Portraits of empresses and personifications

Initially, ancient Roman coins commonly portrayed an important deity or mythological scene. As Rome became an empire, however, the Imperial family rose to be the focus of every kind of public artistic expression, including coinage. By the second century CE, the 'first ladies' of ancient Rome began to replace goddesses on coins, such as Empress Faustina the Elder, seen on coin #158. Coins also featured empresses portraying goddesses rather than the goddesses themselves. The sheer number of coins with empresses on them shows the shift in the governmental mindset regarding the state and state religion.