LIVIA

The scheming, murderous empress of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius gets more sympathetic treatment in this brief biography.

Graves followed the example of ancient historians who viewed Livia Drusilla (58 or 59 B.C.E.–29 C.E.) as power-hungry and overbearing; Brandeis classical studies professor Gillespie, to the contrary, depicts her as the devoted wife and equal partner of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. A member of the patrician Claudian family, Livia overcame the scandal of divorcing her first husband and marrying Augustus three days after the birth of her second son to become a symbol of the modest, chaste Roman wife and mother. This image buttressed Augustus’ campaign to justify the end of the Republic by positioning himself as the “first citizen” who restored Rome to its traditional values. Livia’s demure public persona only partly abated unease about her influence over Augustus, wielded most notably to ensure that her son Tiberius succeeded him as emperor. The unprecedented honors Augustus granted Livia, including financial independence and the right to be depicted in public statues, reinforced the impression that she had power greater than any previous Roman woman. Showering charitable contributions on institutions associated with such “womanly things” as marriage and motherhood kept her generally admired, although political struggles with Tiberius after Augustus’ death in 14 C.E. began to damage her standing. Nonetheless, Livia remained popular enough that the Senate wanted to honor her with the title “Mother of the Country.” Tiberius blocked it, but her grandson, Claudius, had her declared a goddess in 42 C.E., and she was an object of cult worship into the late second century. Drawing on ancient and modern sources, Gillespie provides nuanced assessments of Livia’s relationships with Augustus, Tiberius, and other members of the imperial family, though general readers may find its web of adoptions, marriages, and divorces hard to untangle.

Thoughtful, three-dimensional portrait of a woman who helped reshape ancient Rome.