Sabina ‘Augusta’

This chapter surveys the textual and material evidence for Sabina’s first dozen years as empress. Following his accession in August 117, Hadrian apparently made no special effort to promote Sabina until her designation as Augusta in early 128. This grant preceded but was coordinated with the emperor’s naming as pater patriae (“father of the fatherland”) that same year; both honors were preliminaries to the couple’s five-year journey to the east. Only after her elevation did Sabina see sustained production of empress coinage, and sculptures of her image. Sabina was largely an emblem of continuity with the Ulpian line: the living embodiment of her deified mother, Matidia, and grandmother Marciana. The chapter also examines a costly dedication at Perge (Pamphylia); a perplexing note about her absence from Hadrian’s private birthday celebration; and (most consequentially) a reported scandal linking her with one of Hadrian’s praetorian prefects and his correspondence secretary, Suetonius.