A Roman widow of whom nothing is known but the letter Jerome wrote the day she died.
All that is known of her stands in a letter from Jerome to Marcella, written in 384 the day after her death. He says she was a widow, wealthy, and that she led a community of consecrated women at Rome; that she gave up silk for sackcloth, took the last place among her companions, served those who served her, and hid herself so well that few knew who she had been. Jerome sets her burial against that of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, a pagan and consul designate, who died the same week in great pomp, and turns the question round: which of the two is now to be envied? It is a piece of rhetoric as much as of mourning, and it is the only source. Nothing remains of her but a portrait written by someone else.
A woman in dark dress and veil, a scroll or letter in hand; sometimes a length of silk cast off at her feet.