Livia

“ In Livia there is more of the mother. She is proud, imperious, and ambitious, in a greater measure even than Zenobia. Young as she is, she believes herself of a different nature from others; she born to rule, others to serve. It is not the idea of her country and its renown that fills and sways her, but of a throne and its attendant glories. So she could reign a Queen, with a Queen's state and homage, it would matter little to her whether it were in Persia or Palmyra. Yet with those who are her equals is she free, and even sportive, light of heart, and overflowing with excess of life. ”

“ It was Livia, the revered old lady who had been present at the birth of the fortunes of Augustus and the new imperial authority, and who had held in her arms that infant world which had been born in the midst of the convulsions of the civil wars, and a little later had watched it try its first steps on the pathway of history. Livia did not much love Agrippina, whose hatred and intrigues against Tiberius she had always blamed; but she was too wise and too solicitous of the prestige of the family to allow Sejanus entirely to destroy the house of Germanicus. ”

“ Livia, then, about 18 B.C. personified in the eyes of the Romans the perfect type of aristocratic great lady created by long tradition. Having been safely preserved by good fortune through the long civil wars, this model was now set back again upon a fitting pedestal in the most powerful and richest family of the empire. She was the living example of all the virtues which the Romans most cherished, a beloved wife and a heeded counselor to the head of the state, honored with that veneration which power, virtue, nobility of birth, and the dignified beauty of face and figure drew from every one ”

“ At length Livia said,
'I am come now, Julia, to escape from what has become of late little other than a prison. The Fabrician dungeons are not more gloomy than the gardens of Sallust are now. No more gaiety; no feasting by day and carousal by night; the gardens never illuminated; no dancing nor music. It is a new life for me: and then the only creatures to be seen, that hideous Fronto and the smiling Varus; men very well in their place, but no inmates of palaces.'
'Well' said Julia; 'there is the greater reason why we should see more of each other and of Zenobia. ”

“ Thus you perceive I have told you first of what chiefly interests myself: now let me turn to what at this moment more than everything else fills all heads in Rome—and that is Livia. She is the object of universal attention, the centre of all honor. It is indescribable, the sensation her beauty, and now added to that, her magnificence, have made and still make in Rome. Her imperial bearing would satisfy even you; and the splendor of her state exceeds all that has been known before. This you may be surprised to hear, knowing what the principles of Aurelian have been in such things ”

“ Serene and practical, Livia seems to have accepted the fate assigned her and endured all the sacrifices it involved. A few years later, however, when Tiberius Claudius Nero died, he appointed Octavian,—who had then become the Emperor Augustus,—the guardian of his sons, and Livia received them back and cared for them with a mother’s devoted solicitude. She seems truly to have won the admiration if not the affection of Augustus. He was proud of her ability, her faithfulness, her household thrift, her wise counsel in the affairs of state. They lived simply in their house upon the Palatine. ”

“ Worn down, he again made a vague gesture of excuse.
"On the contrary, Vittorio, I believe you will marry Livia Lante, much sooner than I shall marry an American."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"We are very poor, Livia and I. One can endure poverty when one is in love. I do not love Livia."
"Later solitude and boredom will oppress you. She is sweet and gracious. She will beautify your life." ”

“ Livia's palace was not a large building, judging from what was considered necessary at a time when rich families were served by hundreds of slaves; but Livia was married to a man who was quite willing to have others of a lower rank outstrip him in extravagant living, so long as he had the power to decide whether or not it were best for the interests of the State that they be allowed to live at all; and as the Augusta had some influence in these decisions, she may have been able contentedly to visit the wife of Mæcenas, who lived in a house of far greater magnificence than her own. ”

“ The disparity of age must have been great in any case, and Livia must have accepted the marriage as the only way out of a position of great peril. It is in accordance with all that we know of Livia that she should have conducted herself with the strictest propriety as a Roman matron, though the youthful wife of an elderly or aged husband ”

“ In striking contrast to the many-sided Livia is the less dominating but more sympathetic Octavia, who lives through her virtues and her sufferings rather than her talents. This much-loved sister of Augustus represents the conservative element of the new age, with its amiable weaknesses and time-honored graces. The idol of her brother, who, nevertheless, did not hesitate to sacrifice her to his own interests and ambitions, she was the victim of lifelong misfortune. ”

“ Though the new bride was descended from one of the most aristocratic and powerful families of Rome, her relatives were not especially prominent at that time; so it would seem that the triumvir's regard for her was not regulated by the calculations of expediency. Livia possessed not only beauty, but also the character of mind which was likely to charm a man with the disposition of Octavius. She was quick to understand and appreciate his intelligent purposes and far-reaching achievements. There was between the two that sympathy which is the absolute requisite of a happy marriage. ”

“ We are not told whether this letter was written by Livia or by Augustus; but it was surely written at the instance of Livia. No man was more willing to forgive and to forget than the Emperor; his whole life had been a record of successful conciliation of declared enemies; both by policy and inclination he was averse to the maintenance of personal feuds. Livia, too, may have seen in the stiffness of Tiberius a reason for advancing the young Cæsars, over whom, as more pliable, she hoped to secure influence. ”

“ We tremble for her; but even when we see her tottering blindfold on the edge of the abyss, we feel certain she will never [Pg 167] take the fatal plunge. All this is depicted with infinite delicacy and rare psychological skill.
Livia now reappears upon the scene as one of the visible forces that are guarding Ginevra along the slippery road. Livia is one of the most striking and carefully drawn of the subordinate characters. It is worth mentioning en passant that here, as elsewhere, Mrs. Craven breaks boldly through the time-honored traditions of the Catholic novelist. ”

“ He therefore chose to attack her another way; to raise alarms from the haughtiness and contumacy of her spirit; to rouse the old hatred of Livia the elder, and the guilty mind of his late accomplice, Livia the younger; that to the Emperor they might represent her "as elated with the credit and renown of her fruitfulness; and that confiding in it, and in the zeal of the populace, she grasped with open arms at the Empire." The young Livia acted in this engagement by crafty calumniators; amongst whom she had particularly chosen Julius Posthumus, a man every way qualified for her purposes ”

“ Such are the motives that may have induced Augustus to hasten the nuptials. But what were the motives of Livia in accepting this marriage, in such stormy times, when the fortunes of the future Augustus were still so uncertain? A passage in Velleius Paterculus would lead us to believe that he who devised this historic marriage was none other than that same first husband of Livia, Tiberius Claudius Nero himself! According to our ideas it is inconceivable; but not at all strange according to the ideas of the Roman. ”

“ If Livia and the friends of Tiberius had thought to bring him in by the gate where Julia went out, they were not slow in recognising themselves deceived. The fall of Julia struck Tiberius on the rebound in his distant island. His unpopularity, already great, grew by all the disgust that the scandal about Julia had provoked, and became so formidable that one day about this time the inhabitants of Nimes overturned his statues. ”

“ Soon after, in 18 B.C., he was to become the colleague of Augustus in the presidency of the republic and consequently his equal in every way.
Thus Julia suddenly saw her ambitions gratified. She became at twenty-one the next lady of the empire after Livia, and perhaps even the first in company with and beside her. Young, beautiful, intelligent, cultured, and loving luxury, she represented at Livia's side and in opposition to her, the trend of the new generation in which was growing the determination to free itself from tradition. ”

“ Thus the father of Livia belonged by birth and adoption to two of those ancient, aristocratic families which for a long time and even in the midst of the most tremendous revolutions the people had venerated as semi-divine and into whose story was interwoven the history of the great republic. ”

“ What think you is the news to-day in Rome? No other and no less than this--which you may well suppose has for some time been no news to me--that Livia is to be Empress! It has just been made public by authority; and I despatch my letter that you may be immediately informed of it. It has brought another expression upon the countenance of Zenobia.
Curtius and Lucilia have this moment come in, and full of these tidings interrupt me--they with Portia wish to be remembered to you with affection. I shall soon write again--telling you then especially of my interviews with Aurelian, and of Probus. ”

“ Ginevra goes forth to her new life with a mixture of delight and fear that are like the foreshadowing of the flickered destiny that awaits her, and Livia’s voice strikes like a note of painful warning in the concert of the family joy and triumph and congratulation, when she reminds Ginevra that “marriage is like death”—a thing that we wait and watch for, but never know until we have passed the gates and it is too late to turn back. ”

“ Thy name, youth? thou hast a pretty gait in that warlike cloak of thine, but thy cap overshadows thee perversely.—Ha! this is not a boy's hand!—That ring—O Heavens!
(Retires some faces back in confusion, while Livia, taking off her cap and cloak, makes him a profound curtesy; and pauses, expecting him to speak. Finding him silent, she begins to rub her hand, and look at it affectedly.)
Liv. It is not a boy's hand, Baron de Bertrand: 'tis the hand of a weak foolish woman, which shall be given to a lover of hers who is not much wiser than herself, whenever he has courage to ask it. ”

“ Valentine paid his mother the respect due to her; and, for my part, I really liked Livia from inclination: but, as I found she was the object which gave the greatest pleasure to the man in the world I most loved, and to whom I owed all the duty I was capable of paying, I thought I could never do enough to oblige her. My father grew every day fonder and fonder of his wife ”

“ Even for a woman as able and energetic as Livia it was an arduous task to struggle against the inclinations of Augustus, against public opinion, against the majority of the senate, against private interest, and against Julia and her friends. Indeed, four years passed during which the situation of Tiberius and his party grew steadily worse, while the party of Julia increased in power. ”

“ Livia, the mother of Tiberius, in the costume of a priestess.* The legend which then formed about the family of Augustus, a legend hostile at almost every point, has interpreted this marriage as a tyrannical act, virtually an abduction, by the dissolute and perverse triumvir. I, too, in my "Greatness and Decline of Rome" expressed my belief that this haste, at least, was the effect not of political motives but of a passionate love inspired in the young triumvir by the very beautiful Livia. ”

“ He says that "she turned to hate all mothers, and the angry passion of her sorrow was directed principally against Livia, because that now the hope and prospects that had belonged to her own son were transferred to the son of Livia." Such unreasoning grief in this otherwise noble woman was a mark of common human frailty; but it does not present so pleasing a picture as that memorable scene in which Virgil, at the command of Augustus, read before Octavia the sixth book of his Æneid, in which he has commemorated Marcellus. ”

“ The ancient historians tell us nothing; it is, at all events, hardly probable that Livia remained an inactive witness of the long struggle waged to secure the return of Tiberius and his reinstatement in the brilliant position once his. Moreover, Suetonius says that during his entire stay at Rodi, Tiberius communicated with Augustus by means of Livia. At any rate, the party of Tiberius was not long in understanding that he could not re-enter Rome, as long as Julia was popular and most powerful there; that to reopen the gates of Rome to the husband, it was necessary to drive out the wife. ”

“ She died for her family, for her caste, and for Rome, without even having the reward of being remembered with dutiful regard by posterity; for in this struggle she had sacrificed not merely her life, but even her honor and her fame. Such, furthermore, was the common destiny of all the members of this family, and if we except Livia and Augustus, the privileged pair who founded it, we are at a loss to know whether to call it the most fortunate or the most unhappy of all the families of the ancient world. ”