Serena (Roman)

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Serena was a noblewoman of the late Western Roman Empire. A member of the House of Theodosius, she was the niece of Theodosius I. Sometime before her uncle's death in 395, he arranged for her to marry his magister militum, Flavius Stilicho. A resident at the court of her cousin, Honorius, she selected a bride for the court poet, Claudian, and took care of Honorius' half-sister, her cousin Galla Placidia. She and Stilicho had a son, Eucherius, and two daughters, both of whom married Honorius. Stilicho was executed on Honorius' orders in 408. During the siege of Rome by the Visigoths the following year, Serena was falsely accused of conspiring with the Goths, and was executed with Galla Placidia's consent. However, according to some historians (most recently John Julius Norwich), she was executed by the Roman Senate on a charge of impiety for putting a necklace from the Temple of Rhea upon herself. This however, may merely be an apocryphal story.

As Theodosius was an only child, and his mother Thermantia was his father's first and only wife, Serena's mother or father must have been from an earlier marriage of Thermantia, thus making her only a half-niece of Theodosius. (Theodosius was not an only child. He had an elder brother, Honorius,who had two daughters, Serena and Thermantia, both of whom were adopted by Theodosius and taken by him to Constantinople when his brother died.)