Augustus

How exactly Livia passed her time received little attention from contemporary historians. Although a Roman upper-class woman was free to go out, attend public entertainments, visit temples, and play an active role in high society, she was not expected to have a public career; rather, she was to pursue a vocation of looking after her husband and children. She ran the household while her spouse entered politics, fought wars, and governed provinces. In his absence, she would make sure that all was well on his estates and with his finances. Even more important, she would tend the family’s political connections and, when necessary, pull strings behind the scenes.

Provided she adhered to the rules, an intelligent Roman woman like Livia would have little difficulty in bending them to her purposes. She was well advised to take account of two models of feminine behavior, one to admire and the other to avoid. In the first category was Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, reformers who lost their lives in struggles with the Senate in the second century B.C. Once, when another woman who was a guest in her house showed off her jewelry, the finest in existence at that time, Cornelia kept her in talk until her children came home from school, and then said: “Here are my jewels.” When the boys were grown, she helped them in their political careers, and she bore their loss “with a noble and undaunted spirit.”

The alternative paradigm illustrated the grave danger a woman faced if she tried to play too active a part in a man’s world. In the following century, a certain Sempronia, mother of Caesar’s assassin Decimus Junius Brutus, associated herself with the radical politician Lucius Sergius Catilina.

Among their number [women who joined Catilina] was Sempronia, a woman who had committed many crimes that showed her to have the reckless daring of a man. Fortune had favored her abundantly, not only with birth and beauty, but with a good husband and children. Well educated in Greek and Roman literature, she had greater skill in lyre-playing and dancing than there is any need for a respectable woman to acquire, besides many accomplishments such as minister to dissipation. There was nothing that she set a smaller value on than seemliness and chastity, and she was as careless of her reputation as she was of her money.

This is a nearly contemporary assessment of a woman as able and attractive (it would appear) as Cornelia. Lubricity does not sit easily with the roll call of her good qualities, and her sexual history, whatever it may really have been, was evidently a metaphor for political impropriety. Sempronia had stepped out of line and so her personal character had to be blackened.

Livia had no intention of making the same mistake. She kept a low profile, which won her much respect. She took care not to meddle in what her husband saw as his business and turned a blind eye to his sexual liaisons (not a word was ever whispered impugning her chastity). She was completely discreet and kept silent about all she knew. The princeps, for his part, respected her intelligence and often consulted her. It is a mark of his respect and affection, we can assume, that he did not divorce her and find another wife who might have borne him a son. Many of his contemporaries would have done precisely that.

Tacitus saw Livia as a feminine bully who controlled her husband, but she is said to have believed that she had no real power over Augustus and that she exerted influence only because she was always willing to give way to his wishes. A number of recorded occasions illustrate Augustus’ readiness to refuse her requests, but he may have followed her recommendations at other times. It seems most likely that he treated her as he did other senior officials in whom he had confidence; like any chief executive of a large organization, he would expect his advisers to make sure that their advice was consistent with his overall policies and, if it was, he would be inclined to accept it.

Livia’s morning was devoted to handling domestic matters and supervising her substantial business interests. After lunch she took a bath, and it was now that the greatest amount of time and attention will have been given to her toilette. If guests were coming to dinner, she would need to look her best.