Lollia Paulina
Lollia Paulina (PIR2 L 308) (died 49) was a noble Roman woman who lived in the 1st century, and for six months in AD 38 was a Roman Empress as the third wife of the Emperor Caligula.
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[edit] Life
Lollia Paulina's father was Marcus Lollius Paulinus, who was a formal consul, and her mother was Volusia Saturnina, a sister of senator and consul Lucius Volusius Saturninus. Her maternal grandmother was a distant relative to Emperor Tiberius. Her father’s maternal uncle was senator and consul Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messalinus and paternal grandfather was the general Marcus Lollius Paulinus. Paulina’s younger sister was Lollia Saturnina who was married to the consul Decimus Valerius Asiaticus and by whom she had a son.
Paulina became exceedingly wealthy after inheriting her relative’s estates. Her first husband was suffect consul in 31 and a Roman Governor, Publius Memmius Regulus. Tacitus describes him as a man of ‘dignity, who was a person of influence and good name‘. Regulus died in AD 62. In AD 38, Caligula ordered Paulina from Regulus (she was with Regulus at the province he was governing) after he overheard a remark about her grandmother's beauty.
Paulina was forced to divorce Regulus and marry Caligula. She became his third wife and Empress in 38. Caligula divorced her after six months of marriage, ostensibly because she was infertile, and forbade her to sleep with or associate with another man.
Later on, Paulina became a rival to Caligula‘s sister Agrippina the Younger and was considered a choice for fourth wife of Caligula's uncle, the Emperor Claudius, following the death of Claudius's third wife, the Empress Valeria Messalina. In AD 49, Agrippina, now married to Claudius, had Paulina charged with sorcery. Paulina never got a hearing. Her property was confiscated and she was sent into exile.
Tacitus tells us that Paulina was forced to commit suicide under the watch of a colonel of the Guards, and implies that this was done under Agrippina's orders.
[edit] Reputation
Lollia Paulina is mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History as an example of ostentation for reportedly wearing a large share of her inheritance to a dinner party in the form of jewelry worth some 40 million sestertius. (Quoted in Kodungallur, 1987, 2000 by Prof. George Menachery. Pliny's complaint is about Rome spending enormous amounts for India's 'useless' pepper and her pearls, as worn by Lollia Paulina even around her shoes). A sepulchre was not erected in her honor until the reign of the Emperor Nero.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Ancient Library 1904
- Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
- Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome
- Robert Graves, I, Claudius
- Aut|E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen - e.a. (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III, Berlin, 1933 - . (PIR2)
| Royal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Livia Orestilla |
Empress of Rome 38 |
Succeeded by Milonia Caesonia |
