Fecunditas is a Roman Goddess of female fertility and childbearing Whose name means 'Fruitfulness.' She seems to be a late invention and was especially associated with the fertility of the Empress and the continuity of the Imperial line, and as such is called Fecunditas Augusta. She is one of many Roman Goddesses Who represents personified (and then deified) qualities or virtues, such as Concordia (Harmony) or Disciplina (Discipline).

Fecunditas is depicted on the reverse of several coins honoring early Empresses. Her iconography varies a bit but generally includes several children, who can be shown surrounding Her, standing before Her with arms raised, held in Her arms or seated on Her lap; She can also be shown nursing a baby. She can be standing, enthroned, seated on an elaborate stool, or reclining; often She is shown with the cornucopia, another symbol of abundance. Sometimes She holds the hasta pura, the 'spear without iron' or 'blameless spear', generally envisioned as a spear either without a point or with a point made from something other than iron. The hasta pura was historically given as a military award for valour; it was also a symbol of power and majesty, and in that context was shown held by various Goddesses like a long sceptre.

On coins dating to Hadrian's reign, Fecunditas is shown with the legend TELLUS STABIL, tellus stabilita, implying the earth is strengthened by the fecundity of the Empress. I take that to mean that having a known heir or heirs to succeed the Emperor upon his death ensured not only the continuation of the Empire itself but represented a smooth political transition and a potential crisis averted. Or at least that was the hope. On a coin of the Empress Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, Fecunditas is depicted reclining beneath a grape vine, with Her elbow on a woven basket; She rests Her right hand on a starry globe, representing the Empire or world, or the heavens with its great abundance of stars. Four children approach Her with their arms outstretched; though they all look like little girls to me (judging by their hairstyles showing a bun in the back) they are probably to be taken as Julia's four children, her two daughters and her two sons Caracalla and Geta, the former of whom would murder the latter in a plan to be sole Emperor. So much for stability.

A coin of Faustina the Younger shows Fecunditas with four children; on a very similar coin of the same Empress the Goddess depicted with three children is instead labelled Juno Lucina; as Juno Lucina was a Goddess of childbirth Fecunditas may have been associated with that Goddess or even considered an aspect of Her.

Though Fecunditas was a personification, one of a class of Goddesses often used in Imperial propaganda to glorify the Emperor, She did receive honor as a Goddess proper. Nero had a statue of Fecunditas made, and when the Empress Poppaea gave birth to their daughter Claudia he vowed to build a temple to the Goddess; unfortunately little Claudia died when only a few months old, and the temple was probably never built. Nero, to give that madman some credit, was inconsolable at the death of his daughter.

Fecunditas is specifically a Goddess of women's fertility, expressed primarily as the fertility of the Empress, who was expected to have many children both to provide an heir (or heirs) and to increase the Imperial family and strengthen the power of that family (in theory). As the Empress would have been held up as an example for the common women, Fecunditas likely did also represent the duty of the matrons and ordinary women to have multiple children for the benefit of the state and the glory of the Empire. In a more modern context, and outside any antiquated notions of a woman's 'duty', Fecunditas could be said to be the Goddess of having large families.