OUP (2014) h/b 248pp £41.99 (ISBN 9780195379419)
Despite the difficulty of unsatisfactory sources and gender stereotypes, L. works hard to offer to her readers a scrupulous revaluation of the lives of two imperial women of the Antonine period: Faustina I (c. 97-140 AD), wife of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, and her daughter Faustina II (130-175 AD), wife of Marcus Aurelius. L. studies and interprets a wide range of sources and anecdotes attached to the names of the two Faustinas.
The central thesis of her book is that imperial women of the Antonine age were a vital part of the imperial family’s public face and dynasty. L. seeks to explore, whenever possible, what kind of role these two women had in the power struggles between the members of the imperial family and their court. The Antonines struggled hard to portray themselves as the bastions of enlightenment and imperial concordia and centred their propaganda (following in the footsteps of Augustus) on the ideal of marital harmony. L. shows, with a great deal of evidence, how in less than a century imperial women gained an unprecedented power to influence both military and political agenda. The two Faustinae were prolific in providing their families with plenty of descendants (Faustina I had four children, Faustina II at least twelve!) and they were as influential as Messalina or Agrippina in leading or averting court intrigues.
However, unlike their predecessors, they were firmly placed at the core of the imperial propaganda machine: Faustina I accompanied the emperor Pius in his postings abroad as a Roman official; she was granted the honorific titles of Diva and Augusta on imperial coins and inscriptions and, before her death, she succeeded to establish an alimentary scheme for the support of girls, the ‘Faustinian Girls’. Faustina II had unprecedented honours: she was given the right to coin and received the title mater castrorum, as protector of the army headquarters. Their success did not demise after their deaths since Faustina I was deified by the senate and a temple was built in Rome to honour Faustina II. Faustina II became also a fashion icon: her hairstyle, as it appears on numerous coins of that time, was imitated by many women of the Severi.
Despite its brevity, this book would be of great interest to readers and students of Roman society, imperial propaganda and gender studies. The book has been meticulously edited and equipped with several appendixes and detailed notes.
Roberto Chiappiniello—St Mary’s Calne