FAUSTINA, Annia, wife of Marcus Aurelius, was the daughter of Antoninus Pius and the empress Annia Galeria Faustina Augusta. Her husband, whose original name was Marcus Annius Verus, was the son of her maternal uncle Annius Veru3; and both, through their grandfather Annius Verus, consul for the third time in 126 a.d., traced their descent from Numa Pompilius. Besides Commodus, Faustina had six children whose names are known,—viz., Annius Verus, Annia Lucilla Augusta, Vibia Aurelia, Sabina, Domitia Faustina, Fadilia; but she is snpposed to have had eleven. Faustina was either one of the most profligate or most maligned of women. wieland appears to be almost her only apologist in modern times; and in her own day (if we accept the testimony of contemporary historians) the only man who believed in her virtue and goodness was her great and wise husband,—whose testimony, it has been urged, ought to be deemed sufficient to outweigh the gossip of Dion Cassius. On the other hand, it might be contended that the emperor was just as likely to misjudge the character of his wife as of his son Commodus, the buffoon of the imperial purple. The empress’s impunity amid her alleged vices, and the emperor’s patronage of her supposed paramours, have even been deemed unfavourable to the reputation for judgment and sincerity of one of the noblest men of antiquity. Faustina died in 175, at Halala, near Mount Taurus, in Cappadocia, whither she had accompanied Marcus in his expedition against the rebel Avidius Cassius, commander-in-chief of the imperial armies in Asia. Aurelius, in memory of his wife, raised the obscure village to the rank of a city, with the name of Faustinopolis. In her honour, too, he founded charitable schools for orphan girls—which were similar to those that ...