Cornificia Faustina was born and raised in
Rome and later married the African Roman politician
Marcus Petronius Sura Mamertinus, who served as
consul in 182. Sometime after 173, they had a son, Petronius Antoninus. It is possible that she and her family were at the winter camp where Marcus Aurelius died in early 180.[citation needed]
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 who served as
Procurator in various provinces. He later became a tax collector and
tribune of the first Praetorian
cohort.[citation needed]
During the brief reign of
Pertinax (193), she was involved in an affair with the emperor. In 212, when she was in her fifties,
Caracalla ordered her death and that of her son,[1] thus eliminating the last surviving child of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger. Historian
Cassius Dio 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.
^The epitomator of Cassius Dio (
72.22) gives the story that Faustina the Elder promised to marry Avidius Cassius. This is also echoed in HA"Marcus Aurelius" 24.
Giacosa, Giorgio (1977). Women of the Caesars: Their Lives and Portraits on Coins. Translated by R. Ross Holloway. Milan: Edizioni Arte e Moneta.
ISBN0-8390-0193-2.
Lambert, Royston (1984). Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous. New York: Viking.
ISBN0-670-15708-2.
^I. Syvanne, Caracalla, a Military Biography, Pen & Sword Books Ltd., South Yorkshire, ç2017, p.138
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).