IMAGES of RELIGION

GODDESSES

• Ceres (Demeter)
• Diana (Artemis)
• Fortuna (Tyche)
  • Fortuna: a silver statuette of the goddess crowned, with gilt traces; she holds a cornucopia in her left hand, her right arm is lost. Roman, 200-225 CE. London. British Museum.
• Isis
  • Isis: marble statue of the Egyptian goddess holding a sistrum. Found in Tivoli, 117-138 CE. Side view, Head Detail. Rome, Palazzo Nuovo.
  • Isis: marble statue of the goddess holding n her left hand a bucket (situla) used to contain sacred Nile water for the rituals. On the wall is a reconstruction drawing of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii showing rituals in progress. Roman, 120-150 CE. London, British Museum.
  • Isis Statuette: bronze, Roman, 50-100 CE. London, British Museum.
  • Isis Statuette: silver with syncretic religious symbolism: attributes of Isis (uraeus--cobra--headdress, small bucket on arm) and Fortuna (ship's rudder). Roman, 1st century CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
  • Isis-Aprodite: painted terracotta votive figure, crowned and nude, a syncretic icon of Egyptian Greco-Roman worship, 2nd century CE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Juno (Hera)
  • Barberini Juno: a Roman copy of a Greek cult statue; the goddess holds a scepter and a patera for pouring libations. Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Magna Mater (Cybele)
  • Cybele enthroned, a marble statue of a Roman matrona posed as the Great Mother. Mid-1st century CE. Santa Monica, Getty Museum.
  • Cybele in a chariot drawn by lions (bronze fountain s Sculpture). Side. Detail. Roman, 2nd half 2nd century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Minerva (Athena)
• Proserpina (Persephone)
  • Hades stealing Persephone fragment of a terracotta votive relief. South Italian, Locrian, 470-60 BCE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Pudicitia
  • Personified Female Modesty on a denarius, seated with a scepter in her left hand, her right hand modestly covering her breast. 207-209 CE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
• Roma -- Italia -- Tellus (Gaia)
  • Italia/Tellus with Romulus and Remus (?): marble relief from the Ara Pacis showing symbols of fertility, human, vegetal, and animal in an environment favored by the gods. Rear panel of the altar. Campus Martius, Rome, dedicated by the Senate in honor of Augustus' safe return from campaign on 30 January 9 BCE.
  • Roma/Virtus: bronze statuette whose identity is unclear because her attributes are lost. If she is the Goddess Roma, she would hold Victory in her outstretched right hand; if Virtus, she would hold a sword. Roman, 50-75 CE. Malibu, Getty Villa.
• Salus (Hygeia)
  • Bronze Hygeia figurine. Sacrificing, the goddess of health wears a headdress with fillets; she holds a snake on her right arm and in her left hand a libation dish. Roman, 1st century CE. London. British Museum.
• Venus (Aphrodite)
  • Aphrodite Pudica: life size marble statue, signed by sculptor Menophantos. Roman, 1st century BCE. Rome, Palazzo Massimo.
  • Medallion showing the goddess Aphrodite at her toilette, assisted by her son Eros and an elegantly dressed young girl (Psyche?). In gilded silver relief, it is incised around the rim with symbols associated with love and beauty: a fan, a flower, a butterfly, a bird, grasshopper, and lyre. Taranto, 300-200 BCE London, British Museum.
• Vesta (Hestia)
  • Vesta, goddess of the hearth, stands beside an altar with a burning flame, holding in her right hand a simpulum (ladle for pouring wine at sacrifices), on her left shoulder the Palladium Aeneas brought from Troy to Rome and deposited in the Temple of Vesta. It is the reverse of a sestertius of Lucilla, daughter of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger. Mint of Rome, 164-166 CE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
  • Gold aureus with veiled head of Vesta, minted by Caesar; inscription: C CAESAR COS TER (consul for the third time). Rome, 46 BCE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Victoria (Nike)
• Other:
  • Feronia: goddess worshipped particularly by freedpersons; votive bronze plaque dedicated by Hedone, Greek maid of M. Crassus, inscribed: HEDONE/ M. CRASSI ANCILLA/ FERONIAE V[otum]S[olvit] L[ibens] M[erito]. Roman, 2nd century CE. London, British Museum.
  • Mother Goddesses (Romano-Celtic): relief of three matronae with large headresses holding baskets of fruit and bread; family of dedicator, Q. Vettius Severus, in background. Roman Bonn, mid-2-3rd Century CE. Rheinisches Landesmuseum.
  • Syncretic Statuette of a goddess in bronze showing attributes of Isis, Minerva, and Fortuna. From Cyprus (?). Roman, 2nd century CE. London, British Museum.
  • Tanit: terracotta half-lifesize figure of the Punic goddess of the moon, patron of Carthage, wearing a crown, a necklace of glass paste beads graduated in size, and earrings of gold; her arms are articulated; she is dressed in the Greek style. 5th-4th century BCE. From necropolis Puig des Molins (Ibiza, Spain, settled by the Phoenecians in 650 BCE). Barcelona, Archaeological Museum.

PRIESTESSES

• Vestal? a mature female portrait head in marble; together with a stern expression, she wears a headband under her veil and a band around her throat (side). Roman, 49 BCE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Credits: Ann Raia, 2006.
• Vestals in Procession: a plaster reproduction of the marble interior altar relief from the Ara Pacis showing the six Vestal Virgins in procession to the altar. Rome and EUR, 13-9 BCE.
• Vestals Banqueting: fragment perhaps from the interior altar relief of the Ara Pacis; the male may be the Pontifex Maximus. Late 1st century BCE. Rome, Museo Montemartini (Capitoline Museums).
• Priestess of Demeter: stele relief of the priestess accompanied by two tiny assistants, a woman holding a tall flaming torch and a young girl holding a ritual object. Found in Smyrna, 2nd half 2nd century BCE. Berlin, Pergamon Museum.
• Bronze Priestess A votive statuette of a priestess wearing a headdress and pouring a libation from a phiale. Found near Sanctuary of Diana Nemi. Etrusco-Latin, 200-100 BCE. London. British Museum.
• Priestess: statue of a woman holding a round container with draped hands, found in the Villa Adriana, Tivoli. From a 2nd century BCE original. Rome, Palazzo Nuovo.
• Priestess wearing a headdress and pouring a libation from a phiale; bronze votive statuette found near Sanctuary of Diana Nemi. Etrusco-Latin, 200-100 BCE. London, British Museum.
• Relief of the myth of Alcestis and Admetis from the sarcophagus of Metilia Acte, priestess of Magna Mater in Ostia and her husband C. Junius Euhodus. 2nd century CE. Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Sosibia depicted on a grave stele as a devotee or priestess of Isis, holding a sistrum and bucket; Greek inscription: "Sosibia [daughter of] Euboios of Kephissia." Roman, from Attica, 160-170 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Isis Worshipper: terracotta fragment of a female devotee of Isis shaking the sistrum, the sacred rattle. Roman, made in Egypt, c. 50 BCE - 50 CE. London, British Museum.
• Young Priestess: the rolled ribbon on this portrait head indicates that she was a priestess, despite her young age. Roman, from Greece (probably Corinth), 100-140 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Woman in a Headdress: this statue of an elderly Roman, woman shows her performing a sacrifice; she may have been a priestess. c. 135-140 CE. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
• Marble Relief: a priestess touches the head of a suckling infant; the temple pediment in the background suggests a religious rite. Rome, Vatican Museum.
• Altar Relief: dedicated by the priestess Claudia Syntyche, the altar relief depicts Claudia Quinta (see Ovid, Fasti 4.247-348), using an infula ( sacred band) tied to the ship's prow to pull the ship Salvia carrying the statue of the Magna Mater (Cybele) which was brought from Phrygia in Asia Minor. Detail of the inscription. 1st century CE. Rome, Montemartini Museum.
• Eumachia: replica of her statue in the building erected by Eumachia in the Forum at Pompeii and found there. The inscription reads: “The fullers [dedicated this statue] to Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess.” 1st century CE.
• Isis Plaque: the goddess or a priestess of her cult is engraved on a bone decoration from a casket or piece of furniture of the 1st century CE. London, British Museum.
• Portrait Statue in marble of a priestess heavily draped in a stola and palla, wearing a laurel wreath, based on images of Livia, wife of Augustus and mother of Tiberius, c. 20-50 CE. London, British Museum.
• Livia Cameo: holding a bust of the deified Augustus, Livia is depicted on this onyx cameo with the attributes of several goddesses: her mural crown suggests Fortuna/Tyche, the poppies and wheat in her hand suggest Ceres, the shield or tympanum, decorated with a lion, and her seated pose suggest the Great Mother Cybele, the gown slipping off her shoulder suggests Venus Genetrix. In his will Augustus adopted Livia into his family as Julia Augusta and made her the priestess of his cult. Roman, after 14 CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

RITUALS, RITUAL IMPLEMENTS

• Matronae in prayer: a bronze coin showing Domitian standing before a temple, dictating to the Roman matrons a prayer to the goddess Juno. Rome, issue celebrating the Secular Games, 88 CE. London, British Museum.
• Funeral Procession: fresco of a procession toward the tomb of medicus found at the Porta Capena, Rome; on the right, priestesses carry funerary implements, on the left are his wife, daughter, and other family members. Last half of 1st century BCE. Paris, Louvre Museum.
• Dionysian Mysteries: in this detail of a room fresco depicting the mysteries associated with Dionysus, an older woman holding a rolled scroll looks down at a young girl reading a ritual text. Roman, 1st century CE. Pompeii, House of the Mysteries.
• Ara Pacis: marble relief from the southern side of the altar of a veiled female member of the imperial family standing behind Agrippa and participating in the procession on the day of consecration (4 July 13 BCE). Campus Martius, Rome, dedicated by the Senate on 30 January 9 BCE.
• Terracotta Relief: a garlanded priest makes a sacrifice before a statue of Cybele. From Isola Sacra Cemetary, 3rd century CE. Ostia Museum.
• Apotheosis of Sabina marble relief of the emperor Hadrian assisting at the funeral pyre as his wife ascends to heaven on the shoulders of a Nike. From Arco di Portogallo. 2nd century CE. Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori.
• Altar: small votive model in terracotta. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Sistrum of bronze with the head of Hathor (a nineteenth-century copy of an ancient sistrum in the Hague). The sistrum was a rattle used in the worshop of Egyptian goddesses, especially Isis and Hathor. Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum.
• Bronze Sistrum (rattle) of Isis. Egyptian. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
• Maenad mask of bronze, possibly a furniture decoration. Roman, 1st CE. London. British Museum.

MONUMENTS

• Marble Altar ("Altar of the Lares"): Augustus in the center, sacrificing to the Lares Compitales with Julia or Livia on the right and Gaius Caesar on the left. End 1st century BCE. Florence, Uffizi Museum.
• Marble Altar dedicated to Jupiter, Sun, Serapis. Relief 1 Priestess annoints bull for sacrifice. Relief 2 Soldier on bull rides toward goddess Italia (?), walled precinct in background. Relief 3 Victory hails goddess Roma beside tropaeum. Found on Via Appia. Rome, Capitoline Museum (Nuovo). 3rd century CE.
• Veiled woman (priestess?) standing beside a garlanded altar with attendants, participating in the purification of a sacrificial bull; relief on the front of a marble altar perhaps from the sanctuary of Diana at Nemi. c. 200 CE. Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
• Temple of Magna Mater: marble relief of the sacrificial procession before the temple. Image Source: Petersen, 1902, Ara Pacis Augustae.

All images are courtesy of the VRoma Project's Image Archive.

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Ann R. Raia and Judith Lynn Sebesta