Eutropia

Eutropia (Greek: Εύτροπία; died after 325), a Roman empress of Syrian origin,^[2] who was the wife of Emperor Maximian.^[3]

Personal life

In the late 3rd century, she married Maximian, though the exact date of this marriage is unknown. By Maximian, she had at least two children: Maxentius, Roman emperor from 306 to 312, and Fausta, the wife of Constantine the Great and mother of emperors Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans.

The parentage of Theodora, the wife of Constantius I, is disputed; most sources refer to her as Maximian's stepdaughter, leading to the belief that she was born from Eutropia's previous marriage to a man named Afranius Hannibalianus, since Theodora named one of her own sons Hannibalianus.^[4] Timothy Barnes, however, considered the few sources that refer to Theodora as Maximian’s daughter, rather than his stepdaughter, to be more reliable, and he suggested she was born from Maximian's previous marriage to a hypothetical daughter of Afranius, which would make Theodora Eutropia's stepdaughter instead.^[5] Julia Hillner agrees with Barnes that the stepdaughter sources are a result of political propaganda from the later Constantinian dynasty but believes that Barnes explanation fails to explain why Theodora named one of her daughters Eutropia if her mother was an unknown Afrania instead of empress Eutropia. Hillner argues that Afranius Hannibalianus was Eutropia's brother and that Theodora was the daughter of both Maximian and Eutropia. This is in line with John Vanderspoel.^[6]

Footnotes

References

• Barnes, Timothy D. (1982). The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674280670. ISBN 0-674-28066-0.
• Hillner, Julia (2023). Helena Augusta: Mother of the Empire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-087529-9.
• Jones, A.H.M.; J.R. Martindale & J. Morris (1971). Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07233-6.

External links

• s.v. DiMaio, Michael, "Maximianus Herculius (286-305 A.D)", DIR