the life of Faustina I. We know that she married the future emperor Antoninus Pius and that she therefore must have come from a wealthy aristocratic family, whose origins appear to have been in one of the provinces of what is now modern Spain. Exact dates and any sense of her early personal life, however, are almost entirely lacking. We know that she gave birth to four children, two of whom (the boys) died in infancy and the third sometime after marriage. Of her children, only details of her youngest daughter and namesake, Faustina II (who later married the elder Faustina I's nephew, the future emperor Marcus Aurelius) are available.

The anonymous author of the Augustan History alludes to Faustina I's excessive license and loose living (Life of Antoninus Pius 3. 7). When she reproached her husband for extreme frugality with the household, possibly with the slaves, he is said to have addressed her as "Stupid" and reminded her that they had passed to a new way of life by acquiring the empire (4. 8). Yet Faustina does appear to have been close to her husband, who wrote to Marcus Aurelius' tutor M. Cornelius Fronto: "By Hercules I would rather live on Gyaris with her than on the Palatium without her." (Fronto, Correspondence with Antoninus Pius. 2.) By Gyaris, Pius referred to a forsaken island in the Aegean; the Palatium was the hill in Rome on which was located the imperial residence. Perhaps the spurious letter of 174 attributed to her daughter Faustina II, in which the younger relates that the elder Faustina urged Pius to attend to the needs of the family before all others during a rebellion (Augustan History, Life of Avidius Cassius 10. 1), preserves a tradition of an empress with political savvy who may have earned her husband's gratitude.

At Faustina I's death in 141, only three years after she had become empress, the Senate deified her and consecrated a temple to her with priestess, as well as gold and silver, statues (Augustan History, Life of Antoninus Pius 6. 7). The same passage also tells us that the emperor allowed her image to be placed in circuses. This information and her surviving images on the coins of the empire should remind us that although we can say very little about her today Faustina was a public figure in her time and known to millions throughout the Roman Empire.