Vibia SABINA - wife of Hadrian

Vibia Sabina was the daughter of L. Vibius Sabinus and Salonia Matidia, favourite niece of the Emperor Trajan. The families of Trajan and Hadrian were already related: Trajan's father had been the brother of Hadrian's grandfather. Family links were further strengthened when Hadrian married Vibia Sabina, granddaughter of Trajan's sister Ulpia Marciana. The match was encouraged by Plotina, Trajan's wife, but does not seem to have been well received by Trajan himself. Plotina was instrumental later in securing Hadrian's rise to power, and one source tells us that she was in love with him. When she died in AD 123, Hadrian honoured her by wearing black for nine days. Of Hadrian's wife Sabina little is known, but relations between the two were not particularly amicable. Two court officials - one the imperial biographer Suetonius - were dismissed for being too familiar with her, and Hadrian declared that he would have sent Sabina away too had he been a private citizen. She died two years before him, in AD 136.