Livia Drusilla first and only Empress of Rome

Livia Drusilla first and only Empress of Rome

Livia Drusilla lived to be 86 years old, 52 years of which spent with her husband Octavian Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.
Livia Drusilla Claudia was born in Rome on 30 January 58 BC. by Marco Livio Druso Claudiano and his wife Alfidia. The diminutive “Drusilla” suggests that she was the couple’s second daughter.

Health fanatic in the most modern sense of the term, Livia is a modern character also for her vision of the world, which she sees as a scenario in which to move and achieve one’s ambitions, without fear and without reverence towards the excessive power of the male sex.

Livia and Octavian fell in love like only in the best romantic films. Both were married, but these are details of little importance when you are the emperor: Octavian, in fact, forced Livia’s husband to divorce her, and he did the same with his own wife, Scribonia.
This marriage also meant the alliance between Octavian and a part of the senatorial aristocracy.

Octavian Augustus proposed her to the people, as a representative of Roman virtue, as a matron, almost vestal: Livia appears on the coins dedicated to her, as the personification of Pietas, which can be translated today as “solidarity”, of Iustitia, of Salus Augusta, that is, the collective well-being.

Temples were erected throughout the empire dedicated to her, seen as Cybele, divinity of the earth, and as Juno, mother of the Gods.

The Domina did not like to show off luxurious tunics and jewels, she took care of the house directly and sewed her husband’s clothes herself, as Tacitus recounts in his Annals, in which he paints her as an “impeccable wife”, at home Livia set a life of maximum severity, old-fashioned, military, republican, allowing no relaxation, no exemption from daily commitments, no luxury, no worldliness. She imposed total loyalty on herself in an era of corrupt customs, imposed respect and careful parsimony.

Octavian allowed her to manage his private assets and even to use his seal to sign documents.
The people loved Livia for her generosity in rewarding deserving servants, giving them freedom and, later, having them buried in a private mausoleum.
In addition to this, there are many testimonies of the Empress’ presence during the frequent fires in the city, in which she put herself on the front line to put them out or to direct rescue and rescue operations.

Her true aim was to redeem her feminine condition, to the point of demanding recognition of her imperial presence alongside her husband.
An equal presence which, if not legal, was at least moral, political and religious.
When her husband died in 14 AD, in his will he left the last wish to “adopt” her.
In this way, the woman became part of her patrician gens, she had a third of the family fortune and the “permanent” title of Augusta. Livia Drusilla died 15 years after her husband, was buried in the mausoleum of Augustus, and then her nephew Claudio, now emperor, deified her and she became the Diva (divine) Augusta.
Roman women swore in the name “of the diva Augusta”.

[The TV show: DOMINA tell the story of Livia Drusilla since as a young teenager is forced to flee Rome due to the defeat of his father political side.]

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Livia Drusilla | Ideas for Travelers
Livia Drusilla [from the TV Show: DOMINA]