Melania the Younger sold estates across the Roman West and freed 8,000 slaves, and a later account says opponents tried to have her estates seized

Melania was born at Rome about 383. The Catholic Encyclopedia says she married her relative Pinianus at 13 out of obedience to her parents, and that their two children died young. Palladius, who knew her, says she then refused marital relations until Pinianus agreed to live in chastity, and renounced the world at about 20. Palladius says she sold her properties in Spain, Aquitania, Tarragona and Gaul and kept those in Sicily, Campania and Africa to fund monasteries. She sent gold and silver east in gifts of 10,000 to 15,000 pieces. She freed 8,000 slaves who wanted freedom; those who did not chose to stay with her brother, who took them for three pieces of money each. Later accounts say opponents, with the Senate's secret help, tried to have her remaining estates seized for the treasury, and that the prefect Pompeianus was killed by a crowd in a bread riot before he could proclaim it^†. They say Serena and the emperor Honorius ordered the estates sold by provincial officials and the money paid to the couple. She left Rome in 408, went to Africa in 410 and to Jerusalem in 417, and died there on 31 December 439.