1993/01/01 by Marleen B. Flory · 3 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Classical Antiquity Studies #Classical Studies and Legal History #Historical and Religious Studies of Rome
paper · doi:10.2307/284333
openalex publication_date 1993/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/04
Cassius Dio tells us that in 35 B.C., probably by senatus consultum, Octavian had public statues granted to his sister Octavia and his wife Livia.1 Dio also records a senatorial decree of public statues to Livia in 9 B.C. to console her for the death of her younger son Drusus in that same year (55.2.5). Since these two grants occur at the very first stages of the new Imperial world, they are significant for the history of the practice of erecting public statues to important Roman women in the Imperial period. The grant of 35 B.C. marks a striking innovation in Rome, for we can trace only a single precedent: a public statue erected to Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, although the people, not the Senate, voted the honor. The purpose of this paper is to construct a history of the first examples of publicly voted statues for women in early Imperial Rome and to discuss the social context in which such statues first became possible. I will first summarize the history of public, honorific statues for women