Annona

The personified yearly (grain) produce, and hence the provisions in general. She was invoked to increase the produce and for low food prices. Since the time of Augustus the cura annonae (care for the supply) was one of the highest offices, whose owner, the praefectus annonae, had many subordinate officials throughout the empire.

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Iconography

She was represented on an altar in the Capitol as a female with the right arm and shoulder bare, and the rest of the body clothed, holding ears of corn in her right hand, and the cornucopia in her left. On imperial coins she frequently appeared holding a cornucopia, anchor or rudder.

References

Sources

  • Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Band 1. (1905). Leipzig, p. 548.
  • Peck, Harry Thurston. (1898). Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York: Harper and Brothers.
  • von Orelli, J.C. (1828). Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio, 1810, Annonae Sanctae Aelius Vitalio.