Sabina Earrings

These classic dome-shaped earrings are subtle yet alluring and unique, featuring the distinctive and characteristic Roman hook at the back. They are inspired by a pair found in the excavations of the Roman town of Herculaneum, and date to before AD 79.

Vibia Sabina (AD 83 - 136) was the Roman empress married to the emperor Hadrian. She was widely respected, and was a very public face for Rome, literally - her portrait appeared on more coins than any other female member of the imperial house. She also accumulated many public honors, such as the Roman imperi title Augusta, given to empresses and honored women of the imperial family. She was, too, deified after her death. In all, her high standing and regard was only rivaled by the earlier empress Livia, wife of Augustus.

Sabina was the best-traveled of the empresses, as well, accompanying her husband on his extensive visits to the Roman territories. On their trip to Egypt in AD 130, the two were accompanied by her companion, the poet Julia Balbilla, who wrote a series of epigrams about the occasion. These were inscribed on the Memnon colossus in Egyptian Thebes, a colossal statue originally built to honor the Egyptian king Amenhotep III around 1400 BC, but by Hadrian's time, associated with Memnon, the mythical king of Ethiopia, killed by Achiles at Troy.

In her poetry, Balbilla describes Sabina as noble (29.4), but also writes of her beauty (30.1): "Yesterday Memnon received [Hadrian's] wife in silence, so that the beautiful Sabina might come back here again."