Drawing from a broad range of documentation this book vividly characterizes eleven royal women who are brought visually to life through photographs of over 300 ancient coins and through the author's own illustrations.

Spanning the period from the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC to the third century AD, and with an epilogue surveying empresses of later eras, the author's compelling biographies reveal their remarkable contributions towards the legacy of Imperial Rome. Examining the wives, daughters, sisters and mothers of emperors, the study includes:

* a pregnant Roman princess who saves a Roman army through an act of personal heroism
* three third-century empresses who rule the most powerful state on Earth, presiding over unprecedented social and political reform
* an empress, though revered by her husband, is immortalized in history for infidelity and corruption by students of her greatest enemy.

Jasper Burns paints portraits of these exceptional women that are colourful, sympathetic, and above all profoundly human. This book will be highly valuable to numismatists, students and scholars of Roman history or women's studies.