By anonymous - (User:Mbzt), 2012, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18368658
Most widely known as Fausta, Flavia Maxima Fausta was born sometime between 289 to the end of the 290s CE in Rome, Italy, and was the daughter of Emperor Maximan and Eutropia, Records that would have recorded her birth have not been found, nor is her age alluded to in records of her that we have. She was married to Emperor Constantine I in order to solidify the alliance that created the Tetrarchy on 31 March 307, after Constantine divorced or put aside his wife or his concubine Minervina, who was the mother of his son Crispus.
During her time as Constantine's wife, she had five children, three boys who would all go on to be emperor, and two daughters. Until 324, she 'held the title of nobilissima femina', which was 'one of the highest imperial titles in the late Roman and Byzantine empires'. In 324, she gained enough regard to became Constantine's augusta, the highest title in the Roman Empire. Exactly why this took so long is uncertain as Constantine became emperor in 306.
The events of 326 leading up to both Crispus' and Fausta's deaths are unclear. By some accounts, Fausta and Crispus were set against each other, with Fausta pushing Constantine to execute his son. After this, Helena, Constantine's mother, 'blamed him out of excessive grief for her grandson', so he locked Fausta in 'overheated baths and killed her'. In other accounts, adultery between mother and son-in-law was the cause of the two deaths, though with Crispus being executed for the crime of rape and the Fausta's death following the same narrative as the other version. Some writers think that Constantine killed Fausta for bearing false witness about the rape, but most think if this were the case, then the order of damnatio memoriae, the scrubbing of the historical record of any mention of a person, would have been reversed for Crispus instead of being allowed to stand. Julian, a later emperor, did praise Fausta in a pangyric, or a 'formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person' to Constantius II, her son. Beyond that, 'there is no other evidence of her memory being rehabilitated'.