Vibia Sabina: Empress, Wife of Hadrian
Forgotten Women of History
Vibia Sabina, Hadrian’s empress, and later goddess
I bet that if you think of Emperor Hadrian, you think about his great wall in the north of England. Possibly you might think of the Roman decadence of villas and statues made from marble. Yet beside him, often erased from the narrative, stood Vibia Sabina, his wife and Rome’s empress for more than four decades.
Her likeness survives on hundreds of coins, but her voice does not. She remains one of antiquity’s most silent women.
Who Was Vibia Sabina?
Born around 83 CE, Sabina was the grand-niece of Emperor Trajan and married to his ward, Hadrian, in a match arranged for dynastic strength. As Hadrian rose to rule the empire, Sabina became Augusta , the Empress of Rome.
She travelled with him across the empire, from Britain to Egypt, enduring endless journeys, political ceremony, and a famously difficult marriage. Ancient historians suggest their union was loveless; some whisper she took lovers, others that Hadrian neglected her completely.
Yet Sabina’s presence appears everywhere in Hadrian’s legacy; in statues, temples, and the imperial cult. She was the face of empire, a woman whose image represented stability while her personal life was anything but.
What She Did, or May Have Done
History paints Sabina as aloof, but fragments reveal subtle influence.
She was honoured with public games and altars during Hadrian’s lifetime, which was rare for an empress before her husband’s death.
She may have sponsored civic works and patronized artists; inscriptions in Greece and Asia Minor record dedications in her name.
Her title Augusta symbolized not merely wifely virtue but imperial legitimacy, for her existence helped cement Hadrian’s claim.
Ancient gossip, written almost entirely by men, accused her of misery and resentment. The Historia Augusta claims she was “driven to despair” by Hadrian’s temper and his devotion to his male companion Antinous. Whether this is moralizing fiction or truth, it reminds us how female endurance is often misread as silence.
Yet, after her death in 136 CE, Hadrian deified her. Temples rose in her name, and coins were struck bearing the inscription Diva Sabina: the deified Sabina.
The irony lingers: in life, her voice was muted; in death, she became divine.
Vibia Sabina in Fiction: Empress of the Seven Hills by Kate Quinn
Empress of the Seven Hills by Kate Quinn
In her vivid novel Empress of the Seven Hills, bestselling author Kate Quinn re-creates the world of Hadrian’s Rome through politics, passion, and power.
While the story centres on Sabina’s contemporaries, Sabina herself appears as a complex, intelligent woman navigating the constraints of imperial life, and torn between loyalty and self-preservation.
Quinn’s depiction restores humanity to the woman history reduced to marble, portraying an empress whose poise masked loneliness and quiet defiance. Readers see glimpses of a woman who learns to wield influence where she can, even as her husband’s ambitions consume the empire.
Why She Matters Today
Vibia Sabina’s story reminds us that power is not always loud. Some women rule through survival, through grace under scrutiny, through endurance in the shadow of greatness.
She lived in a gilded cage, yet her image became eternal. Coins, statues, and novels now echo the truth that behind every empire’s grandeur stands a woman history tried to forget.
She is not merely “Hadrian’s wife.” She is Sabina, a goddess we’ll never truly know.
Next Wednesday, another forgotten woman of history.