Like Augustus, Livia stands alone in the history of Rome and of Roman women. If he was the Pater Patriae (Father of his country), surely she qualified as its Mater Patriae. She was the first woman in Roman history to be actively and influentially involved, although artfully behind the scenes, in almost all major decisions of Augustus' extraordinary 45 years of absolute power. He trusted her to such an extent that he left his personal seal - the most powerful "signature" in the ancient world - to her to use use when he traveled abroad. She was the first woman deified in Roman history by the Emperor Claudius, her grandson. She was the mother of Emperor Tiberius, grandmother of Caligula and Claudius, great-grandmother of Nero. The fact that, thanks to Tacitus and Suetonius, unsavory rumors about her use and abuse of power have circulated for 1900 years only adds to her unique mystery. However disguised her use of power, Cassius Dio could write of Livia, in the second century AD,

The Early Years

Livia was a member of the powerful and ancient Claudian family, daughter of a Roman patrician named Marcus Livia Drusus Claudius. Born in 58, at age 15 or 16 she married her cousin, Tiberius Claudius Nero. Nero opposed Octavian (later, Augustus) during the civil wars following the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. The family allegedly survived hair-raising dangers and escapes. Having borne one son, Tiberius, Livia was pregnant with a second (Drusus) when, in 39, she divorced Tiberius and married Octavian (who divorced his wife, Scribonia). It remains an unanswered question whether the divorce and remarriage was a political or a love match. Certainly the abruptness of the marriage - Octavian is said to have divorced Scribonia on the day she bore him a daughter, Julia - caused a scandal which had to be lived down.

In her second marriage, Livia failed at the preeminent Roman feminine virtue; she had no children by Augustus. His later difficulties with the succession are partially traceable to the fact he had no male heir. The marriage lasted, however, spanning 52 turbulent years until Augustus' death in 14 AD. Livia was matriarch to Augustus' extended family as epitomized in the dignified procession shown on the Ara Pacis, the magnificent alter dedicated to the Augustan peace and Julio-Claudian family peace as well.

Agrippa and Livia (second from left) lead sacred procession.
From the Ara Pacis (Alter of Heavenly Peace).

Role Model and First Lady

The world Augustus intended to recreate following Civil War and the destruction of Antony in 31 BC was based on the traditional values of Rome's past. Livia in every sense assisted him in personifying the feminine virtues of the new regime. In opposition to the infamous sexual license of a woman like Clodia, Livia was a model of feminine decorum, modesty, and simplicity. Her many busts reflect a studied lack of pretension; plain hair styles, lack of jewelry, chastely traditional clothing including the disguising stola, garb of the respectable matrona. Augustus liked to boast that she busied herself in the classic Roman fashion by spinning and weaving fabric for his tunics. They lived in the same pleasant but modest house on the Palatine throughout his reign. It is impossible not to conclude that both Augustus and Livia deliberately lived down the controversies of their early years by assuming virtues, whether they had them or not. When Augustus died, he allegedly asked those around them if they had enjoyed the farce.

The "House of Livia," Palatine Hill, Rome.

However modestly she presented herself, Livia's life was showcased by Augustus from the first for political purposes in a way no earlier Roman woman's had ever been. In 35 BC, he persuaded the Senate to permit statues of Livia and to his sister, Octavia, to be set up in Rome and granted them sacrosanct honors. This freed both women from many legal restrictions, including management of their own property. Livia was, or became, an extraordinarily wealthy woman and disposed of it with care. For the first time in Rome, civic buildings were funded in a woman's name. Honors such as special seating rights with the Vestal Virgins (the preeminent women of Rome) were mixed with diplomatic duties such as meeting with Augustus' clients and provincial ambassadors, promoting colonial interests, and serving as Augustus' proxy during his frequent absences abroad. It is significant that it was during this reign that Livy chronicled the heroines of ancient Rome and their virtues - as exemplified by Livia Drusilla.

Livia brought her own qualities of beauty, intelligence, discretion and tact to the goal of recreating a new Roman autocracy; her political instincts became invaluable to Augustus during the many crises of his long rule. At the very least, the early years of civil war, the reinvention of government following Actium, the constant deaths of adopted heirs, the struggles between Augustus and her son, Tiberius (who by most accounts he disliked), and the death in the army of her younger son, Drusus, provided sufficient materials for personal heartache. Through it all, Livia appeared serene. After Augustus' death, and by his will, she not only become a priestess in his newly-founded cult but a member of his family as Julia Augusta. The title Augusta would descend to later empresses. She was personified in her later years with attributes of matronly, fecund goddesses like Ceres and as the living image of feminine virtues including pietas.

The Livia of Tacitus

Yet while the Empress (in all but name flourished), doubts accrued about the woman and the family. Livia would become deeply estranged from her surviving son, Tiberius, after he became Emperor in 14. She was criticized for doing little or nothing to save her grandchildren by Germanicus, son of her son Drusus, during Sejanus' long persecution of Agrippina and her family. The contrast between her passive image and real power apparently disturbed some later writers and historians. Suetonius and Plutarch would attempt to suggest her influence on Augustus was malign; that to promote the interests of her own sons, Tiberius and Drusus, she plotted against the many adopted heirs chosen by Augustus who all mysteriously died before him. There is no real evidence of this, although her (perhaps unbalanced) grandson, Caligula, allegedly referred to her as "Ulixes stolatus," or "Odysseus in a stola" (a matron's gown), implying her capacity for ruthless intrigue. Apparently Livia insisted in interfering in Tiberius' affairs as Emperor. Suetonius states that Tiberius often "....warned Livia to remember that she was a woman and must not interfere in affairs of state. He became especially insistent on this point when a fire broke out near the Temple of Vesta and news reached him that Livia was directing the civilian and military firefighters in person, as though Augustus were still alive, and urging them to redouble their efforts." Life of Tiberius.

Livia continued to participate actively in religious and political affairs until her death in 29 AD at the extraordinary age of 86. Due to Tiberius' hostility, extraordinary honors voted to her by the Senate were quietly dropped; he refused to return from Capri for her funeral. His hostility also blocked her deification, which did not occur until the reign of her grandson, Claudius. Yet in spite of doubts, the image of the serene goddess was the one which survived her.

Livia had succeeded for almost three generations at being spectacularly visible in a conventional female role. Like Augustus, she cloaked political power with the patina of demure femininity. For the rest of the Empire, ambitious women would attempt to emulate both her real power and her successful disguise of it.

Sources:

Images of Livia (including Livia as Ceres, right) courtesy of Barbara McManus, 1999, VROMA. Image of the Ara Pacis from from Alan Peterson/Coconino Community College.