ABSTRACT
In cinema powerful women from ancient times are often characterized in a stereotypical and clichéd way, with a focus on their appearance and bad character traits. Two case studies about how the first and the seventh Roman empresses, Livia and Poppaea, are represented in paradigmatic movies and on TV prove that Livia—may her monarchic representation in I, Claudius (1937) be ever so wisely chosen—is criminalized in the TV show of the 1970s, whereas the Poppaea of The Sign of the Cross (1932) is eroticized. Although those filmic portrayals are of different eras, they can be read as cautionary tales aiming to criticize different stages of women’s liberation at the time when the films were produced and received. Even a brief comparison with the depiction of powerful empresses of late ancient times confirms that result: films of the 1950s and 1960s present them more as dancing seductresses or faithful wives than in the role of a ruler. By the process of repeating well-known formulas the movie business intends the viewers to recognize the topics. Therefore, the images of cruel and cute empresses are deeply inscribed into the cultural memory.
