Livia Drusilla (59 BC - 29 AD)
Empress: 27 BC - 14 AD
Livia Drusilla (30 January 59 BC – 28 September 29 AD) was married to Augustus Caesar, Rome’s first emperor, for 51 years. Their marriage began in 38 BC and ended when Augustus died in 14 AD. It was one of the most important political alliances in Roman history, and its influence endured for hundreds of years after both Livia and Augustus had died.
Livia’s son and grandson, both named Tiberius Claudius Nero, and great-grandson, Gaius Caligula, descended directly from her branch of the family tree. Livia’s grandson, emperor Claudius, officially deified his grandmother and gave her the title Diva Augusta (The Divine Augusta).
Sergey Sosnovskiy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A portrait bust of Livia Drusilla
Historical Significance
For the remainder of Roman history, Livia Drusilla was a significant and influential figure. Although Rome officially recognized the pantheon of religious deities, the unofficial state religion was political and dynastic. After death, emperors were often deified and Roman citizens were expected to worship them as gods. Claudius went one step further and deified his grandmother.
After deifying his grandmother, Claudius instructed Roman women to invoke her name in their oaths. He commissioned a statue in her likeness to stand next to a statue of Augustus in the Temple of Augustus. She became a state deity and object of worship, much like the deceased members of the Kim dynasty in North Korea today. After her death, thieves raided her tomb, stealing everything of material or cultural value.
Origins
Livia Drusilla was born on 30 January 59 BC. Her father was Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, a Roman statesman and nobleman, and her mother was called Alfidia, about whom very little is known. She had two husbands before she met Augustus, when she was pregnant with her second son, Nero Claudius Drusus.
Her first son, the future Roman emperor Tiberius, was three years old when she married Augustus. While her first husband died in battle, her second husband, also her cousin, and also named Tiberius Claudius Nero, was alive and still married to her when she met Augustus.
Tiberius was a political enemy of Julius Caesar and, by extension, Julius’s adopted son Octavian, who became Augustus Caesar following Caesar's assassination. To avoid punishment, Tiberius fled Italy with his family and lived in exile for three years. Soon after returning to Rome, Livia met Octavian, now Emperor Augustus, who felt an immediate attraction to her.
Personality
Historians describe Livia as a supportive wife, ambitious mother and formidable dowager. While she took advantage of her elite social position, exercising her considerable power and financial influence, she remained a loyal wife to Augustus until he died in 14 AD.
Livia provided counsel to her husband for his decisions as emperor. She was the powerful woman behind Augustus; an emperor who embodied the role of a secular deity. Her influence reached as far as Augustus' dictatorship of the Roman Empire, from Hispania in the west to Syria in the east and North Africa to the south.
While Augustus was alive, Livia behaved like a loyal, supportive wife. After he died, she grew into her role as dowager of his vast wealth, power and influence. Although she was the next emperor’s mother, Tiberius was a much different ruler than his adopted father had been, and rejected deification for himself and his mother. As mentioned earlier, Livia didn’t become a Roman deity until her grandson Claudius became emperor after she and Tiberius had both died.
Social Roles
Livia was a successful and influential figure in Roman history and culture because she acted within the constraints of Roman society, which was rigidly patriarchal. She was younger than her siblings, and her father initially married her off to a nobleman in exchange for his respectable social position.
Livia became a widow before she turned 20, and her father chose a new husband for her, Tiberius Claudius Nero, a member of her extended family and partisan of Sextus Pompeius.
Both Livia and Augustus were married to other people and expecting children when they met. Although they belonged to opposing political factions, they wasted no time in leaving their spouses and getting remarried.
The Roman convention of paterfamilias (see below) gave Augustus nearly complete control over the choices and activities of his wife, children, slaves and members of his extended household.
Paterfamilias
The oldest living male member of a family held the Roman legal title of paterfamilias, which means "father of the family". A paterfamilias had to be a Roman citizen, and his power and authority extended as far as the boundaries of his estate.
Roman law limited the authority of a paterfamilias to a certain degree, preventing him, in most cases, from interfering in his adult children’s affairs. For example, a paterfamilias could not forbid his adult son or daughter from choosing a partner, except under special circumstances. As such, Roman society was legally patriarchal. Politically driven women had to fulfil their ambitions through the careers of their husbands.
Political Ambitions
Before Augustus died, Livia was unfailingly discreet, loyal and obedient. After his death, however, she inherited a third of his estate and retained a vast influence over Roman public affairs. As a dowager, Livia exercised immense power in the Roman government until her death 14 years later. Her ambitions for her biological son Tiberius were especially lofty, although Tiberius bitterly resented her interference in his personal life.
Before Augustus died, Livia forced her son to divorce his beloved wife and marry a complete stranger for political convenience. Not only did Tiberius reject the pomp and ceremony of his and his mother’s Roman imperial status, but he treated his mother coldly if he spoke to her at all.
Tiberius and Livia had a troubled relationship. To Livia, Tiberius was essentially a chess piece and a political asset. According to historians, she valued her social and political status far more than her family relationships.
Roman Political Life
Roman political life was like an ancient celebrity soap opera with deadly consequences. The TV show "Game of Thrones" is a good comparison. Up until 49 BC, when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and seized absolute power over the Roman government, Rome was a republic with a ruling class of senators.
After Julius Caesar proclaimed himself dictator for life, the Roman empire became an autocratic dictatorship until it broke apart in the 5th century AD with the fall of the western Roman empire (Related Page: The Roman Empire).
From 44 BC until 476 AD, Roman political life was a deadly struggle for absolute power with many coups and insurrections, ending with the collapse of the empire and barbarian invasion. Livia Drusilla was one of the first and most influential figures in this period, leaving her mark on history in the form of a life-sized statue in the Temple of Augustus.
Comparisons With Modern Cultural Figures
Two fictional characters that embody the qualities of Livia Drusilla are Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s play "Macbeth" and Cersei Lannister from "Game of Thrones". Both of these characters present themselves to the public as loyal, obedient wives of powerful kings, while exercising major influence behind the scenes. Livia’s loyalty to her husband throughout his infidelities also resembles Hillary Clinton’s relationship with President Bill Clinton.
Livia Drusilla was one of the first women to embody the archetype of a monarch’s influential wife. She played this role to perfection, receiving a third of her husband’s estate when he died. The rest of his estate went to his adopted son Tiberius, who became the next dynastic emperor of Rome. Her ambitions as a dowager and mother of an absolute monarch parallel the fictional story of Cersei Lannister, who assumed a similar role when her husband died.
Her Marriage to Augustus
By accident of her marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero, Livia Drusilla found herself caught up in a civil war between Julius Caesar’s triumvirate and the insurgency of Sextus Pompeius (a son of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey the Great).
Livia’s husband had been a supporter of Mark Antony, but when Pompeius lost the war, Tiberius returned to Rome with his young family. It was at this time that Augustus originally met Livia and reportedly fell in love with her on first sight.
Following this first meeting, Augustus divorced his pregnant wife, Scribonia, a woman whom he’d married for political convenience and disliked intensely. He then used his political influence to pressure Tiberius to divorce Livia, who was pregnant with her second son, Nero Claudius Drusus.
Although Livia had little input in the arrangement, being a young woman and political pawn in patriarchal Rome, she proved herself to be a faithful and dutiful wife for 51 years. Throughout her marriage to Augustus, she held onto her influential position by keeping her head down and looking the other way to her husband’s infidelities.
After Augustus' Death
No one knows for sure how Augustus died. Rumors that Livia poisoned Augustus circulated throughout Rome at the time of his death, although these rumors could easily have come from enemies of the imperial family. Augustus was extremely careful about the food he ate, so if Livia did poison him, she most likely would have poisoned his figs while they were still on the tree.
By ancient standards, Augustus was a very old man when he died at 77 years old, so he may have simply died of old age. After his death, the Roman senate deified him. In his will, Augustus ceremonially adopted Livia into his dynastic family, according her the title Augusta.
For the last 14 years of her life, Livia went by the name Julia Augusta, and she enjoyed the few honors that her son Tiberius would begrudge her during his reign as emperor.
Her Relationship With Tiberius
Tiberius Caesar disliked the pageantry and indulgence of imperial Roman life, and resented his mother for bringing him into it. Historians describe Livia’s relationship with Tiberius as transactional and political, as if they were bitter colleagues rather than family members.
When Livia died in 29 AD, Tiberius remained at his post in Capri, citing work commitments as the reason for his absence. Although he said he would return to Rome for her funeral, he sent his nephew - the future emperor Caligula - instead, and the advanced state of decay of Livia’s corpse made her immediate burial necessary.
Tiberius and Livia had an uneasy relationship, but Tiberius never wholly renounced his mother. When she became ill in 22 AD, Tiberius hurried to Rome to be by her side. Their relationship deteriorated during the last seven years of her life, however, and Tiberius presumably held a grudge against her until he himself died in 37 AD.
Emperor Claudius, Deification and Livia's Legacy
Claudius had several physical disabilities at a time when Roman law instructed the parents of disabled infants to put their children to death. Because of his pronounced limp and stuttering speech, Livia despised Claudius and treated him with contempt. Nevertheless, Claudius restored Livia’s deification and state honors after the death of Tiberius, who had vetoed the Senate’s granting of honors to himself and his mother.
Livia Drusilla became a national symbol of female power and influence. Her name was religiously invoked for oaths and ceremonies, and her villa was preserved as she had left it with frescoes depicting a garden set in the mountains. Today, tourists can see her frescoes in the National Museum of Rome.
Livia Drusilla lived an eventful and consequential life with lasting influence. History remembers her as one of the first female cultural icons as well as the wife, mother and grandmother of later Roman emperors.
