Epilogue

This epilogue first traces a common thread running through modern understandings of Sabina, from Antonio de Guevara in the 16th century to romantic novelist Kate Quinn in the 21st: Hadrian treated his wife poorly, as the ancient literary sources unequivocally tell us. Attention to Sabina is rare in modern history, art, or literature. Most representations of the empress through time are ancillary appearances in biographical or novelistic treatments of Hadrian; few are especially probing. When Antinoös is introduced, Sabina recedes. It was surely consequential that Hadrian’s successor Antoninus Pius lost his own wife, Faustina I, barely two years after accession, in 140. Her funeral and deification, commemorative post-consecration coinage, honorary statues and games, dedicated priestesses, and grand temple constructed in the Roman Forum evidently eclipsed Hadrian’s honors for his wife. Yet these very honors show that Antoninus observed and approved how Hadrian had promoted Sabina and the concept of empress.

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