- Laeta
Laeta was the second Empress consort of
Gratian of theWestern Roman Empire .Family
The only relation of Laeta mentioned by
Zosimus was her mother Pissamena. [Zosimus , "Historia Nova", Book five, 1814 translation by Green and Chaplin]Empress
Gratian was first married to
Flavia Maxima Constantia . TheChronicon Paschale dates the arrival of Constantia's remains in Constantinople to31 August ,383 . She must have died earlier in the same year but the exact date and cause of her death are unknown. She was about twenty-one at the time of her death. Gratian was himself assassinated on25 August ,383 . [Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire , vol. 1]On his account of the first siege of
Rome byAlaric I , King of theVisigoths (dated to 408), Zosimus mentions that the city faced afamine . Zosimus records that "Laeta the wife of the late emperor Gratian, and her mother Pissamena, supplied great numbers with food for some time. For since they were allowed from the treasury the provisions of an imperial table, through the generosity of Theodosius, who had conferred on then, that privilege, many received the bounty of these two ladies, and obtained from their house what preserved them from famine". [Zosimus , "Historia Nova", Book five, 1814 translation by Green and Chaplin] This is the only mention of Laeta in primary sources. She is assumed to have married Gratian in 383, in the short period between the death of Constantia and his own death. [ [http://www.roman-emperors.org/gratian.htm Walter E. Roberts, "Gratian (367-83 A.D.)] ]External links
* [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/zosimus05_book5.htm Translation of the 5th Book of Zosimus, our primary source for her existence]
References
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