Helena, Flavia Julia
2. Daughter of Constantine the Great and Fausta, was given in marriage by her brother Constantius to her cousin Julian the Apostate, when the latter was nominated Caesar, towards the end of A. D. 355. She survived the union for five years only, until A. D. 360, having borne one child, a boy, which died immediately after its birth. Her sterility, as well as the fate of this solitary infant, were ascribed, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, to the guilty arts of her sister-in-law, the empress Eusebia. (Amm. Marc. 15.8.18, 16.10.18, 21.1.5.)
The medals belonging to this epoch which bear the name of Helena are peculiarly embarrassing, since, in most cases, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to decide which belong to Helena the wife of Chlorus, which to Helena the wife of Julian, and which to Helena the wife of Crispus. The designation appears upon the obverses under four forms: 1. FL. JUL. HELENAE. AUG.; 2. FLAVIA or FL. HELENA. AUGUSTA; 3. HELENA. N. F. (Nobilis Femina); 4. HELENA FL. MAX. (Helena Flavia Maxima).
The dissertation of Eckhel, vol. viii. p. 143, gives within a short compass the substance of the different theories which have been broached from time to time by writers upon these topics. [W.R]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.