From Goddesses to Virtues

This article examines female representations on coins recovered from controlled archaeological contexts at Sardis, in western Anatolia, spanning the Roman Imperial period and Late Antiquity. Drawing primarily on the numismatic catalogue published by the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis (Evans, 2018), the study analyzes a corpus of 83 coins bearing female imagery, including goddesses, imperial women, and personifications of abstract virtues. By combining typological and iconographic analysis with archaeological and historical contextualization, the article investigates how female figures functioned as vehicles of civic identity, dynastic legitimacy, and imperial ideology. The comparison between Roman provincial coinage and centrally produced Late Antique imperial issues reveals both continuity and transformation in the visual language of coinage. While in the High Empire female figures—whether divine or historical—could occupy the obverse and participate directly in articulations of civic and dynastic authority, Late Antique coinage increasingly confined female imagery to the reverse, where standardized personifications such as Victoria, Securitas, and Spes conveyed moral and ideological messages aligned with imperial virtues. Overall, the Sardian numismatic evidence demonstrates how gendered imagery on coinage operated as a dynamic visual language, mediating authority, identity, and ideology across periods of significant political and cultural transformation.