ABSTRACT
Livia’s socially and politically potent visual image, composed of gender-based image elements, became a facet of the ideology of imperial power conveyed by Livia’s ruling male relatives and their supporters. Even though Livia did not fit into, and was on the margins of, the official power hierarchy of her male relatives, she did exude a multi-faceted power best explained through the theoretical framework of heterarchy, which considers power to be a meshwork of social variables, as opposed to a top-down hierarchy where such variables are ranked one on top of the other. Such an approach will reveal that Livia’s images on coins were more than just symbols exploited by men to communicate their own power and right to rule, but that they were also potent symbols of Livia’s own legitimate power and status. This chapter reveals how messages of power and gender roles, as communicated by coins, supported the power ideologies of the ruling Roman imperial family.
