The ancient Romans valued portraiture as a means of communication and self-representation.
Men and women were commemorated in a variety of media, from
carved cameos, to gold glass medallions, to paintings and statuary. The tomb, was
the most common location for these portraits. This paper examines the portraits of
women from the late antique Balkans. It demonstrates how the portraits of women
communicated ideas about the person portrayed through iconographic markers,
such as hairstyle, gesture, or clothing. Often these markers of identity were borrowed
from empresses or from goddesses, so that one can speak of types that the artists
commonly deployed. Along with these empire-wide types and markers of qualities,
portraits from the Balkans also demonstrate local specificity
