When on 19 August 14 CE, the Emperor Augustus died, by his side was his wife, Livia Drusilla. Livia was a paragon of Roman womanly virtues, who put hardly a foot wrong in fifty years of marriage to the most scrutinised man of his time, and yet, from at least the 2nd century onwards, she has been portrayed as a woman of ruthless ambition and poisonous scheming.
Take her husband’s death: Augustus lived far longer than most Romans did and he had been ill for some time, but this was not enough for the historians Cassius Dio and Tacitus. Tacitus, at the start of the 2nd century CE, tells us, “Some people suspected that was a crime committed by his wife.” Cassius Dio doesn’t even bother with the “Some say” and boldly states, “Livia smeared poison on the figs from trees from which Augustus used to pick fruit”, surely an unusually impatient and exotic way of killing one’s husband. I’ve always thought of Livia as a highly intelligent woman because I cannot see Augustus putting up with her for fifty years otherwise. It seems strange that this was the only method of poisoning her husband she could devise – if indeed she thought it worth killing a man who by Roman standards was near death already. I can understand that Cassius Dio was keen to include such an excellent story, but I feel that it must be dismissed. The mental picture of Livia carefully preparing poison (maybe henbane mixed with honey to make it sticky?) and creeping out to smear it on figs in the middle of a villa thronging with the Imperial entourage – no, it just doesn’t seem probable.
Livia Drusilla was born into a noble and wealthy family. Her father was Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, a member of the Senate, who at the time of his daughter’s birth would have been expecting a career in politics with a steady rise through the ranks. Civil War put paid to his ambition, and his support of Brutus and Cassius after Julius Caesar’s assassination meant that he ended up following them into the disastrous Battle of Philippi. Like them, he committed suicide.
Before his death, Marcus Livius had married off his daughter to another Republican senator of good birth, Tiberius Claudius Drusus, and, at 17, Livia had her first child. It was almost a month after Philippi, and she must have known that her father’s side was defeated, perhaps that he was dead. She was experiencing first-hand the risk of being highly-born in the late Roman Republic. A father on the wrong side at Philippi could be quietly overlooked – Livia was hardly alone there given the sheer numbers of casualties – but her husband then also chose unwisely. He defied the young Octavian (later the Emperor Augustus) and he and his new family were soon on the run. They went to Sicily then Greece and had a couple of narrow escapes, on one occasion fleeing a forest fire that scorched Livia’s hair and clothes.
When Livia and her husband returned to Rome under the terms of a peace agreement, he was a lot poorer and she was pregnant. They had been through a lot and were no doubt hoping for a period of calm when they could rebuild their lives. But this all fell apart in a few months when Livia and Octavian met.
They must have known that a swift exchange of partners would create a scandal in Rome. Livia Drusilla was 19 and pregnant with her second son, and Octavian’s wife was also pregnant. But Octavian was nothing if not determined and on the day he became a father, he divorced his wife. Livia and Tiberius Claudius divorced, and she gave birth to their child on 14 January 38 BCE. She married Octavian three days later. Tiberius Claudius was generous enough to give her away, and what he thought of losing a young and beautiful wife, who had accompanied him into danger and exile and given him two sons, we don’t know.
This was the last time Livia gave anyone ammunition for gossip, steadfastly cultivating an image of classic Roman womanhood. She supported her new husband for over fifty years of marriage, even though they had no children. As the biographer Suetonius, writing in the 2nd century CE, says, “… he married her and loved her and valued her uniquely and steadfastly.”
Why then is the prevailing picture of Livia that of Sian Phillips in the BBC’s adaptation of Robert Graves’ novel I, Claudius? Why do we assume that Livia was so determined to get her son Tiberius into power that she ensured the death every young man of the Imperial family who looked like a possible heir to Augustus? The whispers of poison come down to us through Tacitus and Dio Cassius, but why does it persist instead of being dismissed? Is it as simple as the human appetite for a piece of juicy gossip?
There is a point where it might easily have begun, and that is at Augustus’ death. Either Livia or Tiberius were with Augustus from his death until his body returned to Rome, and even after his funeral, Livia kept a five-day vigil next to Augustus’ pyre. Of course, had she and Augustus had children, Tiberius would have been very much in the Second XI, and he only became Augustus’ acknowledged successor after others had died. The first lines of Augustus’ will, when read out in the Senate would have reminded everyone of this in no uncertain terms: “Since dark fortune has snatched my sons Gaius and Lucius from me, let Tiberius Caesar be heir to two-thirds of my estate.”
But Livia’s vigil was a powerful reminder of her devotion, and thousands of people would have seen her and been reminded that Tiberius owed his new position to his mother’s marriage. She may have fulfilled traditional roles, wife and mother, but she was wife and mother to Emperors.
Augustus’ final moments were spent with Livia and his last recorded words (Suetonius again) were to her: “…he died kissing Livia and saying “Live mindful of our marriage, Livia, and farewell.”
Fiona Forsyth is the author of Written in Blood, the third instalment of The Publius Ovidius Mysteries, published in February 2025 by Sharpe Books.
