Totally Rome
Women in Roman history
Vestal Virgins, empresses and Renaissance patrons — the women whose influence is often left out of the standard telling.
The Vestal Virgins
Six priestesses tasked with keeping Rome's sacred flame perpetually burning, the Vestals held a uniquely powerful position for women in Roman society — they could own property, testify in court, and pardon condemned criminals they encountered by chance. Their House (Atrium Vestae) in the Roman Forum, with its courtyard of statues honouring individual Vestals, is one of the Forum's most evocative corners.
Imperial women
Livia, wife of Augustus, wielded enormous political influence for over five decades and was deified after her death. Agrippina the Younger effectively ruled through her son Nero before he had her killed. Their portraits, preserved in museums across Rome, show individualised, powerful faces rather than idealised abstractions.
Renaissance and Baroque patrons
Queen Christina of Sweden, who abdicated her throne, converted to Catholicism and settled in Rome, became one of the city's great cultural patrons — she's buried in St Peter's, one of only three women with that honour. Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the era's most significant painters, worked in Rome and her Judith Slaying Holofernes hangs in the Capodimonte (Naples) but her Roman period shaped the city's Baroque scene.
