ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how images of the Flavian imperial women were deployed for defining the dynasty. Four overlapping aspects of the women’s private and simultaneously public roles are discussed: family or dynasty, exemplary womanhood, beauty or luxury, and divinity. While Vespasian did not include any female relative in his self-representation, his sons were the first systematically to integrate portraits of imperial women into official imagery. Titus sought alignment with his Julio-Claudian predecessors. His daughter’s dynastic role is predominantly framed through exemplary female virtues. Images of imperial women under Domitian emphasized divinity to support the emperor’s claim to a divine lineage. The portraits also responded to Julio-Claudian and non-imperial traditions of self-representation. Ultimately, the presence of female relatives became a core element of imperial imagery.
