#Octavian later on became Augustus Caesar - Princeps of Rome

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These are the styles and regnal names of historic and current monarchs of sovereign countries in Latin. Hereunder, I will explain the meaning and significance of each.

Augustus — Imperator Caesar divi Iulii filius Augustus

A citizen of ancient Rome was often known by many names throughout their lifetime. The Romans had a system of personal nomenclature known as tria nomina (literally, "three names") comprising a given name (praenomen), a hereditary name (nomen gentilicium), and a cognomen, which originally served as a nickname but later became a hereditary name as an augmentation of the nomen. Perhaps history's most famous Roman, the consul Julius Caesar, was known as Gaius Iulius Caesar:

Gaius was his personal name;

Iulius indicated his belonging to the gens Julia, a ruling-class patrician family; and

Caesar indicated he belonged in specific to the most prestigious branch of the gens Julia, the Julii Caesares.

Caesar's ally and later enemy Pompey the Great was known as Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Again,

Gnaeus was his personal name;

Pompeius indicated his belonging to the gens Pompeia, conversely a lower-class plebeian family; but

Magnus was a cognomen Pompey earned for his military and political prowess in tribute to Alexander of Macedon, who was known and beloved in the Latin world as Magnus Alexander ("Alexander the Great").

Like his peers, Octavian was known by many names. At birth, he was Gaius Octavius, his nomen by virtue of his birth into the gens Octavia. Later, he took on the name of his granduncle and adoptive father, becoming Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus. Octavianus is the adjectival form of his nomen.

In 27 BC, following his victory against Mark Antony in the Battle of Actium, Octavian was acclaimed by the Senate as Princeps Civitatis ("first citizen"). Befitting his elevated status, he adopted a new name: Imperator Caesar divi Iulii filius Augustus.

In place of a praenomen, he adopted the military honorific imperator, meaning "commander." Roman militants who won the respect of their legionaries were acclaimed by the latter as imperator after a major victory. Julius Caesar was himself acclaimed imperator twice in his lifetime, once by his troops after a victory in Spain and once more by the Senate. In choosing to always be known as imperator, Octavian desired to associate the Senate and People of Rome with perennial victory. If you're very clever, you'll have noticed imperator is the root from which we derive the word "emperor," and princeps the root wherefrom "prince" comes.

Caesar, of course, reflects Octavian's status as an adopted member of the Julii Caesares.

Divi Iulii filius means "son of the divine Julius." After becoming ruler of the Roman state, Octavian took great measures to lionize and canonize the man unto whom he owed his legacy. The Roman imperial cult, the theory of divine right in its infancy, began with the canonization of Julius Caesar as himself a god. This move allowed Octavian to proclaim divinely sanctioned authority to govern as sole ruler of Rome.

Augustus, the name by which Octavian is most commonly known, was originally an obscure religious title in the republican era before being elevated as the honorific that signaled control of the Roman Empire. Thereon, a Roman became emperor when the Senate granted them the title augustus.

William the Conqueror — Rex Anglorum

William, Duke of Normandy, conquered the Kingdom of England in 1066, changing the British cultural and political landscape from predominantly Anglo-Saxon to predominantly Norman French. Everything from the kingdom's legal system to its language evolved dramatically. We have largely the Normans to thank for a heavily Greco-Latinate lexicon to supplement the Teutonic base from which Old English arose.

The Duke of Normandy acceded to the throne simply as Rex Anglorum ("King of the English"), a title first used by the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelstan in 927.

Elizabeth II — Elizabeth Secunda, Dei Gratia Britanniarum Regnorumque Suorum Ceterorum Regina, Consortionis Populorum Princeps, Fidei Defensor

The above is one of two official variations of the style of the British sovereign, the English and the Latin. As a matter of both personal style and convenience, however, this title is abbreviated by the Queen herself when signing her name simply as "Elizabeth R." Citations for court cases are customarily truncated to "R. v. Doe." During the era of direct rule over India by the British Empire, the sovereign would style themselves by their regnal name and "R. I.," meaning rex imperator (if male) or regina imperatrix (if female), respectively translating to "king-emperor" and "queen-empress." This titulature reflects the status of the king or queen regnant of the United Kingdom simultaneously serving as the emperor or empress regnant of India. Since after cession of India from the United Kingdom, of course, this title is no longer in use.

When offered the title "Emperor of the British Isles," George III refused. In addition to being king of Great Britain and Ireland, George was also, by virtue of heredity, prince-elector of Hanover, a state of the Holy Roman Empire. Should he have assumed the reign of British emperor, George III would have been an emperor who, in his capacity as an elector, swore fealty to an emperor.

Elizabeth Secunda means "Elizabeth, the second of her name," as Elizabeth Windsor is the second English queen of the same name since Elizabeth Tudor, known as Elizabeth I or the "Virgin Queen." But wait—wasn't Elizabeth Windsor's mother also a queen? Yes, she was. And wasn't she called Queen Elizabeth? She was, indeed. But that Elizabeth was queen in virtue of marriage to the king, George VI, the father of Elizabeth II. The difference is Elizabeth's mother, Elizabeth, was queen consort and thus accorded the title because she was the spouse of a reigning king. Elizabeth II, however, is a queen regnant, meaning she rules by her own right. Therefore, unless there were two Elizabeths previous to her, she could not have been styled "Elizabeth III."

Dei Gratia means "by the Grace of God." This title reflects the theory of divine right, a political and religious idea that legitimates the unfettered authority of a monarch by claiming the sovereignty of the same comes not from any earthly power but from God. In her capacity as queen, Elizabeth II answers to God in her duties, not the public. Needless to say, this doctrine has been wielded with impunity by absolute rulers to legitimize tyranny.

Britanniarum Regnum is the Latin name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Suorum Ceterorum means "his or her other realms," denoting the queen's status as not only sovereign of the United Kingdom but of 14 other Commonwealth realms and various dependencies of the U.K. Consortionis Populorum Princeps means "Head of the Commonwealth [of Nations]".

The title Fidei Defensor ("Defender of the Faith") was first conferred upon a British monarch, specifically King James IV of Scotland, by Pope Julius II in 1507, well before England broke communion with Rome in 1530 during the reign of Henry VIII. That the style of the British sovereign retains this title today means it survived the conversion of the liturgy of an entire realm from Latin to Anglican and the personal and later real union of the English, Scottish, and Irish crowns. Its presence also means the United Kingdom ranks among the only sovereign countries remaining that practice full-on caesaropapism, where the head of state (Caesar) is also the high priest (summus pontifex).

Francis — Franciscus, Episcopus Romanus, Vicarius Christi, Successor principis apostolorum, Caput Universalis Ecclesiae, Pontifex Maximus Ecclesiae Universalis, Patriarcha Occidentis, Primas Italiae, Archiepiscopus et metropolitanus provinciae ecclesiasticae Romanae, Princeps sui iuris Civitatis Vaticanae, Servus servorum Dei

The first thing to notice about Pope Francis' official list of titles is the absence of "pope." That's because, since at least the third century, "pope" referred to any kind of bishop.

Now, of course, "the pope" almost always denotes the bishop of Rome (Episcopus Romanus), the head of the Catholic Church (Caput Universalis Ecclesiae) and its high priest (Pontifex Maximus). Vicarius Christi is "Vicar of Christ," referring to the pope's primary mission as the earthly representative of God begotten of flesh.

As of 2006, Patriarcha Occidentis is obsolete. It means "patriarch of the West," in contradistinction to the ecumenical patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome. Any inclusion of this title has been meant to explicitly acknowledge the break of communion between the Greek East and the Latin West since 1054.

Primas Italiae ("primate of Italy") and Archiepiscopus et metropolitanus provinciae ecclesiasticae Romanae ("archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman Province") reflect the Roman pontiff's status as an archbishop.

Princeps sui iuris Civitatis Vaticanae indicates the pope's role as ruler of the Vatican City State. Because of its use to identify the Roman emperor, princeps or primus ("first, foremost") is the standard Latin translation for "head of state." Perhaps the most interesting part of papal titulature is sui iuris, meaning "of one's own right." This term is used almost exclusively by the Catholic Church to denote churches with varying degrees of autonomy from Rome. In the context of the papal style, therefore, sui iuris probably refers to the pope's own autonomy in jurisdiction over the Vatican, its boundaries, its laws, and its politics.

The final item in the papal style is Servus servorum Dei ("servant of the servants of God"). This title was first used by Pope Gregory I as a sort of humble-brag in contrast to his eastern counterpart, John the Faster, assuming the more overtly preeminent "ecumenical patriarch" title.

#monarchy #royalty #british royalty #british royals #catholic #history

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“...If any precedent might have preoccupied Livia, especially in her early career, when she was attempting to mould an image fitting for the times, it would have been a negative one, provided by the most notorious woman of the late republic and, most important, a woman who clashed headlong with Octavian in the sensitive early stages of his career. Fulvia was the wife of Mark Antony, and his devoted supporter, no less loyal than Livia in support of her husband, although their styles were dramatically different.

Fulvia’s struggle on behalf of Antony, Octavian’s archenemy, has secured her an unenviable place in history as a power-crazed termagant. While her husband was occupied in the East in 41, Fulvia made an appearance, along with Antony’s children, before his old soldiers in Italy, urging them to remain true to their commander. When Antony’s brother Lucius gathered his troops at Praeneste to launch an attack on Rome, Fulvia joined him there, and the legend became firmly established that she put on a sword, issued the watchword, gave a rousing speech to the soldiers, and held councils of war with senators and knights. This was the ultimate sin in a woman, interfering in the loyalty of the troops. 

In the end Octavian prevailed and forced the surrender of Lucius and his armies at Perusia. The fall of the city led to a massive exodus of political refugees. Among them were two women, Livia and Fulvia. Livia joined her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, who escaped first to Praeneste and then to Naples. Fulvia fled with her children to join Antony and his mother in Athens. Like Octavia later, she found that her dedicated service was not enough to earn her husband’s gratitude. In fact, Antony blamed her for the setbacks in Italy.

A broken woman, she fell ill at Sicyon on the Gulf of Corinth, where she died in mid-40 bc. Antony in the meantime had left Italy without even troubling himself to visit her sickbed. Fulvia’s story contains many of the ingredients familiar in the profiles of ambitious women: avarice, cruelty, promiscuity, suborning of troops, and the ultimate ingratitude of the men for whom they made such sacrifices. She was at Perusia at the same time as Livia, and as wives of two of the triumvirs, they would almost certainly have met. In any case, Fulvia was at the height of her activities in the years immediately preceding Livia’s first meeting with Octavian, and at the very least would have been known to her by reputation. Livia would have seen in Fulvia an object lesson for what was to be avoided at all costs by any woman who hoped to survive and prosper amidst the complex machinations of Roman political life. 

In one respect Livia’s career did resemble Fulvia’s, in that it was shaped essentially by the needs of her husband, to fill a role that in a sense he created for her. To understand that role in Livia’s case, we need to understand one very powerful principle that motivated Augustus throughout his career. The importance that he placed in the calling that he inherited in 44 bc cannot be overstressed. The notion that he and the house he created were destined by fate to carry out Rome’s foreordained mission lay at the heart of his principate. Strictly speaking, the expression domus Augusta (house of Augustus) cannot be attested before Augustus’ death and the accession of Tiberius, but there can be little doubt that the concept of his domus occupying a special and indeed unique place within the state evolves much earlier.

Suetonius speaks of Augustus’ consciousness of the domus suae maiestas (the dignity of his house) in a context that suggests a fairly early stage of his reign, and Macrobius relates the anecdote of his claiming to have had two troublesome daughters, Julia and Rome. When Augustus received the title of Pater Patriae in 2 bc, Valerius Messala spoke on behalf of the Senate, declaring the hope that the occasion would bring good fortune and favour on ‘‘you and your house, Augustus Caesar’’ (quod bonum, inquit, faustum sit tibi domuique tuae, Caesar Auguste). 

The special place in the Augustan scheme enjoyed by the male members of this domus placed them in extremely sensitive positions. The position of the women in his house was even more challenging. In fashioning the image of the domus Augusta, the first princeps was anxious to project an image of modesty and simplicity, to stress that in spite of his extraordinary constitutional position, he and his family lived as ordinary Romans. Accordingly, his demeanour was deliberately self-effacing.

His dinner parties were hospitable but not lavish. The private quarters of his home, though not as modest as he liked to pretend, were provided with very simple furniture. His couches and tables were still on public display in the time of Suetonius, who commented that they were not fine enough even for an ordinary Roman, let alone an emperor. Augustus wore simple clothes in the home, which were supposedly made by Livia or other women of his household. He slept on a simply furnished bed. His own plain and unaffected lifestyle determined also how the imperial women should behave. 

His views on this subject were deeply conservative. He felt that it was the duty of the husband to ensure that his wife always conducted herself appropriately. He ended the custom of men and women sitting together at the games, requiring females (with the exception of the Vestals) to view from the upper seats only. His legates were expected to visit their wives only during the winter season. In his own domestic circle he insisted that the women should exhibit a traditional domesticity.

He had been devoted to his mother and his sister, Octavia, and when they died he allowed them special honours. But at least in the case of Octavia, he kept the honours limited and even blocked some of the distinctions voted her by the Senate. Nor did he limit himself to matters of ‘‘lifestyle.’’ He forbade the women of his family from saying anything that could not be said openly and recorded in the daybook of the imperial household. In the eyes of the world, Livia succeeded in carrying out her role of model wife to perfection. To some degree she owed her success to circumstances. It is instructive to compare her situation with that of other women of the imperial house. 

Julia (born 39 bc) summed up her own attitude perfectly when taken to task for her extravagant behaviour and told to conform more closely to Augustus’ simple tastes. She responded that he could forget that he was Augustus, but she could not forget that she was Augustus’ daughter. Julia’s daughter, the elder Agrippina (born 19 bc?), like her mother before her, saw for herself a key element in her grandfather’s dynastic scheme. She was married to the popular Germanicus and had no doubt that in the fullness of time she would provide a princeps of Augustan blood.

Not surprisingly, she became convinced that she had a fundamental role to play in Rome’s future, and she bitterly resented Tiberius’ elevation. Her daughter Agrippina the Younger (born ad 15?) was, as a child, indoctrinated by her mother to see herself as the destined transmitter of Augustus’ blood, and her whole adult life was devoted to fulfilling her mother’s frustrated mission. From birth these women would have known of no life other than one of dynastic entitlement. By contrast, Livia’s background, although far from humble, was not exceptional for a woman of her class, and she did not enter her novel situation with inherited baggage. 

As a Claudian she may no doubt have been brought up to display a certain hauteur, but she would not have anticipated a special role in the state. As a member of a distinguished republican family, she would have hoped at most for a ‘‘good’’ marriage to a man who could aspire to property and prestige, perhaps at best able to exercise a marginal influence on events through a husband in a high but temporary magistracy. Powerful women who served their apprenticeships during the republic reached their eminence by their own inclinations, energies, and ambitions, not because they felt they had fallen heir to it.

However lofty Livia’s station after 27 bc, her earlier life would have enabled her to maintain a proper perspective. She did not find herself in the position of an imperial wife who through her marriage finds herself overnight catapulted into an ambience of power and privilege. Whatever ambitions she may have entertained in her first husband, she was sadly disappointed. When she married for the second time, Octavian, for all his prominence, did not then occupy the undisputed place at the centre of the Roman world that was to come to him later. Livia thus had a decade or so of married life before she found herself married to a princeps, in a process that offered time for her to become acclimatised and to establish a style and timing appropriate to her situation. 

It must have helped that in their personal relations she and her husband seem to have been a devoted couple, whose marriage remained firm for more than half a century. For all his general cynicism, Suetonius concedes that after Augustus married Livia, he loved and esteemed her unice et perservanter (right to the end, with no rival). In his correspondence Augustus addressed his wife affectionately as mea Livia.

The one shadow on their happiness would have been that they had no children together. Livia did conceive, but the baby was stillborn. Augustus knew that he could produce children, as did she, and Pliny cites them as an example of a couple who are sterile together but had children from other unions. By the normal standards obtaining in Rome at the time they would have divorced—such a procedure would have involved no disgrace—and it is a testimony to the depth of their feelings that they stayed together. In a sense, then, Livia was lucky. 

That said, she did suffer one disadvantage, in that when the principate was established, she found herself, as did all Romans, in an unparalleled situation, with no precedent to guide her. She was the first ‘‘first lady’’—she had to establish the model to emulate, and later imperial wives would to no small degree be judged implicitly by comparison to her. Her success in masking her keen political instincts and subordinating them to an image of self-restraint and discretion was to a considerable degree her own achievement.

In a famous passage of Suetonius, we are told that Caligula’s favourite expression for his great-grandmother was Ulixes stolatus (Ulysses in a stola). The allusion appears in a section that supposedly illustrates Caligula’s disdain for his relatives. But his allusion to Livia is surely a witty and ironical expression of admiration. Ulysses is a familiar Homeric hero, who in the Iliad and Odyssey displays the usual heroic qualities of nerve and courage, but is above all polymetis: clever, crafty, ingenious, a man who will often sort his way through a crisis not by the usual heroic bravado but by outsmarting his opponents, whether the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, or the enchantress Circe, or the suitors for Penelope. 

Caligula implied that Livia had the clever, subtle kind of mind that one associates with Greeks rather than Romans, who were inclined to take a head-on approach to problems. But at the same time she manifested a particularly Roman quality. Rolfe, in the Loeb translation of Suetonius’ Life of Caligula, rendered the phrase as ‘‘Ulysses in petticoats’’ to suggest a female version of the Homeric character. But this is to rob Caligula’s sobriquet of much of its force.

The stola was essentially the female equivalent of the toga worn by Roman men. A long woollen sleeveless dress, of heavy fabric, it was normally worn over a tunic. In shape it could be likened to a modern slip, but of much heavier material, so that it could hang in deep folds. The mark of matronae married to Roman citizens, the stola is used by Cicero as a metaphor for a stable and respectable marriage. Along with the woollen bands that the matron wore in her hair to protect her from impurity, it was considered the insigne pudoris (the sign of purity) by Ovid, something, as he puts it, alien to the world of the philandering lover. 

Another contemporary of Livia’s, Valerius Maximus, notes that if a matrona was called into court, her accuser could not physically touch her, in order that the stola might remain inviolata manus alienae tactu (unviolated by the touch of another’s hand). Bartman may be right in suggesting that the existence of statues of Livia in a stola would have given Caligula’s quip a special resonance, but that alone would not have inspired his bon mot. To Caligula’s eyes, Livia was possessed of a sharp and clever mind.

But she did not allow this quality to obtrude because she recognised that many Romans would not find it appealing; she cloaked it with all the sober dignity and propriety, the gravitas, that the Romans admired in themselves and saw represented in the stola. Livia’s greatest skill perhaps lay in the recognition that the women of the imperial household were called to walk a fine line. She and other imperial women found themselves in a paradoxical position in that they were required to set an example of the traditional domestic woman yet were obliged by circumstances to play a public role outside the home—a reflection of the process by which the domestic and public domains of the domus Augusta were blurred.

Thus she was expected to display the grand dignity expected of a person very much in the public eye, combined with the old-fashioned modesty of a woman whose interests were confined to the domus. Paradoxically, she had less freedom of action than other upper-class women who had involved themselves in public life in support of their family and protégés. As wife of the princeps, Livia recognised that to enlist the support of her husband was in a sense to enlist the support of the state.

That she managed to gain a reputation as a generous patron and protector and, at the same time, a woman who kept within her proper bounds, is testimony to her keen sensitivity. In many ways she succeeds in moving silently though Rome’s history, and this is what she intended. Her general conduct gave reassurance to those who were distressed by the changing relationships that women like Fulvia had symbolised in the late republic. It is striking that court poets, who reflected the broad wishes of their patron, avoid reference to her. She is mentioned by the poet Horace, but only once, and even there she is not named directly but referred to allusively as unico gaudens mulier marito (a wife finding joy in her preeminent husband).

The single exception is Ovid, but most of his allusions come from his period of exile, when desperation may have got the better of discretion. The dignified behaviour of Livia’s distinguished entourage was contrasted with the wild conduct of Julia’s friends at public shows, which drove Augustus to remonstrate with his daughter (her response: when she was old, she too would have old friends). In a telling passage Seneca compares the conduct of Livia favourably with even the universally admired Octavia. After losing Marcellus, Octavia abandoned herself to her grief and became obsessed with the memory of her dead son. She would not permit anyone to mention his name in her presence and remained inconsolable, allowing herself to become totally secluded and maintaining the garb of mourning until her death.

By contrast, Livia, similarly devastated by the death of Drusus, did not offend others by grieving excessively once the body had been committed to the tomb. When the grief was at its worst, she turned to the philosopher Areus for help. Seneca re-creates Areus’ advice. Much of it, of course, may well have sprung from Seneca’s imagination, but it is still valuable in showing how Livia was seen by Romans of Seneca’s time. Areus says that Livia had been at great pains to ensure that no one would find anything in her to criticise, in major matters but also in the most insignificant trifles. He admired the fact that someone of her high station was often willing to bestow pardon on others but sought pardon for nothing in herself. 

…Perhaps most important, it was essential for Livia to present herself to the world as the model of chastity. Apart from the normal demands placed on the wife of a member of the Roman nobility, she faced a particular set of circumstances that were unique to her. One of the domestic priorities undertaken by Augustus was the enactment of a programme of social legislation. Parts of this may well have been begun before his eastern trip, perhaps as early as 28 bc, but the main body of the work was initiated in 18.

A proper understanding of the measures that he carried out under this general heading eludes us. The family name of Julius was attached to the laws, and thus they are difficult to distinguish from those enacted by Julius Caesar. But clearly in general terms the legislation was intended to restore traditional Roman gravitas, to stamp out corruption, to define the social orders, and to encourage the involvement of the upper classes in state affairs. The drop in the numbers of the upper classes was causing particular concern. The nobles were showing a general reluctance to marry and, when married, an unwillingness to have children. It was hoped that the new laws would to some degree counter this trend. 

The Lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, passed probably in 18 bc, made adultery a public crime and established a new criminal court for sexual offences. The Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, passed about the same time, regulated the validity of marriages between social classes. The crucial factor here, of course, was not the regulation of morality but rather the legitimacy of children. Disabilities were imposed on the principle that it was the duty of men between twenty-five and sixty-five and women between twenty and fifty to marry. Those who refused to comply or who married and remained childless suffered penalties, the chief one being the right to inherit. The number of a man’s children gave him precedence when he stood for office.

Of particular relevance to Livia was the ius trium liberorum, under which a freeborn woman with three children was exempted from tutela (guardianship) and had a right of succession to the inheritance of her children. Livia was later granted this privilege despite having borne only two living children. This social legislation created considerable resentment—Suetonius says that the equestrians staged demonstrations at theatres and at the games. It was amended in ad 9 and supplemented by the Lex Papia Poppaea, which seems to have removed the unfair distinctions between the childless and the unmarried and allowed divorced or widowed women a longer period before they remarried. 

Dio, apparently without a trace of irony, reports that this last piece of legislation was introduced by two consuls who were not only childless but unmarried, thus proving the need for the legislation. Livia’s moral conduct would thus be dictated not only by the already unreal standards that were expected of a Roman matrona but also by the political imperative of her husband’s social legislation. Because Augustus saw himself as a man on a crusade to restore what he considered to be old-fashioned morality, it was clearly essential that he have a wife whose reputation for virtue was unsullied and who could provide an exemplar in her own married life.

In this Livia would not fail him. The skilful creation of an image of purity and marital fidelity was more than a vindication of her personal standards. It was very much a public statement of support for what her husband was trying to achieve. Tacitus, in his obituary notice that begins Book V of the Annals, observes that in the matter of the sanctitas domus, Livia’s conduct was of the ‘‘old school’’ ( priscum ad morem). This is a profoundly interesting statement at more than one level. It tells us something about the way the Romans idealised their past. But it also says much about the clever way that Livia fashioned her own image. 

Her inner private life is a secret that she has taken with her to the tomb. She may well have been as pure as people believed. But for a woman who occupied the centre of attention in imperial Rome for as long as she did, to keep her moral reputation intact required more than mere proper conduct. Rumours and innuendo attached themselves to the powerful and prominent almost of their own volition. An unsullied name required the positive creation of a public image. Livia was despised by Tacitus, who does not hesitate to insinuate the darkest interpretations that can be placed on her conduct.

Yet not even he hints at any kind of moral impropriety in the narrow sexual sense. Even though she abandoned her first husband, Tiberius Claudius, to begin an affair with her lover Octavian, she seems to have escaped any censure over her conduct. This is evidence not so much of moral probity as of political skill in managing an image skilfully and effectively. None of the ancient sources challenges the portrait of the moral paragon. Ovid extols her sexual purity in the most fulsome of terms. To him, Livia is the Vesta of chaste matrons, who has the morals of Juno and is an exemplar of pudicitia worthy of earlier and morally superior generations. Even after her husband is dead she keeps the marriage couch (pulvinar) pure. (She was, admittedly in her seventies.) 

Valerius Maximus, writing in the Tiberian period, can state that Pudicitia attends the couch of Livia. And the Consolatio ad Liviam, probably not a contemporary work but one at least that tries to reflect contemporary attitudes, speaks of her as worthy of those women who lived in a golden age, and as someone who kept her heart uncorrupted by the evil of her times. Horace’s description is particularly interesting. His phrase unico gaudens marito is nicely ambiguous, for it states that Livia’s husband was preeminent (unicus) but implies the other connotation of the word: that she had the moral superiority of an univira, a woman who has known only one husband, which in reality did not apply to Livia.

Such remarks might, of course, be put down to cringing flattery, but it is striking that not a single source contradicts them. On this one issue, Livia did not hesitate to blow her own trumpet, and she herself asserted that she was able to influence Augustus to some degree because she was scrupulously chaste. She could do so in a way that might even suggest a light touch of humour. Thus when she came across some naked men who stood to be punished for being exposed to the imperial eyes, she asserted that to a chaste woman a naked man was no more a sex object than was a statue. Most strikingly, Dio is able to recount this story with no consciousness of irony. 

Seneca called Livia a maxima femina. But did she hold any real power outside the home? According to Dio, Livia believed that she did not, and claimed that her influence over Augustus lay in her willingness to concede whatever he wished, not meddling in his business, and pretending not to be aware of any of his sexual affairs. Tacitus reflects this when he calls her an uxor facilis (accommodating wife). She clearly understood that to achieve any objective she had to avoid any overt conflict with her husband.

It would do a disservice to Livia, however, to create the impression that she was successful simply because she yielded. She was a skilful tactician who knew how to manipulate people, often by identifying their weaknesses or ambitions, and she knew how to conceal her own feelings when the occasion demanded: cum artibus mariti, simulatione filii bene composita (well suited to the craft of her husband and the insincerity of her son) is how Tacitus morosely characterises that talent. Augustus felt that he controlled her, and she doubtless was happy for him to think so. 

Dio has preserved an account of a telling exchange between Augustus and a group of senators. When they asked him to introduce legislation to control what was seen as the dissolute moral behaviour of Romans, he told them that there were aspects of human behaviour that could not be regulated. He advised them to do what he did, and have more control over their wives. When the senators heard this they were surprised, to say the least, and pressed Augustus with more questions to find out how he was able to control Livia. He confined himself to some general comments about dress and conduct in public, and seems to have been oblivious to his audience’s scepticism.

What is especially revealing about this incident is that the senators were fully aware of the power of Livia’s personality, but recognised that she conducted herself in such a way that Augustus obviously felt no threat whatsoever to his authority. Augustus would have been sensitive to the need to draw a line between Livia’s traditional and proper power within the domus and her role in matters of state. This would have been very difficult. Women in the past had sought to influence their husbands in family concerns. But with the emergence of the domus Augusta, family concerns and state concerns were now inextricably bound together. 

…Although Livia did not intrude in matters that were strictly within Augustus’ domain, her restraint naturally did not bar communication with her husband. Certainly, Augustus was prepared to listen to her. That their conversations were not casual matters and were taken seriously by him is demonstrated by the evidence of Suetonius that Augustus treated her just as he would an important official. When dealing with a significant item of business, he would write things out beforehand and read out to her from a notebook, because he could not be sure to get it just right if he spoke extemporaneously. Moreover, it says something about Livia that she filed all Augustus’ written communications with her.

After his death, during a dispute with her son, she angrily brought the letters from the shrine where they had been archived and read them out, complete with their criticisms of Tiberius’ arrogance. Despite Tacitus’ claim that Livia controlled her husband, Augustus was willing to state publicly that he had decided not to follow her advice, as when he declined special status to the people of Samos. Clearly, he would try to do so tactfully and diplomatically, expressing his regrets at having to refuse her request. On other issues he similarly reached his own decision but made sufficient concessions to Livia to satisfy her public dignity and perhaps Augustus’ domestic serenity. 

On one occasion Livia interceded on behalf of a Gaul, requesting that he be granted citizenship. To Augustus the Roman citizenship was something almost sacred, not to be granted on a whim. He declined to honour the request. But he did make a major and telling concession. One of the great advantages of citizenship was the exemption from the tax (tributum) that tributary provincials had to pay. Augustus granted the man this exemption. When Livia apparently sought the recall of Tiberius from Rhodes after the Julia scandal, Augustus refused, but did concede him the title of legatus to conceal any lingering sense of disgrace.

He was unwilling to promote Claudius to the degree that Livia wished, but he was willing to allow him some limited responsibilities. Thus he was clearly prepared to go out of his way to accede at least partially to his wife’s requests. But on the essential issues he remained very much his own man, and on one occasion he made it clear that as an advisor she did not occupy the top spot in the hierarchy. In ad 2 Tiberius made a second request to return from exile. His mother is said to have argued intensively on his behalf but did not persuade her husband. He did, however, say that he would be willing to be guided by the advice he received from his grandson, and adopted son, Gaius.”

- Anthony A. Barrett, “Wife of the Emperor.” in Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome

#livia drusilla #livia first lady of imperial rome #octavian #fulvia #history #roman #ancient #anthony a. barrett