Lady Justice
deity
Lady Justice (Latin: Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia.
Lady Justice originates from the personification of Justice in ancient Roman art known as Iustitia or Justitia, who is equivalent to the Greek goddess Themis.
The goddess Justitia
The origin of Lady Justice was Justitia, the goddess of Justice within Roman mythology. Justitia was introduced by emperor Augustus, and was thus not a very old deity in the Roman pantheon.
Justice was one of the virtues celebrated by emperor Augustus in his clipeus virtutis, and a temple of Justitia was established in Rome by emperor Tiberius. Justitia became a symbol for the virtue of justice with which every emperor wished to associate his regime; emperor Vespasian minted coins with the image of the goddess seated on a throne called Iustitia Augusta, and many emperors after him used the image of the goddess to proclaim themselves protectors of justice.
Though formally called a goddess with her own temple and cult shrine in Rome, it appears that she was from the onset viewed more as an artistic symbolic personification rather than as an actual deity with religious significance.
Scales
The symbol of the balance scales to represent the concept of justice dates back to Ancient Egypt.
The public source identifies “Lady Justice” as deity. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lady, Justice and deity.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1102307. VIAF identifies the subject as 25397147. The Library of Congress control number is sh2018001538. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lady Justice” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.