Augustae

Please |help| us convert the |Dictionary of Roman Coins| from scans to text by typing the original text here. Please add updates or make corrections to the NumisWiki text version as appropriate.

AUGUSTAE, who were the wives of emperors are neither on their own coins nor on those of their husbands, ever called uxores, but always AVG or AVGVSTAE. It is, therefore, from the title bestowed upon them on the imperial coinage, that a valid argument may be drawn as to the fact of their relationship with the emperor. Vaillant, alluding to a silver coin of Julia Domna on which she is shown with the epigraph of Juno, says "that in order to surround the persons of empresses, with greater dignity and reverence, it had become the custom to assimilate them with the forms and attributes of goddesses, and to present them in their names to the people." - Empresses, analogous with the examples of the emperors, were called Matres Patriae (mothers of the country), Matres Senatus (mothers of the Senate), etc. On colonial coins the portraits of the Augustae were often represented as Genii Urbium, apparently to indicate that such colonies held their cities under the protection and patronage of these empresses.

Augustae also had the privilege of having their consecrated images carried in the carpenta (covered carts) on those public occassions, when the statues of the emperors were conveyed in the thensae, or state carriages. - The inscriptions of PIETAS, PVDICITIA, VIRTVS, etc. followed by AVG are often seen on the coins of the Augustae along with the appropriate types. "Thus there is scarcely a female of the Augustal house, who, though she might not possess a true claim to character for being a pious, modest and good woman, yet failed to make an ostentation of her piety, chastity and virtue. For this cause it was a favourite practice with them to have the figure of VESTA engraved on their coins, under whose image, as under the peculiar type of chastity, they thought fit to be represented before the public."

The series of Augustae, whose names and portraits are found on Roman coins (though not of every metal), from the reign of Augustus, who died in 14 A.D., to Basiliscus, brother-in-law of Leo I, who reigned 476 A.D., is as follows:-

LIVIA, wife of Augustus. Born circa 57 B.C.; Died 29 A.D.

ANTONIA, wife of Drusus Senior. Born c.39 B.C.; Died 38 A.D.

View whole page from the |Dictionary Of Roman Coins|