Anicia Faltonia Proba

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Anicia Faltonia Proba (died in Africa, 432) was a Roman noblewoman of the gens Anicia.

Biography[]

Proba's father was Quintus Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius[1] (consul in 379); the famous poet Faltonia Betitia Proba was a relative. She married Sextus Petronius Probus (consul in 371), and had three sons - Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius and Anicius Probinus, joint consuls in 395, and Anicius Petronius Probus consul in 406 - and one daughter, . Her son Olybrius married , and his daughter Demetrias was Proba's granddaughter. She was related to the aristocratic families of the Petronii, and Anicii; in two inscriptions dating to 395 she is described as daughter, wife and mother of consuls.[2] She may have later married the son of , Valerius Adelphius and had a daughter, Adelfia, who would be the mother of the emperor Olybrius

In 395 she was already a widow. A Christian, she was in contact with several members of the cultural circles of her age, among which Augustine of Hippo[3] and John Chrysostom,[4] in favour of whom she acted.

Proba was in Rome during the sack of the city in 410; according to Procopius of Caesarea, she opened the gates of the city to relieve the sufferings of the people besieged,[5] but historians have suggested that this story was forged by her enemies.[6] She then fled to Africa with her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter Demetrias, but here she was abused by Heraclianus, who imprisoned and then freed them only after receiving a huge sum.[7]

Proba inherited several possessions in Asia, and sold them to give the money to the Church and to the poor. She died in Africa in 432; it is known that her husband had been buried in the Old St. Peter's Basilica in a tomb where Proba was to be buried too.[8]

As several other women in her family, Proba was well-educated. Her grandmother, Faltonia Betitia Proba, was a poet. Anicia probably composed the epigraph in honour of the husband, and her granddaughter Demetrias was a friend of Jerome's, who describes her as well educated.

Notes[]

  1. ^ Jones.
  2. ^ CIL VI, 1754; CIL VI, 1754.
  3. ^ Augustine addressed to Proba his letters number 130 and 131, to Proba and her daughter-in-law his letter number 150, and cited Proba in De bono vid. (24).
  4. ^ John wrote to Proba his letter number 169.
  5. ^ Procopius of Caesarea, Bellum Vandalicum, I.2.27
  6. ^ P. Laurence, "Proba, Juliana et Démétrias. Le christianisme des femmes de la "gens Anicia" dans la première moitié du Ve siècle", in REAug, 48 (2002), pp. 142-4.
  7. ^ Jerome, Epistles, 130.
  8. ^ 1347 A.

Bibliography[]

Primary sources[]

Secondary sources[]

  • Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, John Martindale, John Morris: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Vol. 1, Cambridge 1971, pp. 732–733.
  • Jane Stevenson: Women Latin Poets. Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 65.
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