Saint Lucina

Pomponia Graecina (d. 83 AD) was a noble Roman woman of the first century who was related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the wife of Aulus Plautius, the general who led the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and was renowned as one of the few people who dared to publicly mourn the death of a kinswoman (Julia Livia, granddaughter of emperor Tiberius) killed by the Imperial family. It has been speculated that she was an early Christian. She is identified by some as Saint Lucina or Lucy, honoured by the Roman Catholic Church, who would have buried the bodies of martyrs Martinian and Processus. Pomponia's background is not certain, but can be reconstructed as follows. Her father was probably Gaius Pomponius Graecinus, who was suffect consul in 16 AD and a correspondent of Ovid. Graecinus' wife was Asinia, sister of Gaius Asinius Pollio, and through her Pomponia was related to the Imperial family. Asinia's father, Gaius Asinius Gallus, was consul in 8 BC, and her mother Vipsania, was the daughter of the general and politician Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. By her former husband, the future emperor Tiberius, Vipsania was also the mother of Drusus the Younger. Vipsania's half-siblings, from her father's marriage to Augustus' daughter Julia, included Agrippina the Elder, mother of the emperor Caligula and Agrippina the Younger, who was the mother of Nero and wife of Claudius. Other notable ancestors on her mother's side include the historian and senator Gaius Asinius Pollio, who was consul in 40 BC. Pomponia married Aulus Plautius (d. by 65 AD), the senator and general who led the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, for which he later received a military ovation, and who governed Roman Britain until 47 AD. A younger Aulus Plautius, probably their son, was murdered by the emperor Nero, supposedly because Nero's mother Agrippina had fallen in love with him and encouraged him to bid for the throne.