Bassianus

1. A Roman of distinction selected by Constantine the Great as the husband of his sister Anastasia, and destined for the rank of Caesar and the government of Italy, although probably never actually invested with these dignities. For, while negotiations were pending with Licinius respecting the ratification of this arrangement, it was discovered that the last-named prince had been secretly tampering with Bassianus, and had persuaded him to form a treasonable plot against his brother-in-law and benefactor. Constantine promptly executed vengeance on the traitor, and the discovery of the perfidy meditated by his colleague led to a war, the result of which is recounted elsewhere. [Constantinus.] The whole history of this intrigue, so interesting and important on account of the momentous consequences to which it eventually led, is extremely obscure, and depends almost exclusively upon the anonymous fragment appended by Valesius to his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus.

2. A Phoenician of humble extraction, who nevertheless numbered among his lineal descendants, in the three generations which followed immediately after him, four emperors and four Augustae, -- Caracalla, Geta, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, Julia Soemias, and Julia Mamaea, besides having an emperor (Sept. Severus) for his son-in-law. From him Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus all bore the name of Bassianus; and we find his grand-daughter Julia Soemias entitled Bassiana in a remarkable bilingual inscription discovered at Velitrae and published with a dissertation at Rome in 1765. (Aurelius Victor, Epit. 100.21, has preserved his name; and from an expression used by Dio Cassius, 78.24, with regard to Julia Domna, we infer his station in life. See also the genealogical table prefixed to the article Caracalla.) [W.R]