Lucilla - Marriages and Ascension To Empress

Marriages and Ascension To Empress

In 161, when she was between 11 and 13 years old, Lucilla's father arranged a marriage for her with his co-ruler Lucius Verus. Verus, 18 years her senior, became her husband three years later in Ephesus in 164. At this marriage she received her title of Augusta and became a Roman Empress. At the same time, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus were fighting a Parthian war in Syria. During her marriage to Lucius Verus, Lucilla bore three children: two daughters and a son. Her first daughter Aurelia Lucilla was born in 165 in Antioch, but both this daughter and her son Lucius Verus died young.

Lucilla was an influential and respectable woman and she enjoyed her status. She spent much time in Rome, while Verus was away from Rome much of the time, fulfilling his duties as a co-ruler. Lucius Verus died around 168/169 while returning from the war theater in the Danube region, and as a result, Lucilla lost her status as Empress.

As an unattached link to Emperor Aurelius and to the late co-Emperor Verus as well through her royal-born offspring, Lucilla was not destined for a long widowhood, and thus a short time later in 169, her father arranged a second marriage for her with Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus Quintianus from Antioch. Quintianus was a Syrian Roman who was twice consul and a political ally to her father, but Lucilla and her mother were against the marriage as a less than ideal match, partly because Quintianus was at least twice Lucilla's age, but also because he was not of her own Roman nobilis social rank though he was descended from rulers in the East. About a year later in 170, Lucilla bore a son named Pompeianus of her husband Quintianus.