Imperial Women on Coins and in Roman Cult

After an opening focus on Caligula’s three sisters Drusilla, Agrippina the Younger, and Julia Livilla, the first living women figured and identified on centrally struck coins, the chapter addresses coins as evidence for imperial women, and the connections of imperial women to Rome’s public religion and religious culture. Women themselves determined neither their numismatic depictions, nor the choice of deity or abstraction for the reverse of a portrait coin. Further examination delves into imperial women and imperial cult, as priestesses and as recipients of cult; women in oaths and vows; and reports linking them with Judaism and Christianity. Religion is the arena in which imperial women receive the most visibility and honor, but even here they had little agency and were sidelined.

Introduction: Subjects and Sources

This chapter poses the central question: If the Roman princeps was first among equals, what position and visibility did an imperial woman have? The chapter provides some fundamental definitions, including of “imperial woman,” Augusta, and principate, and points to the laws and customs inhibiting Roman women’s activities and choices. It substantiates the importance of women for the imperial image, for legitimacy in the principate, and for the imperial court. After laying out the general plan of the book, the chapter points out deficiencies and biases of the evidence, especially of Tacitus and other literary sources, and clarifies how the book references inscriptions, coins, and other ancient material. Guidance is given for names, locations, and the like.

Conclusions: Agency and Constraints

The extant evidence for imperial women reveals their general powerlessness and silence, starkly contrasting with anecdotes about their abuse of resources, influence, and privilege. Their relation to the emperor put them at the center of power, yet their gender, and the princeps’ dominance, prohibited them from exercising control. At the principate’s beginning, some disclosed their resources through patronage or personal adornment. Such displays were increasingly censured. Imperial women’s diminishing visibility in Rome, including at religious functions, paradoxically correlates with their increasing portrayal on central coinage. Although their roles in Rome’s imperial cult had positive effects for women in the empire, their own gains are harder to detect and their personal agency cannot be discerned in the available sources. Their investigation, however, uncovers a remarkable history that illuminates individuals and the principate as a whole, including its obstinate misogyny.

Imperial Women’s Mark on the City of Rome

Agrippina’s public veneration by conquered Britons outside Rome’s Praetorian camp opens this chapter about the imprint imperial women made on the city of Rome through their movements and presence, and through enduring monuments and statues, whether dedicated by or to them but carrying their names and memory. Imperial women’s public presence in Rome generally is poorly documented, with Agrippina and Livia the most frequently recorded, and at times controversial, especially for Octavia and Livia. The women’s public activities and visibility are discussed thematically (e.g., appearances in funerals and triumphs); their monuments by location. The evidence helps personalize individual women, hinting at their lives and reception, even as the evaluation contributes to the “spatial” study of Roman history and archaeology. Over the centuries imperial women evidently had diminishing visibility in Rome, in contrast to their apparently increasing prominence elsewhere, as Plotina in Athens.

Imperial Women within the Imperial Family

Starting with Faustina the Younger, whose fecundity and imperial ties suggest her as a model imperial woman, this chapter explores the imperial domus—house, household, family—and women’s roles within it from Augustus through the Severans. That domus was a cornerstone of Augustus’ new principate, becoming ever more important during the principate. Flavian dynastic emphasis is noted, as is the growing attention to family in the motherless imperial families of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian. A high point comes with Faustina the Elder and Faustina the Younger, but familial emphasis continues under the Severans. The chapter also discusses nontraditional imperial families, including “concubines” and the same-sex relationship of Hadrian with Antinous, and various terms for the imperial house such as domus divina. The chapter reveals both that “the imperial family” was a cornerstone of the principate, but that it was hard for imperial women to gain individual visibility within that construct.

Crimes and Punishments of Imperial Women

Discussion of Domitia Longina, who survived allegations of adultery, Domitian’s divorce and (re)marriage, and his assassination, opens this chapter on imperial women and Roman law. Moving from Ulpian’s statement about legal rights and privileges of emperors and the Augusta, it covers norms and regulations for imperial women’s sexuality, particularly marriage and divorce, as well as crimes and punishments of imperial women, including the adultery cases and sentences of Julia the Elder in 2 BCE and Julia the Younger in 8 CE that Tacitus obliquely ties to treason. Reviewing finally imperial women’s fates at the deaths of their husband or other relative as emperor, the chapter concludes that inclusion in the imperial family brought women greater liability, but no immunity or impunity.

Models and Exemplars: Statues of Imperial Women

Starting with the over-life-size greywacke statue of Agrippina the Younger from the Caelian, this chapter explores imperial women’s representation through sculpture and relief, and the associated topic of their exemplarity. Topics include the history and status of women’s statues in Rome, damnatio memoriae, and body types for female standing statues. The Caelian statue of Agrippina is contrasted to three other installations once featuring her in Rome; their epigraphic remains suggest that the display of imperial women’s statues could vary greatly even while including the males of the family. The concluding discussion of Matidia the Younger’s standing statue from Suessa Aurunca underscores the apparent blandness characterizing most imperial women’s imaging. Perhaps more than others, this chapter underlines imperial women’s connections with other Roman females sharing a privileged background.

Imperial Women Abroad, and with the Military

Beginning with the extraordinary military associations of Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, Julia Soaemias, and Julia Mamaea, this chapter explores the interrelated themes of imperial women’s reported links with Rome’s military, and the issue of their movements abroad. Despite the constant pronounced bias against any woman mixing with Rome’s armed forces or provincial administration, women are sporadically but ever more attested in military settings such as camps and barracks, and even in armed conflict. This applies to non-imperial as well as imperial women, as is clear from archaeology and documentation. By the time of Domna and other Severans, women accompanied the imperial entourage unchallenged, even if decried by authors. The growing ritual of the imperial court, the increasing importance of the imperial family as a whole, and the mounting necessity for the emperor to inspect provinces and armies personally encouraged imperial women to travel more as the principate evolved.

Rome’s Imperial Women and Rome’s Imperial Power

Livia’s involvement in the case of L. Piso against Urgulania opens this investigation into the powers imperial women were granted or thought to enjoy. Context is set by comparing women considered powerful in the Republic, foreign queens, and the few non-imperial elite women noted in Rome of the principate. Historiography reflects the customs and laws affecting Roman women generally, including prohibition from politics, the military, and legal advocacy for another; patria potestas; and tutela mulierum. Although imperial women usually controlled their own financial resources, such as brickyards, dwellings, and patronage, their self-restraint and modesty were ideals, as seen in the Senatus Consultum de Pisone patre. Octavia and Livia received special grants in 35 BCE; Livia, more honors in 9 BCE, and more in 14 CE, including the title Augusta. The chapter concludes that imperial women had no institutional powers after these early exceptional dispensations accorded to Octavia and Livia.