# Livia
**Livia Drusilla** (59/58 BCE – 29 CE; after 14 CE Iulia Augusta) was the wife of Augustus, the first [Roman emperor](https://www.edgepedia.org/roman-emperor), and the mother of his successor Tiberius, holding a formal and conspicuous role in the Augustan state that was unprecedented for a Roman woman.[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) • [2](http://www.oxfordreference.com/viewbydoi/10.1093/acref/9780195170726.013.0721) • [3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) When Octavian officially took the title Augustus, Livia, as his wife, became empress.[4](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/people-and-places-of-the-roman-past/empress-livia-58-bce-29-ce-on-the-palatino/2692EA5B8E5E3229CD3C336DDBB0E9F5)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Dates | Born 59/58 BCE; died 29 CE, aged about 86 (one tradition says 82 or 86)[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) • [5](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlivia-harpers) |
| Marriages | Tiberius Claudius Nero (43 or 42 BCE), then Octavian (Augustus) in 39 or 38 BCE[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) • [6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html) |
| Sons | The future emperor Tiberius and Nero Claudius Drusus, both from her first marriage[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) |
| Names and status | Augusta in Augustus' will, adopted into the gens Julia as Iulia Augusta; deified in 42 CE by Claudius[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) • [6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html) |
| Influence | Adviser to Augustus; interceded for conspirators and the condemned; addressed by client kings, notably Herod's family, as a co-sharer of power[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) • [7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman) |
| Reception | Ancient literary tradition hostile; corrected by epigraphy and archaeology and by modern biography such as Anthony A. Barrett's *Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome*[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) • [8](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300102987/livia/) |
## Life and family
Livia was the daughter of Livius Drusus Claudianus and first married Tiberius Claudius Nero in 43 or 42 BCE, bearing him two sons: the future emperor Tiberius and [Nero Claudius Drusus](https://www.edgepedia.org/nero-claudius-drusus).[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) • [3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) In 39 BCE, according to the Oxford account, she was divorced in order to marry Octavian, and she was pregnant with her second son at the time; the classical dictionary puts the compelled divorce and remarriage in 38 BCE, with Livia six months pregnant at the wedding.[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) • [5](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlivia-harpers) The marriage was famously hasty, and stories of Augustus marrying a pregnant Livia may be embellished; the sources themselves give different years, 39 versus 38 BCE.[6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html) • [1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738)
She had no further children by Augustus, yet she retained his respect and confidence throughout his life.[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738)
## Titles, honors, and legal status
The honors Livia received and the tasks she performed had never been possible for a Roman woman, and some were achieved only by her.[4](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/people-and-places-of-the-roman-past/empress-livia-58-bce-29-ce-on-the-palatino/2692EA5B8E5E3229CD3C336DDBB0E9F5) On Augustus' death in 14 CE his will adopted her into his family, and she took the name Iulia Augusta, becoming a principal figure in his cult.[1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) In 42 CE her grandson Claudius deified her.[6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html)
## Political influence and patronage
For Augustus she was a faithful companion, nursing him during illness and following him on his travels, and she often acted as his adviser and collaborator.[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) Subject or protected monarchs frequently addressed her, and she had personal relations especially with the family of Herod.[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) The ancient sources record her requesting citizenship grants for favored non-Romans and saving individuals condemned to death; she was believed to have interceded successfully on behalf of conspirators such as Cornelius Cinna Magnus.[7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman) • [1](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738) Her own great-grandson Caligula called her "Odysseus in a woman's stole", a reference to this reputation for maneuvering.[7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman)
## Succession and the Tiberian court
In the succession question Livia worked to favor her son Tiberius and, helped by circumstances, succeeded.[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) Modern historians find it more credible that she helped persuade Augustus to adopt Tiberius as his son and heir than that she removed rivals or hastened Augustus' death; both her sons carried her blood into the imperial dynasty, Tiberius directly, and Drusus through his descendants, including Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.[7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman) • [10](https://www.roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/livia.htm)
Under Tiberius her position soured. She at first attempted to obtain an equal share in the government, which the jealous temper of Tiberius would not brook; he ordered her to stop meddling in public affairs and refused even to visit her when she was dying.[5](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlivia-harpers)
## The accusations, and how historians weigh them
Tacitus, writing more than 80 years after her death, used oblique references, hearsay, and innuendo to suggest that Livia played a role in state events highly inappropriate for a woman.[6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html) His assessment was blunt: "a blight upon the nation as a mother, a blight upon the house of Caesar as a stepmother", accusing her of controlling Augustus and eliminating rivals to promote Tiberius.[7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman) In *Annals* 1.3 he writes that the death of [Gaius Caesar](https://www.edgepedia.org/gaius-caesar), returning invalided from Armenia, came "by fate or by the guile of his stepmother Livia" (*novercae Liviae dolus*), and that Tiberius was elevated as son, colleague in empire, and sharer of tribunician power "not with the hidden arts of his mother as before, but openly".[6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html) Modern historians take these murder insinuations with skepticism.[7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman)
## Sources and reception
The historical tradition about Livia is generally hostile, and ancient authors often pay little attention to women, so separating the real story from the spin is difficult; her portraits, by contrast, show a severe, majestically aristocratic beauty rather than charm.[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) • [4](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/people-and-places-of-the-roman-past/empress-livia-58-bce-29-ce-on-the-palatino/2692EA5B8E5E3229CD3C336DDBB0E9F5) The corrective weight comes from non-literary evidence: a Greek inscription from Gytheion is of capital importance for the divine cult rendered to her in her lifetime and for her relations with Tiberius, discussed by M. Rostovtzeff in the *Revue Historique* CLXIII (1930); for public honorific statues of Livia in Rome the key study is Flory (1995).[3](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/) • [6](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html)
**Modern biography and fiction.** Anthony A. Barrett's *Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome* ([Yale University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/yale-university-press)), the first biography of Livia in English, sets aside the portrait of a cunning and sinister schemer to reveal a complex figure whose political influence helped shape Roman government long after her death.[8](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300102987/livia/) [Robert Graves](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-graves) drew on Tacitus and [Suetonius](https://www.edgepedia.org/suetonius) for *I, Claudius*, portraying her as a schemer, in some ways even crueller than the Livia of the history books; Siân Phillips played her in the 1976 television adaptation.[7](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman) Comparative scholarship now places Livia alongside Octavia and Julia ("forging the future"), Messalina ("self-destruction"), and Agrippina ("impatient for equality") as one template among the imperial wives and mothers of the dynasty.[9](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300240672-008/html)
## References
1. [Livia Drusilla, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford Research Encyclopedia)](https://oxfordre.com/classics/oso/viewentry/10.1093$002facrefore$002f9780199381135.001.0001$002facrefore-9780199381135-e-3738)
2. [Livia, Oxford Reference](http://www.oxfordreference.com/viewbydoi/10.1093/acref/9780195170726.013.0721)
3. [Livia Drusilla, Enciclopedia Italiana (Treccani)](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/livia-drusilla_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/)
4. [Empress Livia (58 BCE–29 CE) on the Palatino, People and Places of the Roman Past, Cambridge University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/people-and-places-of-the-roman-past/empress-livia-58-bce-29-ce-on-the-palatino/2692EA5B8E5E3229CD3C336DDBB0E9F5)
5. [Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898): Livia, Perseus](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aentry%3Dlivia-harpers)
6. [Companion: Tacitus, Annales: Livia, Feminae Romanae](https://www.feminaeromanae.org/Tacitus_Livia.html)
7. [The truth behind Ancient Rome's most controversial woman, BBC Culture (2021)](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210506-the-truth-behind-ancient-romes-most-controversial-woman)
8. [Anthony A. Barrett, Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome, Yale University Press](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300102987/livia/)
9. [The Dowager Empress and Matriarch Livia 14–29, De Gruyter/Yale](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300240672-008/html)
10. [roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu](https://www.roman-emperors.sites.luc.edu/livia.htm)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › European history › Western Europe › Ancient Rome › Roman emperors and dynasties*
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