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This is exactly the book I wanted to read about Livia. Studious, cautious, spinning an interesting volume out of a relative paucity of available sources.
I particularly like the anecdote that Livia's husband Augustus wrote out the arguments he wished to use with her in a notebook beforehand. The portrait Dennison gives is a politically savvy, intelligent, sophisticated, restrained, gentle woman; while she held power, records of her tend to show her on the side of offering mercy. She also seems to have been kind to her servants. If Livia had Machiavellian depths, then they were probably the sort that Machiavelli tried to promote - good government, stability, and pursuing popularity by doing nice things. Livia exercised power by promoting traditional female roles as a modest, private wife. Her favourite activities and charities included female religious cults, young girls' dowries, parents of newborn babies, and the victims of fires. She publicly wove her husband's garments herself on a loom as a traditional Roman wife, and was renowned for not wearing expensive jewellery or clothing even though she employed a pearl-setter among her servants. She enjoyed gardening. It's undeniable that Livia had power in the Roman empire, and in order to have it followed a patriarchal system to all its strictness.
The poisoning plots placed at the Empress' doorstep, Dennison argues, were probably not Livia's fault. It's true that all the relatives between Livia's son Tiberius and the throne died, but many of the deaths occurred at a geographical distance from Livia and coincided with general plague outbreaks. It was an era where life expectancy was not great. Considering that the accusations come from sources long after Livia's death, there are points in favour of reducing the melodrama and assuming that Livia was simply a keen gardener and a sensible, moderate politician. Much as there are points that Hillary Clinton probably didn't murder Vince Foster.
Livia's emotional life was probably quite troubled if one credits the assumption that she was not the sociopath from I, CLAUDIUS. Livia lost her younger son, Drusus, and a variety of other family members she would have known very well. There's a terrible poem (once attributed to Ovid) written posthumously to her death, about the loss of her younger son:
Livia, bear up that load. You draw our eyes and ears to you, we notice all your actions... Stay upright, rise above your words, keep your spirit unbroken...Our search for models of virtue, certainly, will be better when you take on the role of first lady.
Livia comes from an adventurous background, fleeing a political coup with her first husband through a flaming forest with her baby son and a future emperor in her arms - only to be later married to one on the opposite side of the politics and ascend to power with him. There was a keen passion between Livia and Octavian, not diminished by Mark Anthony's noting of certain hypocrises:
What's come over you? Is it because I go to bed with the queen?...And what about you, is Livia the only woman you go to bed with? I congratulate you, if at the time you read this letter you haven't also had Tertulla or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisenia or the whole lot of them. Does it really matter where you get a stand or who the woman is?
Scandal and gossip is, apprarently, still extremely interesting today.
Livia was given a series of unprecented honours, including the right to manage her own affairs without a guardian, the right of inviolability (sacrosancitas), adoption by her husband after his death (giving her an Augusta title), and eventual deification by Emperor Claudius, who was her grandson in the extremely tangled genealogical bush of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
After Livia's husband died she lived on as dowager empress, her relationship with her son Tiberius becoming strained to the point that she forwarded old private letters from Tiberius' stepfather to wound him. (He had a "sour and stubborn" character.) However, Livia died of a healthy old age - I'm very tempted to imagine her as one of those aged self-doctoring crank sorts, who brew their own herbal medicines and insist that a glass of red a day is what keeps them going - and was well remembered. Tacitius quotes a tribute:
The glory of her country they called her - the only true descendant of Augustus, the unmatched model of traditional behaviour.
If there's one criticism to make of this book it's that Dennison's timeline tends to fluctuate, but even so this is a well-researched and sensible overview that makes a good read.
There remain beautiful visual detail of Livia's garden-style personal decor, such as this:
I particularly like the anecdote that Livia's husband Augustus wrote out the arguments he wished to use with her in a notebook beforehand. The portrait Dennison gives is a politically savvy, intelligent, sophisticated, restrained, gentle woman; while she held power, records of her tend to show her on the side of offering mercy. She also seems to have been kind to her servants. If Livia had Machiavellian depths, then they were probably the sort that Machiavelli tried to promote - good government, stability, and pursuing popularity by doing nice things. Livia exercised power by promoting traditional female roles as a modest, private wife. Her favourite activities and charities included female religious cults, young girls' dowries, parents of newborn babies, and the victims of fires. She publicly wove her husband's garments herself on a loom as a traditional Roman wife, and was renowned for not wearing expensive jewellery or clothing even though she employed a pearl-setter among her servants. She enjoyed gardening. It's undeniable that Livia had power in the Roman empire, and in order to have it followed a patriarchal system to all its strictness.
The poisoning plots placed at the Empress' doorstep, Dennison argues, were probably not Livia's fault. It's true that all the relatives between Livia's son Tiberius and the throne died, but many of the deaths occurred at a geographical distance from Livia and coincided with general plague outbreaks. It was an era where life expectancy was not great. Considering that the accusations come from sources long after Livia's death, there are points in favour of reducing the melodrama and assuming that Livia was simply a keen gardener and a sensible, moderate politician. Much as there are points that Hillary Clinton probably didn't murder Vince Foster.
Livia's emotional life was probably quite troubled if one credits the assumption that she was not the sociopath from I, CLAUDIUS. Livia lost her younger son, Drusus, and a variety of other family members she would have known very well. There's a terrible poem (once attributed to Ovid) written posthumously to her death, about the loss of her younger son:
Livia, bear up that load. You draw our eyes and ears to you, we notice all your actions... Stay upright, rise above your words, keep your spirit unbroken...Our search for models of virtue, certainly, will be better when you take on the role of first lady.
Livia comes from an adventurous background, fleeing a political coup with her first husband through a flaming forest with her baby son and a future emperor in her arms - only to be later married to one on the opposite side of the politics and ascend to power with him. There was a keen passion between Livia and Octavian, not diminished by Mark Anthony's noting of certain hypocrises:
What's come over you? Is it because I go to bed with the queen?...And what about you, is Livia the only woman you go to bed with? I congratulate you, if at the time you read this letter you haven't also had Tertulla or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisenia or the whole lot of them. Does it really matter where you get a stand or who the woman is?
Scandal and gossip is, apprarently, still extremely interesting today.
Livia was given a series of unprecented honours, including the right to manage her own affairs without a guardian, the right of inviolability (sacrosancitas), adoption by her husband after his death (giving her an Augusta title), and eventual deification by Emperor Claudius, who was her grandson in the extremely tangled genealogical bush of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
After Livia's husband died she lived on as dowager empress, her relationship with her son Tiberius becoming strained to the point that she forwarded old private letters from Tiberius' stepfather to wound him. (He had a "sour and stubborn" character.) However, Livia died of a healthy old age - I'm very tempted to imagine her as one of those aged self-doctoring crank sorts, who brew their own herbal medicines and insist that a glass of red a day is what keeps them going - and was well remembered. Tacitius quotes a tribute:
The glory of her country they called her - the only true descendant of Augustus, the unmatched model of traditional behaviour.
If there's one criticism to make of this book it's that Dennison's timeline tends to fluctuate, but even so this is a well-researched and sensible overview that makes a good read.
There remain beautiful visual detail of Livia's garden-style personal decor, such as this:
