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Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome LIVIA LIVIA FIRST LADY OF IMPERIAL ROME ANTHONY A. BARRETT Yale University Press New Haven & London Copyright ∫ 2002 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz and set in Janson Oldstyle type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc., Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barrett, Anthony, 1941– Livia: first lady of Imperial Rome / Anthony A. Barrett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-300-09196-6 (alk. paper) 1. Livia, Empress, consort of Augustus, Emperor of Rome, ca. 58 b.c.–a.d. 29. 2. Empresses—Rome—Biography. 3. Rome—History—Augustus, 30 b.c.–a.d. 14. I. Title. DG291.7.L5 B37 2002 937% .07%092—dc21 2002003073 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10987654321 CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Preface ix Map of the Roman World at the Time of the Death of Livia xiv Significant Events xvii PART I THE LIFE OF LIVIA 1. Family Background 3 2. Marriage 19 3. In the Shadows 28 4. The Public Figure 45 5. A New Reign 73 PART II LIVIAN THEMES 6. The Private Livia 103 7. Wife of the Emperor 115 8. Mother of the Emperor 146 9. Woman of Substance 174 vi CONTENTS 10. Friend, Patron, and Protector 186 11. Death and Reputation 215 APPENDICES 1. Sources 229 2. The Roman System of Government 303 3. Livia’s Maternal Origins 305 4. Livia’s Name 307 5. Livia’s Birthdate 309 6. Husbands of Scribonia 311 7. The Birth of Drusus 313 8. Livia’s Aedes and the Temple of Concord 315 9. The Domus Augusta 317 10. The Conspiracy of Cornelius Cinna 318 11. The Celebration of Livia’s Marriage 320 12. Palatine Vesta 321 13. The Title Augusta in the Julio-Claudian Period 322 14. Antonia as Augusta 324 15. Augustus’ Palatine Residence 326 16. Livia’s Festival on the Palatine 329 17. Date of the Letter to the Samians 331 18. The Cult of Bona Dea and Livia 333 19. Agrippina and Livia in ad 28–29 335 Abbreviations 337 Notes 347 Bibliography 387 Index 413 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES Following page 100 1. Denarius of Tiberius (enlarged) 16. Giant head of Livia 2. Dupondius of Tiberius 17. Head of Livia 3. Dupondius of Tiberius 18. Bronze bust of Livia 4. Dupondius of Tiberius 19. Sardonyx, Livia and Augustus 5. Sestertius of Tiberius 20. South frieze of Ara Pacis 6. Dupondius of Claudius 21. Detail of fig. 20 7. Aureus of Nero (enlarged) 22. Detail of statue of Livia as Ceres 8. Denarius of Galba (enlarged) 23. Statue of Livia as Ceres 9. Sestertius of Antoninus Pius 24. Statue of Livia as priestess 10. Lead tessera (Tiberius) 25. Statue of Livia as priestess 11. Cameo, Tiberius and Livia 26. Head of Augustus 12. Head of Livia from Fayum 27. Head of Tiberius 13. Basalt head of Livia 28. Wall painting, Primaporta 14. Head of Livia 29. Reconstruction of Mausoleum of 15. Head of Livia Augustus viii ILLUSTRATIONS PLANS 1. Augustus’ Palatine residence 178 3. The Porticus Livia 202 2. The ‘‘Casa di Livia’’ 179 4. Mausoleum of Augustus 218 STEMMATA 1. Livia’s significant family connections 2 2. Possible connections of Livia and Scribonia 15 PREFACE If the general public has any impression of Livia, the wife of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, it is of the character created by the Welsh actress Siân Phillips in the highly acclaimed bbc-tv production of I, Claudius, first broad- cast in 1976. This popular confusion between the historical and the fictional is hardly surprising, given Phillips’ riveting performance. Cunning and sinister, her Livia devotes every waking hour to her consuming interests: plotting, scheming, conniving, and the cheerful eradication of an assorted variety of fellow citizens, be they strangers, friends, or even close family. One of the burdens shouldered by the modern historian is that of correcting false impressions created by the popular media, particularly dangerous when a production is distinguished and the performances brilliant. This process usu- ally involves the thankless task of demonstrating pedantically that, contrary to popular belief, truth is rarely stranger than fiction, and is usually far less exciting. For the historian of the ancient world the undertaking is difficult enough at the best of times, because the truth about any individual who lived some two thousand years ago must, by its very nature, be an elusive entity. But Livia poses a particular challenge. Robert Graves, whose two novels about the imperial family were the basis for the television series, might well have de- fended the integrity of his portrait by pleading that it rests on impeccable historical foundations, and that he took his lead from Rome’s premier histo- rian, Tacitus. But that argument has surprisingly little merit in this specific x PREFACE case. Livia achieves the near-impossible, for she forces us to shift our tradi- tional allegiance and accept the authority not of the normally magisterial Tacitus but of ancient writers whose historical reliability is by and large se- riously suspect: Dio, often naive and uncritical; Suetonius, incapable of resist- ing spicy anecdotes; and Seneca, invariably sycophantic or denigratory, which- ever profited him most. On this one topic it is generally recognised that Tacitus was the weak brother, his portrait of Livia vitiated both by his deep- seated contempt for the Julio-Claudian family and by his unshakable convic- tion that the ambitious woman was evil incarnate. The historical Livia was a much more complex individual than the cold- blooded schemer that Graves created for I, Claudius or that Tacitus created for his Annals. The simple fact that she survived intact and unscathed for more than sixty years at the very heart of Roman power—and, perhaps more remarkably, was revered and admired for many generations more after her death—is a testament to her adroit ability to win the support, sympathy and even affection of her contemporaries. Livia could thus be called Rome’s first lady in the broad sense, in that no Roman woman before or after her suc- ceeded in evoking a deeper or more long-lasting respect and devotion. She managed to live through a dramatic shift in the Roman constitutional system without creating clearly identifiable enemies—apart, of course, from Tacitus. Perhaps most impressively, she achieved this even though her status and posi- tion were never properly defined. Livia is the link between the two reigns that established the basic pattern of government for the Roman empire for the next four centuries. As the wife of Augustus, she was expected to embody the dignity and majesty of the newly created principate, yet at the same time remain a self-effacing and decorous symbol of domestic virtues. In this respect her role was very much that of a first lady in the more narrow American sense, that of someone who plays a public role but does not hold a public position, and indeed is liable to severe criticism should she presume to encroach into the sphere of a public position, and of someone whose domain is a private home but is traditionally expected to represent the domestic values and mores of the whole citizenry. Her position during the reign of the second emperor, her son Tiberius, was even more extraordinary, and presents the scholar with serious challenges. Women, with the possible exception of the Vestal Virgins, could not play a public role in the Roman state, no matter how much power and influence they might exercise informally behind the scenes. By her late hus- band’s will, however, Livia was elevated to a status that brought her very close to an institutional position. Exactly what role he envisaged was not defined, PREFACE xi and perhaps was incapable of precise definition—Augustus certainly never attempted it during his lifetime—because it would have been unaccompanied by the traditional powers of official magistrates. In any case, the question was moot, because it was a role, no matter how loosely defined, that Tiberius was unwilling to countenance for his mother. I shall argue that it was this ambigu- ity in Livia’s position, a problem largely created by Augustus, that led to the well-documented tension between mother and son. Their inability to reach a mutually acceptable modus vivendi at the very least contributed to Tiberius’ eventual decision to leave Rome and all its problems, and to spend much of the last decade of his reign in the less stressful surroundings of Capri. Outside the field of portraiture and sculpture, Livia has been surprisingly neglected in the English-speaking world. The first biography was Joseph von Aschbach’s Livia: Gemahlin des Kaisers Augustus, published in Vienna in 1864, and there have been two further German treatments since then. There have been no general studies in English, however, and relatively few articles de- voted to her career, the notable exception being the work of Marleen Flory, who before her untimely death published a number of valuable pieces on Livia, especially on the symbolic aspects of her role within the principate. This book is the first biographical study of Livia in English, and it comes with all the usual limitations that afflict biographies, in that by its very nature it offers a lopsided and limited view of a historical period.
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