BMCR 2009.08.38: Fuendling on Priwitzer, Faustina minor - Ehefrau eines Idealkaisers und Mutter eines Tyrannen quellenkritische Untersuchungen zum dynastischen Potential, zur Darstellung und zu Handlungsspielraeumen von Kaiserfrauen im Prinzipat. Tuebinger althistorische Studien Bd. 6

Stefan Priwitzer, Faustina minor - Ehefrau eines Idealkaisers und
Mutter eines Tyrannen quellenkritische Untersuchungen zum dynastischen
Potential, zur Darstellung und zu Handlungsspielraeumen von
Kaiserfrauen im Prinzipat. Tuebinger althistorische Studien Bd. 6.
Bonn:  Dr. Rudolf Habelt, 2008.  Pp. xv, 233.  ISBN 9783774935488.
EUR 79.00.

Reviewed by Joerg Fuendling, Aachen University, Germany
(Joerg.Fuendling <at> rwth-aachen.de)
Word count:  2494 words
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On his way towards the present volume, his Ph. D. dissertation,
Priwitzer has lived through every postgraduate's nightmare, the death
of his original supervisor. Let it be said in advance that the
cumulative advice both of the late Hildegard Temporini-Graefin Vitzthum
and afterwards of Mischa Meier has been put to a highly creditable use.

There are more 'Untersuchungen' to Priwitzer's book than the table of
contents discloses at first sight. Three large sections, linked by the
person of the Younger Faustina, enquire into Hadrian's settlements of
succession in A.D. 136 and 138 (pp. 15-93), Commodus and Faustina
(96-174), and -- somewhat more condensed -- the circumstances of the
Avidius Cassius usurpation and Faustina's subsequent death in A.D. 175