Manlia Scantilla To Queen Juno

This aureus, struck during the brief 66 day reign that her husband Didius Julianus bought for himself when the Praetorian Guard put the empire up for auction, shows Manlia Scantilla as the proud bearer of the title Augusta. Granted by the Senate on the accession of Julianus, Scantilla and her daughter Didia Clara were both struck coinage with their new honours in all three metals, though in a peculiar departure from normal practice only utilising one reverse type throughout: the goddesses Juno for Scantilla, and Hilaritas for Clara. Very little is known of the life of Scantilla, save that her husband having been killed in favour of Septimius Severus as emperor, she and her daughter were stripped of their imperial titles. Scantilla died in obscurity, in marked contrast from the associations she chose to make with the single reverse type featuring Juno for her coins.

One third of the Capitoline Triad and married to Jupiter, Juno Regina looked after the women of Rome, presiding over marriage and fidelity, and was afforded an attribute in the peacock, equivalent to the eagle present in depictions of Jupiter, which was both the signifier of conjugal concord but also a solemn and ever-watchful attendant as befitted the patron goddess of Rome and the Empire. It was with this iconography that Scantilla directly placed herself in line with the divine principate and began to develop a public image of herself and her role as the one to carry on the dynasty. IVNO REGINA - Iunoni Reginae: To Queen Juno.