Portrait statues as models for gender roles in Roman society

statues are characteristic products of Roman imperial society: they have been found in large numbers all over the Roman world and would have been displayed in a range of urban civic and sacred spaces, including cemeteries, from the late republic to the late empire. Such statues were honorific and/or commemorative and by definition represented people who might be considered worthy of emulation. As such they can be seen as role models for contemporary society. They expressed the salient characteristics of exemplary residents of the Roman empire, both male and female: inevitably those commemorated were overwhelmingly the rich and powerful, members of elite circles in towns throughout the Roman world. What might seem surprising is quite how many portrait statues of women there are: visit any major museum with a display of Roman sculpture, and the chances are that you will see as many female as male statues. The four pieces illustrated here from the Munich Glyptothek are fairly representative: a man in a toga dating to ca. a.d. 20-30 (fig. I);1 a nude statue of Domitian dating to A.D. 70-80 (fig. 2); two draped statues of women, one dated ca. a.d. 170 (fig. 3), the other in the "Ceres" type dated ca. a.d. 110-30 (fig. 4).2 The number of statues of women is perhaps unexpected, given that women played only a very minor role in the public life of Roman society they did not vote or hold magistracies and had a lesser role than men in religious affairs. Their position was socially and legally subordinate to that of men, yet they appear on an almost equal footing when it comes to commemoration in marble and the visibility of their images. For most statues we do not know the precise individual reason why they were erected, where they stood, or how they were displayed, but sufficient numbers have been found in a context or with an inscription to provide a general idea of how they were used. Many are portraits of emperors and empresses, which might be displayed in dynastic groups,3 and non-imperial families might also appear in this way: in the case of the family of Herodes Atticus, for example, portrait statues of his extended family appear alongside the imperial family in a display on the Nymphaeum at Olympia.4 Individuals might be granted the honor of a statue by the people in a public place in their city, and this applied to women as well as men. Such women were likely to have been patrons or benefactors, such as Plancia Magna in Perge or Eumachia in Pompeii.5 Statues were also commissioned to decorate the tombs and grave plots of