Pompeia Plotina

{{Infobox royalty

| title = Augusta

| image = Plotina_%28Vatikanische_Museen%29.jpg

| caption = Bust of Plotina, exhibited in the Vatican Museums.

| succession = Roman empress

| reign = 98 – 117

| consort = yes

| birth_date =

| birth_place = Tejada la Vieja, Hispania or Nemausus, Gaul

| death_date = 121/122

| death_place =

| burial_place =

| spouse = Trajan

| issue =

| full name =

| regnal name = Pompeia Plotina Augusta

| dynasty = Nerva{{ndash}}Antonine

| father = Lucius Pompeius

| mother =

}}

Pompeia Plotina (died 121/122) was Roman empress from 98 to 117 as the wife of Trajan. She was renowned for her interest in philosophy, and her virtue, dignity and simplicity. She was particularly devoted to the Epicurean philosophical school in Athens, Greece.Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth-E.A. (edd.), Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 1214. She is often viewed as having provided Romans with fairer taxation, improved education, assisted the poor, and created tolerance in Roman society.

Early life

Plotina was raised in Tejada la Vieja (Escacena del Campo) in the province of Hispania (modern Spain). She was possibly born in Nemausus (Nîmes) (southern France) during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero (r. 54–68), however she could have been born in the 70s.

She was the daughter of Lucius Pompeius. Another woman from Nemausus named Pompeia L. f. Marullina may have been her relative;{{Cite book|title=The Roman Revolution|last1=Syme |first1=Ronald |publisher=OUP Oxford|year=2002 |pages=502|others=American Council of Learned Societies |edition=illustrated, new |isbn=9780192803207 |series=Oxford paperbacks |volume=1}} historian Christian Settipani proposed that they may have been sisters.{{Cite book |title=Continuité gentilice et continuité familiale dans les familles sénatoriales romaines à l'époque impériale: mythe et réalité |last=Settipani |first=Christian |publisher=Unit for Prosopographical Research, Linacre College, University of Oxford |year=2000 |isbn=9781900934022 |pages=407 |language=It |edition=illustrated |series=Prosopographica et genealogica |volume=2}} Based on her cognomen Plotina her mother may have been named Plotia or similar.{{Cite book|title=American Journal of Philology|last1=Gildersleeve|first1=Basil|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=1991|pages=515|last2=Miller|first2=Charles William Emil|last3=Meritt|first3=Benjamin Dean|last4=Frank|first4=Tenney|last5=Cherniss|first5=Harold Fredrik|last6=Thompson Rowell|first6=Henry|volume=12}} In Pompeii an inscription names an Ulpia Plotina,{{Efn|Possibly the same person as Ulpia, the grandmother of Hadrian.{{Cite book |title=The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy |last=Cooley |first=Alison E. |author-link=Alison E. Cooley |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9781139576604 |pages=101}}}} leading to the idea that Pompeia Plotina and Trajan were related. Little is known about Plotina's early life.

Marriage and life as Empress

File:Plotina - sestertius - RIC 0740.jpg on the reverse.]]

Trajan married Plotina before he became emperor, and their marriage was happy; they had no known children.

Upon entering the imperial palace following Trajan's ascension, Plotina is said to have turned to those watching her and carefully announced, "I enter here the kind of woman I would like to be when I depart."Dio Cassius, LXVIII, 5 She sought to dispel the memories of the domestic strife that had plagued the reign of Domitian and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Plotina behaved in the manner of a traditional Roman matron, and she was associated with chaste goddesses such as Vesta (the guardian of Rome's sacred fire) and Minerva (goddess of war and wisdom).{{cite book|last=Annalise |first=Freisenbruch|authorlink=Annelise Freisenbruch|title=Caesars' Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire|location=London and New York|publisher= Free Press|year= 2010|pages= 159–161}} In 100, Trajan awarded her with the title of Augusta, but she did not accept the title until 105. Plotina did not appear on coinage until 112.

When the future emperor Hadrian and his sister were 10 or 11 years old, they lost their parents. Trajan and the Roman officer Publius Acilius Attianus became the children's guardians. Hadrian was a first cousin-once-removed to Trajan (Trajan's father and Hadrian's paternal grandmother were siblings). Plotina matched Hadrian with his future wife Vibia Sabina.Historia Augusta, "Hadrian", 3; translated by Anthony Birley, Lives of the Later Caesars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p. 59

Death of Trajan and accession of Hadrian

In 117, Trajan was on his deathbed at Selinus in Cilicia, where he was said to have written a letter in which he personally adopted Hadrian as successor to the Empire. The letter had been signed by the Empress Plotina, and when it arrived in Rome, it was suspect. Rumour named Attianus and Plotina as lovers—the two were very close to their ward Hadrian and the two had been present at Trajan's death—and they were rumoured to have forged Trajan's will to secure Hadrian's succession.{{cite book |last1=Jackson |first1=Nicholas |title=Trajan: Rome's Last Conqueror |date=2022 |publisher=GreenHill Books |location=Chapter: Conspiracy, Death and Deification |isbn=978-1784387075 |edition=1st }}

Annelise Freisenbruch dismisses this accusation: "Plotina, the silent spouse of the second century, thus joined Livia, Agrippina the Younger, and Domitia in the gallery of Roman imperial women accused of covering up or conspiring in their husband's deaths." Freisenbruch notes that there are many plausible explanations why Plotina's signature might legitimately be on this declaration: Trajan may have simply been too weak to sign the letter himself. Freisenbruch also notes these kinds of accusations have dogged the spouses of rulers through the centuries.Freisenbruch, Caesars’ Wives, pp. 162f

Along with Attianus and Matidia, the grieving widow Plotina accompanied Trajan's body to Seleucia and his ashes to Rome.

Later years

While Plotina was a widow, her best-documented act took place. During the year 121, while the emperor Hadrian was inspecting the provinces, Plotina engaged him in a series of letters to discuss who should be the new head of the Epicurean school of philosophy in Athens. She petitioned for a change in the law, so that Popillius Theotimus, the acting head of the school, could become the official head; in response, Hadrian agreed with her argument, and the relevant letters were preserved in a series of inscriptions. Freisenbruch notes, "In stark contrast to her passive anonymity in the literary record, this inscription from Athens recasts Plotina as a highly educated woman, active on behalf of causes close to her heart and with the kind of access to the emperor once enjoyed by Livia."Freisenbruch, Caesars’ Wives, pp. 163f

Plotina died of illness, and was deified. Her ashes joined Trajan's in the base of Trajan's Column. In 123, Hadrian built a basilica in her honor at Nîmes, in Provence.{{cite book |last=Bennett |first=Julian |author-link=Julian Bennett (archaeologist) |date=1997 |title=Trajan: Optimum Princeps |url= |location=London |publisher=Routledge |page=26 |isbn=0-203-36056-7}}