Femina Princeps: The Life and Reputation of Livia Drusilla Open Access
Reid, Clare (Spring 2019)
Abstract
Livia Drusilla is not a figure many are intimately acquainted with outside the field of Classics, but, certainly, everyone has heard of her family. Wife of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire, mother of the emperor Tiberius, grandmother of the emperor Claudius, great-grandmother of the emperor Caligula, and great-great-grandmother of the emperor Nero, Livia gave rise to a brood (all notably not from Augustus but descended from her children from her first marriage) who shaped the early years of the Roman Empire. She and Augustus were happily married for more than fifty years (in contrast to almost every other member of the Julio-Claudian imperial family) and she was Augustus' lifelong companion, confidante, and advisor. Yet Livia, who at home and abroad was presented as and in the latter case worshipped, in the guises of goddesses of peace and concord, was maligned after her life as a conniving wife, a manipulative mother, an unfeeling stepmother, and even a power-hungry murderer, and this reputation of avarice and antagonism still follows her today. In popular culture, such as Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" or the HBO series "Rome," Livia's character is based mainly on this negative legacy, often disregarding facts about her life and literature on her from her own time. How, then, did this happen? Through research of Livia's portraiture, writings about her in her lifetime as well as throughout the early Empire, and examinations of what scholars still write about her today, I seek to answer these questions of who Livia Drusilla was, and, perhaps more importantly, who people say she was; and I argue that perhaps the Roman world was simply not ready for a woman to wield the power and influence that Livia did.
Table of Contents
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………..…………..1
Timeline …………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………..7
Julio-Claudian family tree ………………………………………………………………………………………9
I. Livia in her own lifetime …………………………………………………………………………………...10
Image: Stone funerary relief of Lucius Ampudius Philomusus ………………………………….13
Image: Marble bust of Livia …………………………………………………………………………………..13
Image: Livia’s hairstyle as seen in her Marbury Hall type ………………………………..………13
Image: Livia’s hairstyle as seen in her Diva Augusta type ………………………………….……..13
II. The posthumous Livia in Rome ………………………………………………………………..………36
Image: Statue of Livia at Rusellae ………………………………………………………………………….43
Image: Livia as Diva Augusta on the reverse of a Claudian coin …………………………..…..43
III. Livia in modern media and scholarship ………………………………………………………….…51
Image: Engraving from Monumens du culte secret des dames romaines ………………….63
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….67
Works cited ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..….71
Non-print sources ……………………………………………………………………………………………….73
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