When she had a silver statue of Victoria Augusta erected in the temple of the deified Trajan in Italica, Vibia Modesta chose an appropriate deity, for emperors since the time of Augustus had associated themselves with this goddess through statues and coins. However, the costly golden busts that Modesta deposited inside the temple were depictions of goddesses especially related to women. The Egyptian goddess Isis was connected with motherhood, fertility, and rebirth. The two Roman goddesses were favorite symbolic analogues for the empresses whose cults flaminicae such as Modesta served. Statues of empresses in the guise of Ceres (goddess of agricultural and human fertility), from Livia to the reigning empress Julia Domna, could be seen all over the empire:

Juno Regina, queen of the Olympians and one of the Capitoline Triad (the three deities in the Capitoline temple of Jupiter in Rome), was also an appropriate symbol for the empresses, as seen on the coins of Faustina the Elder, wife of Antoninus Pius, and her daughter Faustina the Younger, wife of Marcus Aurelius: