Imperial women's strength through coins

• Grant number: 20/06911-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: March 29, 2022
• End date: March 14, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Vagner Carvalheiro Porto
• Grantee: Tais Pagoto Bélo
• Supervisor: Francois de Callatay
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
• Associated to the scholarship: 19/06953-6 - Imperial Woman's Strength Through Coins, BP.PD

Abstract

This work will analyze the public image of Roman imperial women through coins, along the Julius-Claudian family, when the Principality was established under the power of Augustus (27 BC) until the death of Nero (68 AD). In this period, which involved women of five generations, it will be shown how these characters managed to improve their visibility in public life, with tasks related to the imperial family, which led to the Patronage and consequently to self-propaganda, encompassing their own images in coins, which was a way to demonstrate power. Women of that time were restricted to a private and domestic life due to the existence of the patria potestas, which was significant and marked the father's power relations within the Roman family, classifying the woman as unequal to the man. The conquest of women in having their names remembered, through statues, plaques, and coins was something recent at the end of the Republic and beginning of the Empire, and was established through the Patronage. The memory of the person, in this way, was something important and could reverberate for generations in the family. Coins with representations of imperial women make it possible not only to chronologically reconstruct their existence in history, but also to demonstrate that they were active in public life and had power to obtain the coinage of their images. In this context, by using coins as a material source, this work will have as its purpose the demonstration of the public force that these imperial women conquered, even though they were under the potestas of their fathers, husbands or brothers. (AU)