LIVIA: PRINCEPS FEMINA

Livia was born in 59 or 58 BCE. The daughter of a Roman noble named Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, she is often referred to as Livia Drusilla. At the age of 15 or 16, she was married to Tiberius Claudius Nero, who was an opponent of the young Octavian. She gave birth to her first son, Tiberius, in 42 BCE, and by 40 BCE the family had fled from Rome to the protection of Mark Antony, who was then at war with Octavian. They soon returned to Rome, however, and by 38 BCE we find a pregnant Livia divorcing her husband to marry Octavian, himself newly divorced from his first wife Scribonia, who had just given birth to their daughter, Julia. The events leading up to this marriage are not clear, but it seems safe to assume that both Octavian and Livia wanted this union, since it caused a great deal of scandal and tongue-wagging in Rome at the time. Several ancient sources report that Octavian tried to minimize the scandal by putting out the story of a divine omen that indicated the special role Livia was to play—supposedly when she was travelling to her country estate an eagle, the bird of Jupiter, dropped in her lap a pregnant hen holding a sprig of laurel in its mouth. Three months after the marriage, Livia's second son, Drusus, was born. In accordance with Roman custom, Livia's boys went to their father to be raised, while Julia stayed with Octavian and Livia. When Tiberius Claudius Nero died in 32 BCE, Livia's sons also joined Octavian's household.

In 35 BCE, Octavian had persuaded the Senate to set up public statues in honor of his sister Octavia and his wife Livia and also to grant both women sacrosanctity, state protection. He was already singling out his family as special, and by the time he received the title of Augustus in 27 BCE, he was actively promoting his household, which had started out in a most unconventional manner, as the epitome of old-fashioned Roman “family values.” Despite the fact that Livia was never able to bear children for Augustus (although she may have had a miscarriage or stillbirth), their marriage lasted 52 years.

On this gilded glass gem from the imperial collection, made during the latter part of the reign of Augustus, the heads of Livia and Augustus are yoked in a manner reminiscent of the coins issued by Hellenistic monarchs. The emperor is shown in front wearing a laurel wreath, but the portrait of Livia is also very prominent, and her features are designed to resemble those of Augustus, showing their relationship as a kind of partnership.

Augustus (or Augustus and Livia working in concert) carefully crafted the public display, honors, and status given to his wife. On the one hand, she had sacrosanctity and the right to sit in a special place with the Vestal Virgins during public performances; she received large numbers of clients, commissioned and dedicated public buildings, sponsored charities and interceded on behalf of provincial embassies. On the other hand, her entire public persona and all of her images and actions were closely connected with marriage, the family, and traditional Roman morality. The Portico of Livia, a public recreational area consisting of a large courtyard surrounded by a covered colonnaded walkway, contained within it a Shrine to Concordia, dedicated to marital concord and harmony; at the time of its dedication she gave a large banquet for the respectable matrons of Rome. Her actions may have been untraditional in their public prominence, but they were directed toward very traditional ends. In the words of Ovid quoted above (Epistulae ex Ponto 3.1.125), while Livia may have been a leader (princeps, the term applied to Augustus), she was still emphatically womanly (femina). The unconventionality of her role made some Roman writers uncomfortable, and there were rumors that she had been involved in at least some of the untimely deaths of Augustus' designated heirs. However, while she undoubtedly favored the accession of her son Tiberius, there is no evidence that she used criminal means to help him to the throne.

In his will, Augustus adopted Livia into his own lineage, giving her the name Julia Augusta, and the title Augusta was to become a special honorific for subsequent empresses. As the widow of the now deified Augustus, priestess of his cult, and mother of the new emperor, Livia may even have been granted a lictor to accompany her on public occasions (the Senate certainly proposed a lictor for her, but the sources disagree about whether she actually got one). The cameo above shows Livia wearing the mural crown associated with Cybele, the Great Mother; in one hand she holds stalks of wheat, symbol of Ceres, and in the other is the bust of the divine Augustus. When she died in 29 CE, the Senate voted to set up an arch in her honor—the type of monument previously reserved for triumphant generals—but Tiberius pretended to accept this honor, volunteered to pay for it himself, and then quietly let the whole matter drop. It was not until the accession of her grandson Claudius that Livia herself was deified as “diva Augusta” in 42 CE.