Fulvia Plautilla

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coin featuring Plautilla

Publia Fulvia Plautilla, Fulvia Plautilla or Plautilla (around 188/189 - early 212) was a Roman Princess, briefly Roman Empress and the only wife to Roman Emperor Caracalla. Caracalla was her paternal second cousin.

Plautilla was born and raised in Rome. Plautilla belonged to the gens Fulvius of ancient Rome. The Fulvius family was originally of plebs status, who originally came from Tusculum, Italy and were active in Roman politics, since the Roman Republic. Her mother is unknown and her father was Gaius Fulvius Plautianus the Commander of the Praetorian Guard, maternal first cousin, consul and close ally to Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus, (who was the father of Caracalla). She also had a brother, who had the same name as her father.

Severus and Plautianus arranged for Plautilla and Caracalla to be married in 202. Caracalla was chosen and forced by his father to marry Plautilla. They were married in a lavish ceremony. Caracalla and Plautilla had a very unhappy marriage. Caracalla never acknowledged Plautilla as his wife and despised her. According to Cassius Dio, Plautilla had a profligate character.

According to numismatic evidence, Plautilla bore Caracalla a daughter (whose name is unknown) in 204 and in that year, her father-in-law ordered the erection of the arch, Arcus Septimi Severi, which in scripts and honors, Septimius Severus, Severus’ wife the Roman Empress Julia Domna, Caracalla, Plautilla and her brother-in-law Publius Septimius Geta.

On 4 February 211, her father-in-law died and her husband and brother-in-law were proclaimed as Severus’ heirs and Roman Emperors, in York, England. Within a year, Caracalla ordered the death of his younger brother Geta and not so long after ordered the deaths of 20,000 supporters of Geta, including Plautilla, her daughter with Caracalla and Caracalla‘s brother-in-law.

Before her death, Plautilla and her daughter by Caracalla, were exiled by her husband to Sicily and then to Lipari, where she died with her daughter. In exile, she and her daughter were treated very harshly, and were eventually strangled on Caracalla's orders. Coins that have survived of her, are mainly from the reign of her father-in-law. Inscriptions of her on coins are: Plautilla Augusta or Plautilla Augustae.