List of Roman and Byzantine empresses

The duties, power and influence of empresses varied depending on the time period, contemporary politics and the personalities of their husband and themselves.

Through most of this period, the separated imperial courts had their own lines of succession, and as a result their own sequences of concurrent Roman empresses.

The western empire fell in the late 5th century, its final empress being the wife of Emperor Julius Nepos.

Although governmental power was most often vested only in the emperor, empresses could gain significant authority as regents for young children or when their husbands were absent.

In such cases, empresses sometimes stressed their dynastic legitimacy, greater than that of their husbands, to achieve great influence.

Empresses who ruled in their own right, such as Irene and Zoë Porphyrogenita, sometimes adopted male titles such as basileus and autokrator to illustrate their power.

Posthumous child of Constantius II and Faustina All empress, with the exceptions of Galla, "Elen", and Thermantia, received the title augusta.

The honorific augusta appears on the seals of Theodora, Yolande-Irene, Rita-Maria and Anna of Savoy,[183] as well as on a miniature depicting Helena Dragaš.