Livia, Empress of Rome

by Matthew Dennison

  It was not a theory to which Octavian allowed himself to subscribe. The house which became Tiberius and Drusus’s home after 32 BC deliberately gave the lie to the pre-eminence of their stepfather’s position. Neither its architecture nor the manner of its furnishing or painted decoration trumpeted wealth and power. It was a policy Octavian had espoused from the outset. His first house, Suetonius tells us, had previously belonged to Catullus’s friend, the poet and orator Gaius Licinius Calvus; it was close to the Roman Forum, at the top of the Ringmakers’ Stairs. If we trust Suetonius’s account – and at least one author has suggested persuasive grounds for caution5 – Octavian afterwards moved to another house which had recently belonged to an orator, ‘Hortensius’s house on the Palatine Hill’. ‘Oddly enough,’ we read, ‘his new palace was neither larger nor more elegant than the first; the courts being supported by squat columns of peperino stone, and the living rooms innocent of marble or elaborately tessellated floors.’ Within this relatively unadorned space, we know, Octavian chose furniture to match. ‘How simply [Octavian’s] palace was furnished may be deduced by examining the couches and tables still preserved, many of which would now hardly be considered fit for a private citizen. He is said to have always slept on a low bed, with a very ordinary coverlet.’6 The rooms were modest in size; simple mosaics covered the floors; the walls were handsomely painted, often in rich shades of cinnabar red, viridian and ochre, but without extravagance by contemporary standards.7 If it was true, as had been rumoured, that Octavian acquired a taste for Corinthian bronze during the Proscriptions, he clearly took pains to cure himself of this weakness. Overnight Tiberius and Drusus found themselves at the epicentre of the Roman world. If Suetonius is correct, they did not inherit a lifestyle of unbridled luxury.

  Livia did not long share Octavian’s house near the Forum. Two years after their marriage, the couple travelled uphill, away from Rome’s commercial and political centre, to return to the Palatine, the district in which we assume both had been born. The house into which they moved – if it was indeed Hortensius’s house – may have belonged to Octavian for as long as six years, since the change of ownership came about not through conventional sale but as a result of confiscation during the Proscriptions of 42.8 Suetonius’s assessment notwithstanding, it was evidently a covetable dwelling: Cicero told Atticus that the consul Lentulus hoped to win the villa as a prize from Pompey as early as 49 BC.9 Velleius Paterculus records that in 36 BC Octavian ‘made the announcement that he meant to set apart for public use certain houses which he had secured by purchase through his agents in order that there might be a free area about his own residence’.10 Octavian intended to declare part of his home accessible to the Roman people: he had bought a number of neighbouring houses to that end. He also planned to enlarge the existing house, an undertaking which would have enhanced its desirability further. We are forced to question, at least in part, Velleius’s statement that Octavian’s house was ‘noteworthy neither for size nor for decoration’. Octavian lived there apparently happily for more than forty years, close to that sacred Lupercalian cave we have already visited. As time passed, he gathered round him more of his own building projects, among them a splendid solid marble temple of Apollo, built, it would seem, where in 36 BC lightning struck an earlier structure. Such was the house in which Livia passed the years of her marriage and in which, after Nero’s death, she brought up their sons.

  Octavian matched his behaviour to his surroundings. Pliny records that it was Julius Caesar who, for the first time, served four different kinds of wine at a Roman dinner party, treating his guests at a feast during his third consulship to Falernian, Chian, Lesbian and Mamertine vintages; at a banquet recorded by Macrobius, Caesar enjoyed sea urchins, sea anemones, oysters, mussels, clams, ‘thrushes under a patch of asparagus’, roe deer, wild boar, hares, ducks, udder and ‘fowls force-fed on wheatmeal’.11 Octavian’s tastes were simpler: three courses at dinner and ‘no great extravagance’, according to the sources.12 ‘He did not, if he could help it, leave or enter any city or town except in the evening or at night, to avoid disturbing anyone by the obligation of ceremony,’ Suetonius relates. ‘In his consulship he commonly went through the streets on foot…His morning receptions were open to all, including ordinary people, and he met the requests of those who approached him with great affability, jocosely reproving one man because he presented a petition to him with as much hesitation “as he would a penny to an elephant”.’13 He expected a similar disdain for extravagance and lack of affectation in those around him, including Livia and his stepsons. Unlike Marcus’s Palatine house, with its atrium and alae richly decorated with ancestor masks and trophies of past greatness, Octavian’s domestic environment did not aim at fostering family pride. In the case of his daughter Julia and his stepson Tiberius, it was a policy that largely failed. Interior decoration notwithstanding, Julia grew up acutely conscious of her position as the only child of Rome’s first emperor. Tiberius was never less than the scion of his ancient Claudian forebears. The extent of Octavian’s culpability is questionable.

  It was a youthful household. In 32 BC Octavian was thirty-one years old, Livia twenty-six. Octavia was six years her brother’s senior. Octavian’s closest confidants, Agrippa and Maecenas, were thirty-one and thirty-eight respectively. The Republic’s emphasis on age and experience was among many casualties of Octavian’s Roman revolution. Portraits of Livia, Octavia and Octavian after 35 BC present images of unflinching youth – as they would continue to do until their sitters’ deaths, in Livia’s case a period of more than half a century in which time magically stood still. In youth lay hope and promise, the natural regeneration of Virgil’s garden and Studius’s frescoes. It was not a staid or intimidating environment for two small boys to find themselves in.

  Nor were Tiberius and Drusus alone. Octavian’s daughter Julia had lived with her father and stepmother from birth. She was three years younger than Tiberius, months older than Drusus. In Octavia’s care were not only her own children by two marriages, but those of her second husband, the five-times-married Mark Antony. It is possible that through their mother’s second marriage, and thanks to Octavia’s magnanimity, Livia’s sons grew up among a large extended family of step-cousins:14 Marcellus and his two sisters, both called Claudia Marcella, Octavia’s children by her first marriage; Octavia’s two daughters by Mark Antony, both Antonia; Mark Antony’s son by Fulvia, Iullus Antonius; and the younger children of his liaison with Cleopatra, twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, born in 40 BC, equidistant in age between Tiberius and Drusus, and Ptolemy Philadelphus. This loose kinship of a dozen children shared parents and step-parents; the still point at the centre of the circle was Octavian. Over time, as the latter’s thoughts became increasingly dynastic, the nature of the children’s relationships with one another and with Octavian would gain increasing significance. In the short term, Octavian appears to have taken pleasure in his cumbersome family. Plutarch records that his affection and esteem for Mark Antony’s son Iullus Antonius was second only to his feelings for Livia’s sons and those of Agrippa.15 Despite his paternity, Antonius would afterwards become consul; later he served as proconsul of Asia.

  Although imperial propaganda subsequently sought to emphasize Livia’s role as a mother figure, her part initially was secondary to that of her husband. It was the complexities of imperial succession which cast light on Livia’s maternal role, most notably in Tacitus’s account. In his revisionist history, Livia was guilty of manifold transgressions, predominantly in her capacity as an overbearing mother and wicked stepmother.16 Tacitus overlooked the fact that, in the conventional sense, Livia had only one stepchild, her stepdaughter Julia, whose upbringing was devised not by Livia but her father Octavian. Livia’s ambition focused on her elder son Tiberius. The only ‘crime’ Tacitus brought with certaintly to bear against her was Tiberius’s accession in AD 14 as second princeps of Rome.

  It is a challenge to discover the legacy of a happy childhood i
n the adult Tiberius. But the sources’ virtual silence on Tiberius’s boyhood in Octavian’s house provide no foundation for the difficult man into whom he was to grow. Octavian, by all accounts, relished family life. ‘My ideal,’ he told his fellow Romans in Cassius Dio’s rendering, ‘is that we may have lawful homes to dwell in and houses full of descendants, that we may approach the gods together with our wives and children, that a man and his family should live together as partners who risk all their fortunes in equal measure, and likewise reap pleasure from the hopes they rest upon one another.’17 Certainly, Octavian and Livia seem to have given Tiberius their full support when, in the aftermath of Nero’s death, he decided, though still a child, to stage gladiatorial contests in memory of Nero and his grandfather Drusus. ‘The first took place in the Forum, the second in the amphitheatre,’ Suetonius reports. ‘[Tiberius] persuaded some retired gladiators to appear with the rest, by paying them 1,000 gold pieces each.’18 Further to enhance the posthumous celebrations, Octavian and Livia funded lavish theatrical performances which Tiberius, perhaps on account of his age, did not attend.

  His transfer to his mother’s care and the guardianship of Octavian would prove among the most important events not only of Tiberius’s life but of Livia’s too. More than forty years later, Tiberius inherited from Octavian rulership of Rome. The succession was not elected but dynastic. Yet Tiberius and Octavian shared no blood ties. Their connection came through Livia. Four decades spent in Octavian’s house – the result of Nero’s death – strengthened that connection until, Octavian having exhausted alternative avenues, Tiberius appeared as his only successor within his loose-knit family. The extent of Livia’s involvement in that development has occupied posterity for two thousand years. It is reasonable to assume that the likelihood of Octavian’s choice would have been significantly less had Nero not entrusted Tiberius to his care nor Livia brought up her children in the household of the victor of Actium.

  The late 30s proved momentous years for Tiberius. Hot on the heels of his father’s death, discounting mourning obsequies, he found himself engaged. This happened before March 32 BC, when Tiberius was still only nine years old.19 His bride-to-be had recently celebrated her first birthday. She was Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of Octavian’s closest friend, Marcus Agrippa. We do not know if Tiberius himself was consulted, though this seems unlikely. Nor is Livia’s role in the match clear. On her father’s side, Vipsania was the daughter of a novus homo, without patrician blood; her mother’s family could boast only equestrian rank. Elements of Vipsania’s family shared the Republican politics of Livia’s father and first husband – her maternal grandfather Atticus was that correspondent of Cicero who had negotiated the latter’s purchase of Marcus’s property in Rome in 50 BC; like Marcus, Cicero had fallen victim to the Triumvirs’ Proscriptions. The point was a tenuous one, however, and possibly insufficient to slake Claudian pride. If, on the surface, Agrippa gained more than Livia from the match, Livia had the consolation of Tiberius marrying within Octavian’s inner circle. Perhaps at this stage her sights were not set on Julia, Tiberius’s stepsister, as a bride for her elder son. Like Vipsania, Octavian’s daughter had been engaged from earliest infancy – if Mark Antony is to be believed, first to his own son Antyllus (whom Octavian later executed), subsequently to a client king in modern-day Romania, Cotiso of the Getae.20

  We cannot know the nature of Livia’s involvement in her sons’ education. It is probable that Tiberius had begun formal learning two years before his father’s death, and would have continued a similar programme following his removal to Octavian’s house. At some point, the sources disclose, Octavia employed the philosopher Nestor of Tarsus, also described as Nestor the Stoic.21 Octavia’s immediate focus was her son, Marcellus. Since Marcellus was only six months older than Tiberius, the boys probably took their lessons together; Velleius Paterculus describes Tiberius as ‘nurtured by the teaching of eminent praeceptors’.22 In fact, Tiberius may have enjoyed the greater benefits of Nestor’s teaching: in 25 BC, ‘then hardly more than a child’ as Suetonius describes him, Marcellus married his twice-engaged cousin Julia and presumably put the schoolroom behind him.23 We do not know if, in turn, Drusus inherited the services of Nestor.

  Livia’s ambitions for her sons at this stage are matter for speculation. At Nero’s death, Mark Antony remained ruler of half the Roman Empire. Octavian could not guarantee victory over his erstwhile fellow Triumvir nor, in the event of such a victory, could he formulate with any certainty the likely aspect of his continuing political position in Rome. It would be curious if Livia had not taken pleasure in her lot – the dramatic change in her life since her divorce from the ill-starred Nero. But the unresolved nature of her second husband’s power gave her no room to anticipate more than wealth and influence for her sons. There was no question at this stage of an inheritance for Tiberius or Drusus that consisted of more than financial resources or clients. For the time being their Claudian name – the bequest of Livia and Nero – remained among their principal advantages.

  Suetonius describes Octavian’s involvement in the education of his daughter Julia and, afterwards, that of his granddaughters. ‘He taught [them] that they should be accustomed even to work with wool, and he forbade them to say or do anything that could not be reported with complete honesty…’24 Such proscriptiveness leaves little room for doubt that Octavian involved himself in the education of all his stepchildren, or for assuming that his influence was anything but rigorous. In all aspects of his life, Octavian inclined to the exercise of control. Like most educated Romans, Livia included, he spoke and read both Latin and Greek, although his Greek, despite tutors, was never wholly proficient. Suetonius describes him scanning the works of authors in both languages ‘for precepts and examples instructive to the public or to individuals’25 – an intriguing insight into Octavian’s character and the private life of Rome’s first couple. The two languages must have played a central role in Tiberius and Drusus’s education from the age of seven onwards. The boys’ bilingualism would have benefited from the prevalence of spoken Greek around them. The common language of the East, Greek was widely used by the many foreign slaves who worked in Roman households. Suetonius states that, unlike Octavian, Tiberius spoke the language fluently; he also wrote Greek verses modelled on the style of his favourite Alexandrian poets, Euphorion, Rhianus and Parthenius. There is no indication that he inherited such recondite inclinations from Livia, or that she encouraged him in such pursuits. Even given the paucity of surviving sources, the picture of Livia we inherit is remarkably unbookish. Her mastery of the Roman ideal was too assured to trespass on intellectual preserves Rome considered essentially masculine. In this, however, she may have been at odds with the other women of Octavian’s household. Macrobius later describes Julia’s ‘love of letters and great erudition, not hard to come by in her house’.26 The husband provided for Cleopatra Selene was King Juba of Mauretania, scholarly and learned, the author of works in both Latin and Greek, repeatedly referenced in Pliny’s Natural History. It is significant that when Livia built a portico in Rome, she lined its walls with paintings. By contrast, Octavia’s portico contained a library.

  The return of her children to her care offered Livia both emotional fulfilment and a form of occupation. Until the establishment of Octavian’s principate in 27 BC, Livia confronted a role that was confusingly amorphous and essentially restricted. She enjoyed prominence without direction. Tiberius and Drusus supplied in large measure the purpose which may have been lacking since her marriage to Octavian six years earlier. Inevitably they would continue to occupy her thoughts. The form those thoughts took – strongly contested by historians – is the basis of Livia’s legend.

  Chapter 16

  ‘They compelled him, as it seemed, to accept autocratic powers’

  The year 23 BC was one of omens and plagues. In Rome, the Tiber flooded. Its rising waters swept away a wooden bridge, the Pons Sulpicius. The same storms destroyed buildings and othe
rs fell casualty to fire. Elsewhere in the city a wolf was caught, a highly symbolic entrapment given the role of the suckling she-wolf in the story of Romulus and Remus. The sources do not hazard an interpretation. Where fire and storm failed, plague returned to the capital. It was probably typhoid fever: its victims included great as well as small. Among the former were Octavian and his nephew Marcellus, that classmate of Tiberius. One recovered, the other died. Octavian was the lucky one, responding to a shock treatment of cold baths and cold potions.1 The skill of his physician Antonius Musa was handsomely rewarded both by Octavian and the Senate, but failed to effect a similar cure for Marcellus. Marcellus died in the autumn of 23 BC, triumphant, according to Cassius Dio, after ‘[making] a brilliant success of the games which he was supervising as aedile’.2 Poets lamented his untimely death. ‘What profit did he get from birth, courage, or the best of mothers, from being embraced at Caesar’s hearth? Or, a moment ago, the waving awnings in the crowded theatre, and everything fondled by his mother’s hands?’ asked the elegist Propertius in gloomy vein. ‘He is dead, and his twentieth year left ruined: so bright a day confined in so small a circle.’3

  Marcellus’s death changed Livia’s life for both better and worse. It provided the first occasion when she stood accused of those crimes which shadow her posthumous reputation; at the same time, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that it brought Tiberius a small step closer to inheriting Octavian’s mantle. Cassius Dio describes its aftermath. ‘At the time the accusation was current that Livia had had a hand in the death of Marcellus…This suspicion was much disputed because of the climatic nature both of that year and of the one that followed, which proved so unhealthy that there was a high rate of mortality in both.’4 The accusation was one of poisoning. As Dio indicates, it was mostly discounted – so much so that no other surviving source preserves the rumour. Marcellus almost certainly died of the same fever that threatened Octavian and countless others in Rome that year. Livia, of course, had no interest in her husband’s death. But the rumour machine found concrete grounds for her desire to eliminate Marcellus: ‘he had been preferred for the succession before her sons.’5 Poison was a woman’s weapon, invisible but potentially fatal; children were a woman’s motive. The smear was one which has clung to Livia.