She was the daughter of the emperor
Maximianus
Herculius and his Syrian wife Eutropia. She was born and raised in Rome. In
307 Fausta was married to the emperor
Constantinus.
Her devotion to her husband must have been strong: in 310,
Constantinus
put
Maximianus to death and in 312 he defeated
Fausta's brother,
Maxentius, who died in the Battle
of Pons Milvius. The next day his body was recovered from the Tiber and his head
affixed to a pike and carried through the streets of Rome. Together they had 3
sons and 2 daughters
Constantinus II,
Constantius
II, and
Constans, Constantina and Helena. In spite
of her devotion, Fausta's life ended in a most unfortunate way.
Constantinus
ordered her to be executed in 326 (suffocated in an over-heated bath), shortly
after he had his son
Crispus executed. The closeness
of these two tragic events has always suggested a sort of relation among the two
executions. The most likely legend (Montanelli, 1997, p.376) says that Fausta
was jealous of her step-son
Crispus (son of
Constantinus
and his first wife Minervina) who could have subtracted the throne to any of her
sons and accused him of having tried to seduce her.
Helena,
mother of the emperor was supporting her first nephew and convinced
Constantinus
that was Fausta who had tried to seduce
Crispus. In
a very Salomonic way the Christian emperor condemned both to the death penalty.
Fausta suffered
damnatio memoriae.