Faustina the Elder was the wife of Antoninus Pius, who had one of the most peaceful and harmonious reigns (and marriages) of any Roman emperor. He never ventured outside of Italy throughout his 23-year rule, and such a focus on the “homefront” of the empire is also paralleled in the attention paid to the family in the Antonine Age. Faustina and Antoninus Pius had a happy marriage, and she bore him four children. This was celebrated throughout the empire, and Faustina became associated with Ceres, the goddess of fertility, featured on the reverse of this coin. The goddess symbolically identified the empress and her family with hope for dynastic heirs, as well as encouraged general population increase, which the empire needed at the time. When Faustina the Elder died after three decades of joyful union, the emperor was said to be devastated. He deified her immediately, constructed a temple to her in the Roman forum, minted coins such as this aureus proclaiming her “Divine Faustina,” and never married again. He commemorated her virtue by continuing her philanthropic endeavors, instituting new alimenta (grain doles) and educational charities like the Puellae Faustinianae for orphan girls (“The Girls of Faustina”). KHK.