Imperial Women’s Mark on the City of Rome

Abstract

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.