Female Imperial Power? Authority? Influence? Towards a Reassessment of Late Antique Imperial Women

It remains largely undisputed in scholarship that the so-called office of the Roman empress, and the position, prerogatives and power associated with it, were entirely contingent on the goodwill of the emperor. However, in the absence of a constitutionally sanctioned position, role or authority regarded by law for either, academic approaches aiming to delve into imperial women have had to rely, for the most part, on sources characterized by their scarcity and a—not always properly acknowledged—negative bias by a wholly male repertoire of ancient authors. Our purpose is to, first and foremost, pose a question: was there ever a female imperial power, whether in nature or in character? Traditional historiography would either energetically oppose the very assumption that such women could wield power in any shape or form or conversely argue that it could only be so by virtue of very exceptional circumstances. But what if those circumstances were not so extraordinary? What if we could further develop the tools of analysis at our disposal? In order to address this concern, it seems pertinent to revisit and reconsider the very language with which both ancient and modern authors have referred to a wide collection of practices related to the notion of imperial power. How can this be achieved? First, by reassessing the semantics of concepts such as power, authority, influence or mediation, and focusing on how, when and why they are -consciously or otherwise- used to refer to the same instances depending on whether the subject of the action is male or female. Second, by analysing how the aforesaid concepts and the vocabulary analogous to them have evolved, likewise incorporating the latest scholarly developments in the field. Altogether the aim is to establish a different framework to shed new light on female imperial power.