The Strength of Roman Women Through Coins and a Feminist Critique From the Past to the Present

The work The strength of Roman women through coins and a feminist critique from the past to the present exposes the public image of Roman women such as Fulvia, Octavia, Livia, Agrippina Major and Agrippina Minor, spanning the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire (84 BC – AD 59), through examples of coins and written sources that exemplify their lives. It illustrates how these women improved their public image through tasks linked to the imperial family, Patronage, religion and imperial propaganda. The book covers the power and the places of action of women, since the “sexed habitus” could have marked the values between the genders. Both the material culture and the written sources analysed together were essential to prove this problematic, since the literature made the gender relations of the emperors and their wives very clear. Material culture, by demonstrating male power, also highlighted female power. The greatest importance of this work is to invite the reader to a reflection on the perception of the reality of the present, through an analytical approach to the improved conditions of Women’s Studies in Antiquity, with the aim of generating awareness and coherence in relation to current feminine factors as opposed to the existence of variety and similarity about the women of the past.