“Empress” at Rome

This chapter emphasizes that for Rome, the title “empress” is a term of convenience. The closest Latin equivalent to “empress” is ‘Augusta,’ which by the later first century CE became expected for an emperor’s wife, but was extended to other women of the imperial family. This chapter explains ‘Augusta’ by highlighting the evolving distinctions for powerful women from the Triumviral era of the Republic and the era of Augustus (especially for his wife Livia). It also traces the formation of the imperial household (domus), and the granting of divine honors to women, in both life and death. However, the prominence that members of Rome’s imperial family enjoyed had its own dangers: in the mid-first century CE, seven of the eight empresses met unfortunate ends. Later, when the emperor Domitian’s rule grew intolerable, his wife introduced another potent precedent for an empress—by helping to assassinate him in the year 96.