Constantina

Saint Constantina was the eldest daughter of the emperor Constantine the Great and of Fausta, and she died in 354. She was venerated as a saint, and a medieval legend attributed to her stories unlike what is known of her. She is commemorated in February, on 18 or 25 February.

Family

Constantina, sometimes called Constantia, was born before the middle of the 320s, in the marriage of Constantine to Fausta, daughter of the emperor Maximian. She was the sister of Constantine II, Constans, Constantius II and Helena. In 335 she was married to her cousin Hannibalianus, son of Dalmatius, whom Constantine had made “king of kings” over the Pontic tribes. After Constantine’s death, in the great slaughter of the imperial family in 337, her husband was killed. It is said her father had given her the title Augusta, but the report comes from a single historian and is debated.

Troubled times

From 337 to 350 her name disappears from the sources. In 350, when Magnentius revolted against her brother Constantius, she became directly involved: she used her rank and connections and urged the old commander Vetranio to proclaim himself caesar, to face Magnentius. Magnentius asked for her hand, but Constantius refused. In 351 Constantius gave her as wife to her cousin Constantius Gallus, made caesar of the East, who was much younger than she. They moved to Antioch, where Gallus ruled harshly, and she supported him. They had a daughter, Anastasia, of whose fate nothing is known.

Her end

In 354, when Constantius summoned Gallus, he sent his wife to defend him before her brother. On the way Constantina died of a sudden fever at Caeni Gallicani, in Bithynia. Her body was taken to Rome and placed in a mausoleum begun by her father on the Via Nomentana, which later became the church of Santa Costanza, and her porphyry sarcophagus is now in the Vatican Museums. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus left a harsh judgment of her, but scholars think it must be read with care.