Roman Women

Author: Hatch, J., (2008), “How well do we actually know Roman women”, first published in The Imperial Courier, Volume 3, Issue 11, THE RMRS, pp. 2-4.

Introduction The other evening after watching another repeat of “I Claudius” I was thinking along the lines of “there you have it - Livia did for Claudius - fact!” Just there on the screen was Livia (sorry Sian Philips) thoughtfully stroking the fig that we all know she used to poison her husband. Then I started to think do we? Is this all true? Or perhaps some travesty of justice has been committed against this woman? Trying not to sound too “Sex in the City-ish”, I started to think “how well do we really know Roman Women?” So, with the strains of Harold Melvyn and The Blue Notes - “If you don’t know me by now” - I went to work...

Livia, as already stated, was most famously portrayed in the popular fictional work by Robert Graves, “I Claudius”, which was turned into the successful BBC production of the same name. In Graves’ account she is shown as a thoroughly wicked, scheming, political mastermind. Obsessed with bringing her son Tiberius to power and maintaining him there, Livia is portrayed as the main player in nearly every death or disgrace suffered by the Julio-Claudian family right up to her death. A treatment she still gets in the 2007 HBO/BBC series “Rome”. Of course, “Rome” was a series which never seemed to let the facts get in the way of a good story. According to HBO/BBC, for example, the young Octavian had never been married or fathered any children - quite how the divorced and pregnant Scibonia would feel about that one can only speculate! However, the series did acknowledge the existence of Livia’s child, Tiberius Nero, by her first husband while tending to gloss over the fact that she was pregnant with her second child, Nero Claudius Drusus, when she met Octavian. Throughout Livia is portrayed as deceptively submissive in public, while in private possessing an iron will and a gift for political scheming that is second to none. So, that is the modern view, but how do the ancient authors tackle a problem like Livia?

Livia Drusillia was born in 58 BC [1]. Her mother evidently was not from an impressive pedigree, being the daughter of a magistrate from a small provincial Italian town. Her father was an altogether different kettle of fish. Born Appius Claudius Pulcher, he had been adopted as an infant by Marcus Livius Drusus, who in 91 BC was a Tribune of Rome. Livia thus inherited the blood ties and prestige of both the Livii and the patrician Claudii - families who had been well versed in power [2]. Moreover, Livia had a second connection with the gens Claudia through her first husband Tiberius Claudius Nero. With him she had two children: the first, a son destined to become the Emperor Tiberius, was born in 42 BC and carried his father’s name. Livia was pregnant with their second son, Nero Claudius Drusus (later known as Drusus the Elder) when she met Octavian. Our ancient sources appear to suggest that Livia’s husband was content with his wife marrying Octavian, even attending the wedding. Before they could marry Octavian had to divorce his wife, Scribiona, who had just given birth to their daughter, Julia (who would be his only natural child). Although Octavian was supposed to have fallen in love with Livia very quickly, and the two seemed to have lived happily ever after [3], their marriage was very much a political match. Octavian needed connections with the aristocracy to provide an aura of Republican respectability to his growing power, and his marriage to Livia secured this. For her part Livia brought not only her Livian and Claudian ancestry but also her two sons, Tiberius and Drusus, heirs of the distinguished Claudi Nerones.

The accounts of Livia’s role as a wife make interesting reading. She is depicted as a loving, dutiful, even old-fashioned wife. She was instrumental in Octavian’s (by then known as “Augustus”) encouragement of upper-class women to preserve the austere behaviour of an earlier age. The couple’s encouragement was enforced by laws enacted by Augustus“ which directly affected all Roman citizens, especially the upper classes at whom it was aimed. The legislation comprised three laws: lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus (the Julian law on the regulating the marriages of the social orders) of 18 BC, lex Julia de adulteriis (the Julian law on adultery,) probably of 19 BC, and lex Papia-Poppaea (the Papian-Poppaean law) of 9 BC” [4]. Livia was astute enough to ignore Augustus’ notorious womanising, an attitude that led Tacitus to call her “an easy wife”: “When she was asked how she had gained such a commanding influence over Augustus, she replied that she was scrupulously chaste herself, doing gladly whatever pleased him, not meddling in any of his affairs, and, by pretending neither to hear of nor to notice the favourites that were the objects of his passion” [5]. This ought not surprise us as the goal of any Roman marriage was for the formation of a household and the production of children. Marriage was not for sexual gratification as such could be found easily enough elsewhere. Livia was never to bore Augustus an heir and it is a tribute to the strength of their relationship that Augustus never divorced her, which he had every right to do under Roman law.

In 35 BC Livia received her first official marks of status: the right to manage her own affairs (i.e. her financial resources) without a guardian, and a grant of sacrosancitas, the inviolability that Tribunes enjoyed. She was also honoured with a public statue, an almost unique event for a Roman woman, albeit with the one notable exception of the mother of the Gracci. A second statue followed in 9 BC, allegedly to console her on the recent death of her son Drusus and to mark her out as the mother of important sons. It was the power that Livia exercised within the family that has led history to assign her the role of wicked stepmother - so ambitious for her son that nobody in the household was safe. She was, as Tacitus, tells us “…a terrible mother for the state, a terrible stepmother for the house of the Caesars” [6]. As events unfolded, we can begin to see where this idea of a wicked stepmother originates. Augustus married his daughter Julia to C Claudius Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia, thereby marking Marcellus as his successor. Unfortunately the young Marcellus died in 23 BC and the rumour machine would latter make Livia complicit in his death. Augustus then married Julia to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, his foremost ally and from then on seen as Augustus’ designated heir. Meanwhile a marriage was arranged between Tiberius and Agrippa’s daughter, Vipsania, thus keeping Livia’s next of kin close to any future power. It was only when Agrippa died in 12 BC that opportunity finally came knocking for Livia’s two sons and she could realistically foster her ambitions for them [7]. Even so, the status as designated heir was still not in the picture for her sons.

In 17 BC Augustus had adopted Gaius and Lucius, the two eldest sons of Agrippa and Julia. It was clear that Augustus had intended them to be the princes of the new generation. After the death of Agrippa, Julia was neatly married off to Tiberius, a match that had no particular advantage for Tiberius and would prove an extremely expensive mistake for Julia. Tiberius took himself off to Rhodes leaving Julia to go wild in Rome taking lovers as the mood took her. The net result of her “frolicking good time” was to be exiled by her father in 2 BC. When the two boy heirs, Gaius and Lucius died in AD 2 and 4 it seemed natural to hint at Livia’s involvement as this now left the way clear for Tiberius. Augustus’ final succession plan was to adopt Tiberius, after first seeing that Tiberius had adopted Germanicus, the son of Tiberius’s brother Drusus, as his successor. While all this was going on Augustus had also named Agrippa Postumus, the last son of Agrippa and Julia, as another potential heir. Regardless, it would appear that Livia’s scheming had borne fruit as she was now positioned to be the mother of the presumptive princeps.

The perception that Livia‘s ambitiousness for her son made it all the more likely that she was in some why responsible for the death of Augustus. The popular rumour thus grew that she had smeared poison on some figs and then allowed Augustus to eat them as she ate an untainted fig [8]. Perhaps her motivation was borne out of the fear that Augustus might retrieve from exile his last remaining adopted son, Agrippa Postumus [9] and that Postumus might become a rival of Tiberius. Not to worry, Postumus was executed shortly after Augustus’ death, but on whose orders is unclear. It is highly unlikely that Livia did poison Augustus, yet the accusation does reveal how strongly she came to be linked to promoting the interests of Tiberius at any cost. Suspicions were further aroused when Livia singularly failed to announce Augustus death immediately after it occurred. The military, for example, were able to salute Tiberius as the new emperor even before it was confirmed that Augustus was dead. While he no longer had any rivals to the claim within the family, such action was extremely necessary because it was just possible that the Senate might not confirm on him the position that Augustus had held. A completely different story is presented by Suetonius who describes a loving and trusting relationship between Livia and Augustus right to the end of his life. Suetonius reports that Augustus last words to her were: “Live mindful of our wedlock, Livia, and farewell”, dying as he kissed her [10]. Of course, his account is probably no more reliable or accurate than the “poisoned figs” story, but it does neatly demonstrate a Livia who was viewed in two totally different lights - the dutiful wife and the ambitious schemer. At the end of her life Tacitus’ obituary describes her as “an imperious mother and an amiable wife, she was a match for the diplomacy of her husband and the dissimulation of her son” [11]. A more concise and pithy statement of her reputation could not have been left to us.

So, what are we to make of all this? As usual, the primary sources tend to contradict each other, and it must always be borne in mind that the different writers were writing for very specific audiences. Equally each author had his own agenda and reasons for writing and thus it perhaps becomes clearer as to where the rumours and myths about Livia originated. In my mind the discrepant accounts make it crystal clear that we should not believe all that ancient and modern writers tell us. We should always make careful use of the available evidence, both primary and secondary, and try to tease out the truth that lurks somewhere within. So how well do we know Roman women, and in particular Livia? The straightforward answer is: we don’t, not really. We cannot say how Livia felt, what she thought, how happy she was with her life, and so on. But by using all the evidence, we can perhaps say that we can begin to know her a little better than before.

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Endnotes:

1. The date can be calculated from the age at the time of her death in AD 29, Dio. 58.2.1. ▲

2. Tac. Ann. 6.51; Suet. Tib 3. ▲

3. “He loved and esteemed her to the end without a rival”, Suet. Aug 62.2. Also Tac. Ann. 5.1. ▲

4. Evans Grubbs J, p.84. ▲

5. Dio. 58.2.5; Tac. Ann 5.1; Suet. Aug 69, 71.1. ▲

6. Tac. Ann. 10.10. ▲

7. Tac. Ann. 1.3; 4.57; Suet. Tib. 15.2, 21.3; Dio 55.13.2. ▲

8. Dio 56.30. 1-2; Tac. Ann 1.5 (Tacitus writes only that poisoning was “suspected”). ▲

9. Postumus had been exiled in AD 6 or 8; Tac. Ann. 1.5,6; Suet. Tib. 22. ▲

10. Suet. Aug. 99.1. ▲

11. Tac. Ann. 5.1 ▲