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40 Things About The Outlandish Math Cult Leader, and Other Unusual Facts From the Ancient World

Khalid Elhassan May 22, 2020 33 min

Democritus and Protagoras - Odysseus and Nausicaa (Ulysses and Nausicaa) — 'Pythagoras and the Fishermen', by Salvatore Rosa. Wikimedia

13. A Scheming Stepmother

In 307 AD, Constantine the Great married Flavia Maxima Fausta (289 – 326 AD), daughter of Roman Emperor Maximianus, to seal an alliance with her father. She bore Constantine three sons, but her stepson Crispus, Constantine’s eldest from a previous marriage, stood between her children and the throne.

In 326, Crispus was at the height of his power and heir apparent, having played a key role in defeating a recent challenger to his father. By contrast, Fausta’s sons were in no position to don the purple, the eldest of them being only ten years old at the time. In order for any of Fausta’s sons to succeed Constantine, something would have to happen to Crispus. So Fausta saw to it that something did.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.