A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

the sister of Trajan, who, if we may believe the panegyric of Pliny (Paneg. 84), was a woman of extraordinary merits and virtue. She was the mother of Matidia, who was the mother of Sabina, the wife of the emperor Hadrian [MATIDIA], but we do not know the name of her husband. We learn from Pliny that she received from the senate the title of Augusta, which we also find upon coins and inscriptions; and after her death she was enrolled among the gods, and is therefore called Diva on coins and inscriptions. The year of her death is uncertain; but it appears from one inscription that she was alive in A. D. 106, and from another that she had ceased to live in A. D. 115. It was in honour of her that Trajan gave the name of Marcianopolis to a city in Lower Moesia, on the Euxine. (Eckhel, vol. vi. p. 467, &c.)