Based on a systematic study of all relevant coins, statues, inscriptions, honorary titles and funerary orations from the Julio-Claudian to the beginning of the Severan dynasties, the book investigates how female members of the Roman Imperial house were represented in public.

Although effectually installing a monarchy (the principate), Octavian/Augustus promulgated his accession to power and rule as a restoration of the republic (res publica restituta) after the civil wars. In such a context, framing the prominent position of the imperial family’s female members proved to be a difficult task. Any evocation of a monarchic dynasty such as the one the Greco-Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, Augustus’ major opponent, descended from, had to be avoided. Yet, the beginning of a new age asked for new forms of representation, including that of the imperial women. No political office could fully grasp the latter’s role. But the images defined their authority as role models of fecundity, chastity, piety, and/or beauty.

The study pays particular attention to the iconography and semantics of apparel, of divine or metaphoric attributes, of statues and statue types, and to the various media of representation including their different audiences. Comparison between representations of imperial and non-imperial women reveals a complex web of responses, rather than a simple trickle-down effect exerted by the former. During Augustus’ and Tiberius’ reign, the emperors’ female relatives appear in republican tradition, yet with subtle hints at exclusivity. With the principate becoming progressively institutionalized, assimilations to deities in Hellenistic fashion find their way into portraits of rulers and their female relatives. In the second century, under the Antonines, the visual representation of imperial and non-imperial elite women can barely be told apart. The images vigorously promote concordia between imperial husband and wife. Effigies of Iulia Domna, finally, show her in realms that were connoted male: she appears at sacrifice next to the emperor or in the garb of military deities.

The various visual and verbal sources thus attest to how traditional Roman republican and Hellenized appearance (especially the assimilation to deities) were balanced in different ways under each dynasty. In addition, all of the representations harked back in some way to the example set for Livia, wife of the first emperor. Despite all their differences, the images convey the same key concept: As parent of the emperor (parens Augusti, honorary title for Livia), an imperial woman is also a mother of the fatherland (mater patriae, honorary title for Iulia Domna).