"At the far end of the Roman Senate House (Curia) is a low platform on which stood an altar and a golden statue of Victory, placed there by Octavius to celebrate Rome's victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium two years before (31 BC) and decorated, says Cassius Dio (LI.22), with spoils from Egypt. There, too, relates Suetonius (XXXV), Augustus provided that incense and wine be offered at the altar. In ridiculing the notion of a woman who "passes as a bird, a great vulture and a goddess both in one," the Christian poet Prudentius provides a description of how the statue of Victory actually may have looked. The bronze image of Victory illustrated left, which dates from the first-century AD, also suggests her appearance.

The statue, itself, was taken from Tarentum, which had been abandoned by Phyrrus and captured by the Romans in 272 BC. About the same time, the Romans struck a new type of coin: one with a portrait of Roma on one side and the figure of Victory on the other. One of the most common virtues represented on the reverse of Roman coins, Victoria (from vincere, to conquer) was personified as a winged figure, usually holding a palm and descending with flowing robes as a messenger of the gods to bestow a laurel wreath on the victorious.

Together with Victoriola, a small cult statue of Victory standing on a globe and extending a wreath, she symbolized the gift of victory and the renown it conferred. The image continued to appear on the coinage long after other pagan deities had been excluded, an evocative symbol of Rome's triumph, although as a personification only and no longer divine. By the fourth century, the winged Victory, its idolatrous association beginning to fade, had been transformed into the figure of an angel, the intermediary and attendant of God, and the palm branch, a symbol of victory over death and the church triumphant." Quoted from: Victoria / The End of Paganism