Livia

Family: Imperial household · Role: wife of Augustus · First appears: Annals I (1)

Livia was the wife of Augustus and the mother of Tiberius and Drusus, while Lucius and Caius were counted among her enemies. As Augustus’s illness worsened, suspicion fell on her, and when he died at Nola, his departure and Tiberius’s accession were announced “in one and the same moment” under her guarded arrangements. The young Agrippa was then murdered, probably through the combined actions of Tiberius and Livia. Augustus’s will made Tiberius and Livia his heirs, adopted her into the Julian family, and gave her the name Augusta, though Tiberius refused her an official lictor, an altar, and public solemnities.

Livia used her influence for Urgulania, first helping her defy Lucius Piso’s legal proceedings and later ordering payment of his claim. She directed Plancina to persecute Agrippina through rivalry and indignities, while Germanicus, her grandson through Drusus, lived under the secret hostility attributed to his uncle and grandmother. She was also described as Agrippina’s stepmotherly rival, as Germanicus’s sister, and as married to Drusus, with whom she had male twins. In the affair involving Cneius Piso and Plancina, her secret solicitations secured Plancina’s pardon, and Cneius Piso called Livia his confederate.

Later, Livia’s apparent unity with Tiberius concealed mutual hatred. Aelius Sejanus seduced her into adultery and drew her into plans involving marriage, partnership in the Empire, and the murder of Drusus; her physician Eudemus was also drawn into the guilt. Livia pressed Sejanus to seek marriage, and he asked Tiberius to remember him if a husband were sought for her, but Tiberius delayed his answer and warned that the match could divide Caesar’s family.