Annia Cornificia Faustina Minor (''Minor'' Latin for ''the younger'', 160–212 AD) was a daughter of the Roman emperor

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

and his wife, Faustina the Younger. She was sister to

Lucilla Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla or Lucilla (7 March 148 or 150 – 182) was the second daughter of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Roman Empress Faustina the Younger. She was the wife of her father's co-ruler and adoptive brother Lucius Verus ...

and

Commodus Commodus (; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 176 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. ...

. Her maternal grandparents were Antoninus Pius and

Faustina the Elder Annia Galeria Faustina the Elder, sometimes referred to as Faustina I or Faustina Major (born on February 16 around 100; died in October or November of 140), was a Roman empress and wife of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius. The emperor Marcus Au ...

, and her paternal grandparents were Domitia Lucilla and praetor Marcus Annius Verus. She was named in honor of her late paternal aunt Annia Cornificia Faustina.

Life

Cornificia Faustina was born and raised in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and later married the African Roman politician Marcus Petronius Sura Mamertinus, who served as

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

in 182. Sometime after 173, she bore him a son called Petronius Antoninus. It is possible that she and her family were at the winter camp where Marcus Aurelius died in early 180. Her brother Commodus succeeded her father as emperor and, sometime between 190 and 192, he ordered the deaths of her husband, her son, her brother-in-law and her sister-in-law's family. Cornificia survived the political executions of Commodus and later married Lucius Didius Marinus, a powerful Roman noble of

equestrian rank The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian o ...

who served as Procurator in various provinces. He later became a tax collector and

tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

of the first Praetorian

cohort Cohort or cohortes may refer to: * Cohort (educational group), a group of students working together through the same academic curriculum * Cohort (floating point), a set of different encodings of the same numerical value * Cohort (military unit), ...

. During the brief reign of

Pertinax Publius Helvius Pertinax (; 1 August 126 – 28 March 193) was Roman emperor for the first three months of 193. He succeeded Commodus to become the first emperor during the tumultuous Year of the Five Emperors. Born the son of a freed slave ...

(193), she was involved in an affair with the emperor. In 212, when she was in her fifties,

Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor S ...

ordered her death and that of her son,I. Syvanne, ''Caracalla, a Military Biography'', Pen & Sword Books Ltd., South Yorkshire, ç2017, p.138 thus eliminating the last surviving child of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger. Historian

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

recorded the manner of her death: : Her last words were 'My poor, unhappy soul, trapped in an unworthy body, go forth, be free, show them that you are the daughter of Marcus Aurelius!' Then she took off her ornaments, composed herself, opened her veins, and died.

References

Sources

* Septimius Severus: the African emperor, By Anthony Richard Birley Edition: 2 – 1999 * Roman social history: a sourcebook By Tim G. Parkin, Arthur John Pomeroy 2007 * A commentary on the Letters of M. Cornelius Fronto, By Michael Petrus Josephus van den Hout, Marcus Cornelius Fronto 1999 * From Tiberius to the Antonines: a history of the Roman Empire AD 14–192, by Albino Garzetti, 1974. * Stefan Priwitzer, ''Faustina minor - Ehefrau eines Idealkaisers und Mutter eines Tyrannen quellenkritische Untersuchungen zum dynastischen Potential, zur Darstellung und zu Handlungsspielraeumen von Kaiserfrauen im Prinzipat'' (Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt, 2008) (Tuebinger althistorische Studien, 6).

External links

Did Faustina the Younger sleep around?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Faustina, Annia Cornificia Minor 160 births 212 deaths Nerva–Antonine dynasty Cornificia Faustina Anna Faustina 2nd-century Roman women 3rd-century Roman women Executed ancient Roman women People executed by the Roman Empire Daughters of Roman emperors