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6- Livia as a widow.

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Livia as a widow
As a matter of fact, notwithstanding the rumors that were aired in the town, distrusting all the calumnies that were diffused on her account and looking only to the facts, Livia proved to have been a very nice person and there is not the least doubt on the fact that she exerted a good influence over August, and that she was wholly concerned on the problems of his family’s members. She mourned her son Drusus and her grandson Germanicus, but she grieved also for all the others relatives’ and friends’ deaths. She was the only one who understood that her grandson Claudius was not a moron and made him marry Plautia Urganilla, grand daughter of one of her bosom friends, a young woman just right for him and with whom he was very happy. Good relations she had also with all the other family women. Particularly affectionate she was to her niece, Antonia, who was also her daughter in law and, and who, after Drusus’s death, came to live with her; a young woman who was always at her side in all the moments of her life and was for her a great comfort. She was however kind also to the others female relatives who clearly never liked her and did not even try to hide the fact. Thus she succeeded to lighten the exile of Augustus’s niece, the daughter of Giulia, a young woman who, like her mother, had been confined on an island for her dissipated conduct; a girl that, apart of all the rest, had always been rude to Livia. Even Tacitus was obliged to recognize this. Of course, after having so written, he added his poisoned comments to the real facts.
There is no doubt that when one succeed in taking away from the historians reports their comments and their malignant hints, and reach the real truth on Livia, she appears as a woman of the old stamp: a good wife, a splendid mother, a loving grandmother and a loyal friend.
Apart of all these qualities Livia always showed to be a strong woman and she proved it when, while battling with the Germans, her son Drusus died and she was forced to find in herself not only the strength to overcome the grief, but also the moral force to maintain the serenity and the calm that her position requested in front of the world. Augustus, who knew how much she suffered, put at her side Areo, a philosopher of his retinue, and the man tried to help her with the aid of his science. She was grateful to him, but in reality it was in herself that she found the strength to react, and she succeeded to pluck up her courage and to hide to all the others her desperation. Apart of everything else she had always silently disapproved the display of grief that Octavia gave to the world when her son Marcellus died. She wanted to proof to the people that it was possible to stand a terrible loss without abandoning oneself to clamorous demonstration of sorrow and keeping in one’s own heart the grief. It was just this, however, that was not understood. The mass of people believes only in weepings, loud lamentations and strong scenes of mourning. If someone dominates oneself they will consider him an insensitive person or, worse, one who wanted to do out of a cumbersome relative. And of this her enemies always accused her.
But she stood firm. She was sure of herself and thus she reacted to the events by the laws of her own conscience: Livia never cared of what other people did or said, and in this she was always a nonconformist. For example once that she met a group of naked men who were immediately captured and brought to be killed, she intervened and told the soldiers that it was absurd to inflict death to the culprits. She explained that for a caste woman naked men were not different from statues: thus she imposed herself and saved them. Her morality was so superior to any talk that she could do such a thing.
As Suetonius tells us she was always full of impulse and when the Temple of Vesta took fire, she rushed from the house mixing herself among the crowd and, using her authority, she urged both the soldiers and the folk that was there to save the holy temple from the ruin. When this was reported to Tiberius, her son with his rigid formalism was shocked. He could not admit this kind of acting from the part of a woman and harshly reproved her. But she replayed that she had only done what she was accustomed to do when Augustus lived, and that, also now, that he was no more with her, she would follow this line of conduct, and then she also added that she did not care of how Tiberius judged it.
Apart of this Livia was not only very active and resolute, but also kept a very sensible and intelligent mind, and never lost this quality. Even when her grandson Germanicus, the son of Drusus and of Antonia - the daughter in law for whom she had a great affection –, a boy that that she loved very much, died in Asia Minor, Livia, also if gravely hit by his death, never believed to the mad insinuations advanced by Agrippina and her entourage who accused Piso and his wife Plancina - one of Livia bosom friends - to have killed him by witchcraft and poisons.
The brilliant and lucid Livia could never believe these calumnies: she was one of the few person of her times that didn’t give credit to the chats of women nor she believed in witchcraft, white or black as it could be. Thus, when people began to say that Germanicus’s death had been caused by Piso’s sorceries, she did not let herself be carried by her grief and, also if at those times everybody firmly believed in the possibility to destroy one’s enemies by maledictions, she never fell for this superstition. But she was one of the few: all the historians instead believed in the might of witchcraft, and they related that Germanicus death had been caused by that. Dio describes some of the practices in use and Tacitus assures us that dead men bones had been found hidden under the floors of Germanicus’a house, and added that the servants had also discovered many “tabulae maledictoriae”, lead tablets inscribed with maleficent “formulae”. On the ones found in the young general house there were fiery invocations asking all kinds of underground gods and demons to bring him to death.
Dio, however, doesn’t stop at this, and, going on, asserts that Germanicus had been poisoned. To prove this he said that when the body of Germanicus was exposed in Antiochia’s Forum, the town where he died, everybody could see evident traces of poisoning. But this accusation was so unfounded that even Tacitus recognized that it was untenable. In his history the historian points to the fact that, dining with Germanicus, Piso was placed so farth from him that he could never have poured poison on his food. Moreover he could never do such an act in front of Germanicus’s servants and under the young general’s eyes.
Unfortunately Piso’s trial was held in a red-hot atmosphere. Apart of having been fomented, the crowd, that had always loved the emperor’s young nephew, wanted blood, as always. Tiberius tried to keep the calm and to give to the accused man a fair judgment, but everything was useless and the situation became so desperate that Piso killed himself. Also then, notwithstanding the climate of suspect that was prevailing all around and the accusations that had been launched against the unhappy couple, Livia did not let her be dragged by the public opinion and did not lose her head. She serenely judged the couple’s responsibilities. She knew that they were innocents, and above all she understood tha,t also if between Germanicus and Piso there had be antagonism, there had never been anything more.
Apart of this, notwithstanding what Agrippina was telling, Plancina never had anything to do with this story. Livia knew well her grand son’s wife, and her hysteric and wild imagination. For all these considerations she was not disposed to abandon to the crowd her calumniated friend and let that, to comply Agrippina, she could be condemned to death and judged for a crime that she didn’t commit. It was a very courageous stand because the people was now unrestrained, and all Tiberius’s and Livia’s enemies were anxious to accuse them of complicity in the young man death. But Livia did not let this deter her, and with all her authority as widow of the first emperor and mother of the actual one, obtained from Tiberius that he did everything to help Plancina, until he suceeded in saving her.
From all these facts we can see that Livia was a woman endowed with a great strength and balance. But apart of all this she proved to have many talents in the practical field. For instance she was a very good business woman and a splendid administratrix. Augustus very soon recognized his wife’s qualities and, when she was still very young, only 23 years old, he freed her of the “patria potestas”. Evidently he was sure that she was perfectly able to look after her own interests and that she didn’t need any help. Starting from then Livia, who was enormously rich, was very busy to direct all her properties in the Middle East, in Gallia and in Palestine. She chose very intelligent and competent persons to help her in these tasks. One of them was Burro, such an able person that under Claudius and Nero he was set at the head of the Praetorian ward, composed by more than a thousand of the best valid soldiers of the Roman empire.
Later on Livia obtained all the other titles and privileges that a Roman matron could attain. In the year 9 B.C., when she had already attained 49 years, she got the rights pertaining to the “mother of three sons”, a honor that up to then had not been given to her because it was hoped that a new birth could give it to her. Then at Augustus death she was freed from the “Lex Voconia” a law that limited the quantity of heirloom that a woman could receive. At Lat in Augustus’s will she was adopted by him with the name of Giulia Augusta and she was named the emperor’s cult priestess with the right to be accompanied by a lictor. But she never abused of her rights, and many were the honors that through Tiberius she refused. Certainly many more than the ones that she accepted.
Thus through all these difficulties and her great activity, always lucid and never idle, she reached 85 years, a respectable age for these times. Undoubtedly in this she was helped by her having always been very moderate. Passed to history is a dish of boiled “enula”, a very bitter root, that the empress ate everyday to keep herself in good health. But it could not have been only the “bitter enula” that helped her to attain such an age. Of course she must have had a very strong constitution.
She died in the 29 A.D. and at this moment all the historians wrote about her and inserted in their texts, that had often been defamatory, a brief eulogy. Dio reports all the honors that the Senate decreed at her death: it was ordered that for an year all the women had to wore mourning dresses, and that an arch had to be built for her, a honor that was never bestowed on a woman. The decree was motivated by a declaration that proclaimed that she had greatly merited from her fatherland; that she had saved the life of many fellow citizens; that she brought up the sons of many people and helped many families by furnishing a dowry for their daughters. As a consequence the Senate decreed that she must also be called “Mother of the Country.
The arch, however was never erected: Tiberius declared that he himself would pay for it. But then, either because it deemed this honor not fit for a woman or because, depressed by his melancholia, he always postponed everything to the morning after, he left undone the project. The old emperor by then had exiled himself in Capri and he did not even come to Rome for his mother death. He said that he would be there for the funeral and his relatives waited for him, but in vain. As the body of Livia risked to be corrupted, they were compelled to bury her. So Livia that so much had always done for her adored Tiberius, died alone and was not set in her tomb by this son that she had so much loved.
To sum up the story and ending it, let us remember Livia at Augustus times, in the moment of her happiness, and lets us find the golden rules that allowed her to keep this long and perfect union and make of it the best thing of her life. To someone who asked her how she succeeded, smiling, Livia replayed that it had been by maintaining herself scrupulously chaste; by doing willingly what her husband wished; by never poking her nose in his business and, above all, by always pretending of not hearing or seeing what happened among him and his temporary favorites, beautiful women who passed like meteors in his life. All along those 52 years she had loved him and by him she had been deeply loved and nothing could have been better.