Fannia (wife of Helvidius Priscus)

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Fannia was a member of the Roman plebeian dynasty of the Fannier who lived in the 1st and early 2nd centuries and was the second wife of the stoic philosopher and politician Gaius Helvidius Priscus .

The educated and cultured Fannia was the daughter of the younger Arria and Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus , who was one of the leaders of the Stoic- Republican Senate opposition to Emperor Nero . Her marriage to Helvidius Priscus, through which she became the stepmother of his son of the same name from her first marriage, took place some time before the year 56 AD, in which her husband officiated as tribune .

Like her parents and grandparents and her husband, Fannia was a stoicist. In 66 AD, her father, Thrasea Paetus, was accused of opposing Nero and sentenced to death. Because Helvidius Priscus stood up for his father-in-law, he had to go into exile in Apollonia, where Fannia voluntarily accompanied him. Two years later, after Helvidius Priscus was rehabilitated by the new Emperor Galba , the couple was allowed to live again in Rome . Ultimately, however, Vespasian prevailed in the power struggle for the imperial throne in AD 69 , against whom Helvidius Priscus behaved insultingly and therefore had to go into exile for the second time. Once again Fannia followed her husband into exile; but this was soon afterwards (around 75 AD) killed on behalf of Vespasian. After Vespasian's death, Fannia was able to return to Rome.

Fannia instructed Herennius Senecio to write down the life of her husband in the form of an enkomion , for which she also made private documents available. That is why she was tried under Emperor Domitian in 93 AD. She confirmed Senecio's statement that she had commissioned the work and said no when asked whether her mother had known about it. However, both women were banished. Fannia's goods were confiscated, but she managed to take a copy of her husband's biography with her into exile, although all copies of the work were to be destroyed.

On Domitian's orders, Fannia's stepson, the younger Helvidius Priscus, who was married to Anteia , was also eliminated in AD 93 . After the killing of the emperor (96 AD), Fannia and Arria returned to Rome. They supported the younger Pliny, a friend of theirs, in his futile efforts to avenge the death of the younger Helvidius Priscus by legal means.

In 107 Fannia took care of a relative, the Vestal Virgin Iunia, and then fell seriously ill; possibly she died at the time of the consequences of this illness.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Pliny the Younger , Epistulae 3, 16, 2; 7, 19, 3; 9, 13, 3.
  2. ↑ Pliny, Epistulae 7, 19, 3; Tacitus , Annals 13, 28.
  3. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 16, 33; Scholion to Juvenal , Saturae 5, 36; Pliny, Epistulae 7, 19, 4.
  4. ^ Tacitus, Historien 4, 6.
  5. ^ Suetonius , Vespasian 15; Pliny, Epistulae 7, 19, 4.
  6. ↑ Tacitus, Agricola 2; Pliny, Epistulae 7, 19, 5; Cassius Dio 67, 13.
  7. ↑ Pliny, Epistulae 3, 11, 3; 7, 19, 5f.
  8. ^ Suetonius, Domitian 10; Tacitus, Agricola 45.
  9. ↑ Pliny, Epistulae 9, 13, 5.
  10. ↑ Pliny, Epistulae 7, 19, 1ff.
personal data
SURNAME Fannia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman noblewoman, wife of Gaius Helvidius Priscus
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH after 107