ABSTRACT
The wives, mothers, daughters and sisters of the tetrarchs and the family of Constantine play a surprisingly elusive role in the written sources of the period, with the notable exception of Helena. This chapter explores the picture of imperial life in the late third and fourth centuries that this offers, and considers how accurate a picture that might be. The complicated political circumstances of the tetrarchy gave rise to an equally complex picture of imperial women, as wives or partners were put away and alliances forged through matrimony. Moving chronologically, we come first to Diocletian's wife, Prisca, whose name is given by Lactantius. Her background, however, is unknown and was almost certainly low-class, reflecting Diocletian's origins. Women were not used on Constantine's coins until Galerius had established himself as sole emperor. Bruun has suggested that Constantine used his coinage specifically to make associations with other rulers as they all jockeyed for rank and authority, man against man.
