During the Late-Republican period, the members of the aristocracy, who were educated in the Hellenic tradition, encouraged the manufacture of sculptures representing Greek divinities and heroes, to decorate their villas and town houses.

During the first years of the Empire, especially from the Flavian era to the end of the 2nd century AD, the boom in the construction of public buildings brought with it an increase in the production of decorative statues of gods and heroes.

They were the expression of an ideological programme with a distinct religious, social and political content. The sculptures were designed to foster religion amongst the citizens and, at the same time, demonstrate the sacred nature of the State as the desired political and social order protected by the gods.

The only statues erected in public places were those of divinities whose attributes coincided with the political programme of the monarchy, for example, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Juno and Diana. In Tarraco, most of these statues were erected in the upper part of the city, in the worship area.

Neither do we have any preserved remains of sculptures that decorated the sanctuaries, although through inscriptions we know that many gods were worshipped.

Most of the statues of gods preserved today, whose origin we know, came from the city forum. The number of these is, however, so small, that it cannot be considered representative of the many statues that must have adorned the public buildings of Tarraco.