Image of Fausta. | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
Praised by Christian sources Emperor Constantine the Great in 326 CE ordered his wife – Fausta killed. The cause of her death has been interpreted differently; either as a result of the alleged organization of the coup and an attempt to seize power or as a consequence of the affair between the emperor’s wife and the emperor’s son – Crispus. Faust was strangled in an overheated bathhouse.
The emperor ordered damnatio memoriae to his wife, so we do not have sources from that time describing her fate. Interestingly, her sons, when they assumed power after Constantine’s death, did not revoke this ordinance.
Sources
- Krawczuk Aleksander, Poczet cesarzy rzymskich, Warszawa 2004
- Krawczuk Aleksander, Poczet cesarzowych Rzymu, Warszawa 2001
