Laeta was the second Empress consort of

Gratian Gratian (; la, Gratianus; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers and w ...

of the

Western Roman Empire The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period ...

Family

The only relation of Laeta mentioned by Zosimus was her mother Pissamena. Zosimus, "''Historia Nova'', Book five, 1814 translation by Green and Chaplin

Empress

Gratian was first married to

Flavia Maxima Constantia Flavia Maxima Constantia (361/362 – 383) was the first empress consort of Gratian of the Western Roman Empire. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Constantia was a posthumous child of Constantius II by his third wife Faustina. Her paternal grand ...

, who died at only twenty-one. The ''

Chronicon Paschale ''Chronicon Paschale'' (the ''Paschal'' or ''Easter Chronicle''), also called ''Chronicum Alexandrinum'', ''Constantinopolitanum'' or ''Fasti Siculi'', is the conventional name of a 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle of the world. Its name com ...

'' dates the arrival of Constantia's remains in Constantinople to 31 August 383. She must have died earlier in the same year but the exact date and cause of her death are unknown. As Gratian was himself assassinated on 25 August 383, Laeta is assumed to have married him in the short period between the death of Constantia and his death.Walter E. Roberts, "Gratian (367-83 A.D.)
/ref> On his account of the first siege of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

by Alaric I, King of the

Visigoths The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...

(dated to 408), Zosimus mentions that the city faced a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...

. Zosimus records that ''"Laeta the wife of the late emperor Gratian, and her mother Pissamena, supplied great numbers with food for some time. For since they were allowed from the treasury the provisions of an imperial table, through the generosity of Theodosius, who had conferred on then, that privilege, many received the bounty of these two ladies, and obtained from their house what preserved them from famine"''. This is the only mention of Laeta in primary sources.

References

External links

Translation of the 5th Book of Zosimus, our primary source for her existence
{{s-end 4th-century births 5th-century deaths Valentinianic dynasty 4th-century Roman empresses