Francesca Cenerini
Department of Ancient History, Faculty of Literature and Philosophy, University of Bologna, I
Keywords:
Augustae , Poppaea , Faustina Minor, Iscriptions, Popular favour
Abstract
We basically have a double portrait of Augustae women, which means those who belonged to domus Augusta. Ancient historians mostly describe them as thirsty of power and obsessed by sexual desire. Whereas the coins, the iconography and the official inscriptions gave us a propagandist image, focused especially on the fact that the Augusta is supposed to give an heir to the Emperor. The purpose of this work is to analyze the Augustae’s eventual “popular” success. In order to do it, it was firstly catalogued all the epigraphic material useful for this type of research. These inscriptions are not many and, at present state of the research, they let us analyze the popular favour of two Augustae: the acclamations written on Pompei walls for Poppea, Nerone’s wife, and Faustina Minore’s role as marriage guarantor and protector.
