Cornelia Postuma
{{Short description|Daughter of Sulla}}
Cornelia Postuma or Postuma Cornelia{{sfn|Kajava|1995|p=285}} (born 78 or 77 BC) was the only daughter of Roman dictator Sulla and his fifth wife, Valeria Messalla. She was Sulla's fifth and final known child.{{Efn|Three surviving children from her father Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix's previous marriages are known; Cornelia Silla, Faustus Cornelius Sulla and Fausta Cornelia, but another son who died young is attested to by Sulla's autobiography.}}
Life
Postuma was delivered some months after Sulla's death. It is uncertain whether her name, Postuma, was a praenomen or cognomen, as the usage of the name Postuma as a female praenomen is unattested in epigraphical evidence for the Roman Republic period but it would have been unusual to give a cognomen at such an early date.{{sfn|Kajava|1995|p=181}} The male-equivalent praenomen Postumus is well attested.{{sfn|Kajava|1995|p=111}} Her birth was highly significant, as it unified Sulla's family with that of her mother's.{{sfn|Carney|1961|p=74}}
She had three surviving older half-siblings – Cornelia Silla and the twins Faustus Cornelius Sulla and Fausta Cornelia – as well as a half-brother who died young. Her oldest sister, Silla, had already had children by the time Postuma was born.{{Cite book|title=Historical Reflections: Réflexions Historiques|publisher=History Department, University of Waterloo|year=1987 |page=42}}
T. F. Carney presumes that she died young since there is no further mention of her in literature; he states that a member of such a notorious household could not have failed to be mentioned somewhere if she had been old enough to marry.{{sfn|Carney|1961|p=75}} He assumes both she and her half-brother died in congenital infection, perhaps contracted by her mother from Sulla, who himself died of infected ulcers.{{sfn|Carney|1961|p=73}}
Cultural depictions
In Colleen McCullough's book Fortune's Favourites Postuma's mother Valeria expresses doubt that she is actually Sulla's child, believing that she was instead fathered by her lover Metrobius.{{cite book |first=Colleen |last=McCullough |title=Fortune's Favourites |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9hmDAgAAQBAJ&q=sulla+valeria+pregnant&pg=PT577 |publisher=Head of Zeus |location=London |year=2013 |orig-year=1993 |via=Google Books |isbn=9781781857939}}
See also
Notes
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References
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Bibliography
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- {{cite journal |last=Carney |first=Thomas F |title=The death of Sulla |journal=Acta Classica: Proceedings of the Classical Association of South Africa |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=64–79 |year=1961 |url=https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00651141_71 |jstor=24591114 }}
- {{cite journal |title=Roman Female Praenomina: Studies in the Nomenclature of Roman Women |last=Kajava |first=Mika |journal=Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae |publisher=Institutum Romanum Finlandiae |year=1995 |issn=0538-2270 }}
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{{Sulla}}
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Category:1st-century BC Roman women
Category:1st-century BC Romans
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