Women and Politics

[spittle]

I'm about to complete Holland's 'Augustus' and I could not decide which Tiberius biog to buy so I ordered 'The Sons of Caesar' by Matyszac and Morgans '69AD: The Year of Four Emperors'. I'll return to individual biogs after wetting my appetite further with these two general accounts.

 

In the bibliography of Augustus the book 'Women and politics in ancient Rome' by Richard A Bauman made me think of your thread and, despite being 99% sure you are aware of the title, I thought I would mention it to you. It sounds like your cup orf tea.

 

As for Augustus I am more impreessed in his luck than his skill and I am learning that Livia has been given a reputation she really doesn't deserve. As a young fugitive she singed her hair running through a burning wood with the baby Tiberius clutched to her breast.

[The Augusta]

I'm about to complete Holland's 'Augustus' and I could not decide which Tiberius biog to buy so I ordered 'The Sons of Caesar' by Matyszac and Morgans '69AD: The Year of Four Emperors'. I'll return to individual biogs after wetting my appetite further with these two general accounts.

 

In the bibliography of Augustus the book 'Women and politics in ancient Rome' by Richard A Bauman made me think of your thread and, despite being 99% sure you are aware of the title, I thought I would mention it to you. It sounds like your cup orf tea.

 

As for Augustus I am more impreessed in his luck than his skill and I am learning that Livia has been given a reputation she really doesn't deserve. As a young fugitive she singed her hair running through a burning wood with the baby Tiberius clutched to her breast.

 

Forgive me, Paul - I have been busy with other things over the last couple of weeks and have only just seen this post! I was aware of Holland's Augustus, but - for better or worse - I gave up on buying new 'Augustuses' (I suppose it should be Augusti) a few years ago, as I cannot find anything new in them that hasn't already been covered by the staples. The theory that he was lucky rather than skilful is not a new one either, and while it is not one I take intense issue with (for arguments can be found to support it), I do believe he had a mixture of luck and good management. But we can leave that to another thread.

 

Well, as for Livia - you'll get no argument from me that she has been given an undeserved reputation, and yes, she had quite an adventurous life whilst married to her first husband, ironically fleeing from the man she was to marry later. She also had a near escape at Naples and the pair had to make a quick getaway from Perugia. My opinion of her first husband is not a kind one. He had as much political nous as a cockroach, but in his defence he did also have some bad luck himself. Other Patricians of the times also kept shifting their loyalties - it just seemed that whenever Nero did it he ended up choosing the losing side. But the experience of her first marriage and the danger her husband constantly found himself in after his proscription in 41BC must have hardened her outlook and sharpened her own political acumen. Although Suetonius quotes Caligula's 'Ulysses in petticoats' as a condemnation of his great-grandmother, I should think it's one of the most accurate descriptions of her that have come down to us. After all, Caligula had grown up in great-grandmama's house, and he should have known her if anyone did. I think the quote should be her epitaph. Ulysses/Odysseus was clever, cunning and shrewd, but moved by noble ideals,and he must have been a famous literary/mythical figure to educated Romans of the age. Homer's epic certainly does not paint the hero in a bad light, does it? Caligula, no doubt, had the Virgilian model in mind though - Ulysses in the Aeneid is not a pleasant man. However, by the time Caligula was living with great-grandma she would be extremely old and probably embittered by Tiberius's reluctance to award her due status and honours. I am sure she was never a lady to be crossed with impunity! She had been hewn out of the stone of the dying Republic and as a member of one of its oldest and noblest houses, she no doubt worked to ensure the ascendancy of that house within the new monarchy. In this she was as staunch an old Republican as any of them. As Ronald Syme says of her 'she deserved to succeed'. I do believe she was the last of a line, however, rather than the forerunner of the Agrippina/Messalina set. Livia's family blood was what mattered most to her - in that I am convinced. She believed that the old houses should rule the empire, and this was her motivation. The Agrippinas and Messalinas of the world just wanted self-glory and power for themselves, and I think this is an important difference. Livia was content to work within the framework of a male world, which is also something she shared with the Republican matrons rather than the harridans of the Imperial era.

Edited January 10, 2007 by The Augusta