The Concept of Pietas and the Role of Imperial Women through the Coin Types of the Early Principate

The paper starts from the definition of pietas in the cultural, social, and political framework of the late Republican Rome, considering this individual or collective moral value in its multiple meanings of dutiful devotion towards gods, family and State (pietas erga deos / erga parentes aut coniunctos / erga patriam). Moving forward with the evolution of the concept at the beginning of the imperial age, when it became one of the main emperor’s virtues, the analysis therefore focuses on its strength connection also with some female members of the domus Augusta. In this regard, the paradigmatic representation of Livia in the coinage of the Tiberian period as well as the image of Domitia Longina on the reverse of coins issued in her name under Domitian allow to appreciate the new dynastic dimension of the ideal of pietas, which developed since the early Principate, in association with the ideological central role played by women in the dynamics of succession and legitimation of imperial power.

Keywords: Imperial ideology, Coin iconography, Pietas, Livia, Domitia Longina.