FAUSTINE Girl Annia Galeria Faustina 161 - 175 - Lot 235

FAUSTINE Girl Annia Galeria Faustina 161 - 175 FAVSTINA AVGVSTA. Her bust draped to the right, hair held in a bun at the nape of her neck. R/. SALVTI AVGVSTAE. Health seated on a seat and leaning on the back. She holds a patera and feeds a snake coiled around an altar. ♦ Cohen 198; RIC 716; BMC 151; Calicó 2073 Aureus struck in Rome in 161-164. (7,16 g) Very handsome. Young Faustina was the daughter of Antoninus the Pious and Faustina the Elder (Faustina Maior), and was named after her mother. She was the youngest of the imperial couple's four children, and the only one not to die during childhood. She is presented as a princess, having just been named "Augusta" (empress) by the Senate in honor of her father Antoninus the Pious. She replaced her mother Faustina, who died in 141. Her great-uncle, the emperor Hadrian, arranged her marriage to Lucius Verus with her father Antonin; they were engaged on February 25, 138. Verus' father, adopted by Hadrian as Lucius Aelius Caesar, was promised the imperial throne, but when he died, Hadrian adopted Faustina's father, who became the imperial heir. Antoninus broke off his daughter's engagement and she was betrothed to her cousin Marcus Aurelius, officially adopted by her father in 138. She was only 20 when she married her first cousin, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in April 145. Little is known about the wedding ceremony, although coins featuring the couple's heads and that of Antoninus, Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff), were minted. She became the mother of the future emperor Commodus in 161. On March 7, 161, on the death of Antoninus the Pious, Marcus and Lucius Verus became co-emperors. Faustina received the title of Augusta and became empress.