Anicia Juliana

Anicia Iuliana (* 460, † before 532) was an influential Roman aristocrat during the late Late Antiquity.

Although a large part of the vast estates of her family was in the western half of the empire, Iuliana was born in Constantinople Opel. She was of imperial lineage: not only her father was 472 Olybrius been up to his untimely death a few months emperor of the western empire, but her mother Placidia was also the Emperor Valentinian III 's daughter. Iulianas great-grandfathers were the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II and the Western Roman Emperor Constantius III. , And also by the Emperors Arcadius, Theodosius I and Valentinian I. it came from in a direct line. 479 they should according to the will of the then emperor Zeno, Theodoric the Goth marry the Great, but the marriage did not materialize. Instead, she became the wife of the powerful General Areobindus that would have been almost 512 proclaimed the anti-emperor in Ostrom, and her son Olybrius (491 Consul ) married Eirene, a niece of the Emperor Anastasius. As it was expected of an aristocrat of her rank, Iuliana acted as a patron of the arts and sciences, they also left numerous public buildings and churches built. Especially in Constantinople Opel surpassed in this respect some emperor. The magnificent, financed by it ( but today destroyed except for a few residues) Polyeuktoskirche was until the construction of the new Hagia Sophia by Justinian for some years the largest religious building in the capital.

Iuliana wore the high honorary title patricia and also the only woman of her time, the term Nobilissima, the only state Kaiser daughters; they can serve as an example that the late Roman senatorial aristocracy, even after the division of the kingdom of 395 represented a link between East and West. It belonged (such as their contemporary Boëthius or later, Gregory the Great) to the noble family of Anicii that led back his roots to the Roman Republic. At the same time they originated, as mentioned, the Valentinian - Theodosian dynasty, 364-455 ( Westrom ) or 457 ( Ostrom ), the Emperor had asked. Iuliana thus counted among the richest and most influential women of her time. She died in the first years of the reign of Justinian, they probably did not look at from a simple peasant family as an equal because of his background.