Empress Faustina the Younger

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She was named Faustina the Younger (125/130-175) in order to distinguish her from her mother Faustina the Elder. She was the wife of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the mother of the infamous Emperor Commodus. She used to be very severely judged by many historians who accused her to be a debauched and ambitious woman. Maybe wrongly...
She was considered to be a beautiful woman with an ardent temper. She enjoyed parties and entertainment, unlike her husband. Marcus Aurelius was indeed a pious and virtuous man, who had gathered around him a society of philosophers, in an almost monastic atmosphere. On the contrary, his wife attached more importance to the aristocratic values of elegance and distinction, and she did not understand his way of life.      

Marcus Aurelius paid no attention to birth, good manners or education but only to the merit of the person. In fact, people without any nobility or prestigious family, were appointed to the highest functions only because they were known to be honest and virtuous. He even married one of them, Claudius Pompeianus, to his daughter Lucilla. But his wife never understood this particularity of his character. She was young, probably loose, and maybe capricious. The sentences of her husband and his aversion for the Court

However, Marcus Aurelius loved her very much: "That I have such a wife, so obedient, and so affectionate, and so simple; (...) for all these things require the help of the gods and fortune." (Meditations, I, § 17). At her death, she received the divine honors and the town of Halala (a city in Cappadocia), where she died, was renamed Faustinopolis after her.
 

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Portrait of Faustina the Younger, Paris, Louvre Museum

A very similar bust is displayed in the Capitoline Museums in Rome; another one in the Louvre Museum represents the Empress as the Greek goddess Aphrodite. In fact, the parallel between the Empress and the Goddess of Beauty was unanimously accepted, even by her detractors.

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Bust of Faustina the Younger, Rome, Capitoline Museums