Cornelia Postuma or Postuma Cornelia (born between 78-77 BC) was the only daughter of Roman Dictator
Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force.
Sulla ha ...
and his fifth wife
Valeria Messalla. She was Sulla's fifth and final known child.
Life
Postuma was delivered some months after Sulla's death. It is uncertain if her name "Postuma" was a
praenomen
The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the '' dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the b ...
or
cognomen
A ''cognomen'' (; plural ''cognomina''; from ''con-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became her ...
as the usage of the name "Postuma" as a female praenomen is unattested in epigraphical evidence for the Roman Republic period but it would have been unusual to give a cognomen at such an early date. The male equivalent praenomen Postumus is well attested. Her birth was highly significant as it unified Sulla's family with that of her mother’s.
[
She had three surviving older half siblings; Cornelia Silla, the twins Faustus Cornelius Sulla and Fausta Cornelia as well as a brother who died young. Her oldest sister Silla already had children by the time Postuma was born.
]T. F. Carney
T is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet. (For the same letterform in the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, see Te (Cyrillic), Te and Tau respectively).
T may also refer to:
Codes and units
* T, Tera- as in one trillion
* T, the symbol for ...
presumes that she died young since there is no further mentions of her in literature, he states that a member of such a notorious household could not have failed to be mentioned somewhere if she had been old enough to marry.congenital infection
A vertically transmitted infection is an infection caused by pathogenic bacteria or Pathogenic virus, viruses that use mother-to-child transmission, that is, Transmission (medicine), transmission directly from the mother to an embryo, fetus, or ...
, perhaps contracted by her mother from Sulla who himself died of infected ulcers.
Cultural depictions
In Colleen McCullough
Colleen Margaretta McCullough (; married name Robinson, previously Ion-Robinson; 1 June 193729 January 2015) was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being '' The Thorn Birds'' and '' The Ladies of Missalonghi''.
Lif ...
's book '' Fortune's Favourites'' Postuma's mother Valeria expresses doubt that she is actually Sulla's child, believing that she was instead fathered by her lover Metrobius.
See also
* Posthumously born notable people
A posthumous birth is the birth of a child after the death of a biological parent. A person born in these circumstances is called a posthumous child or a posthumously born person. Most instances of posthumous birth involve the birth of a child af ...
* List of Roman women
* Roman naming conventions for females
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
1st-century BC Roman women
1st-century BC Romans
Cornelii Sullae
Children of Sulla
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