A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Livia Drusilla
The father of Livia was L. D. Calidianus, originally of the family of the Claudii, but adopted into that of the Livii. After the battle of Philippi he destroyed himself, to avoid falling into the hands of the triumvirs, to whose party he was adverse.
The husband of Livia was afterward of the side of Antony against Augustus, and with his wife and son, in the midst of a civil war, fled from Rome to join him in Sicily, where they ran a thousand dangers. On the marriage of Antony to Octavia, and their consequent reconciliation, Tiberius and his family returned to Rome, where the superior beauty and qualifications of Livia captivated the heart of Augustus; and not long after, though she was pregnant, and he already married, she became his wife; for Tiberius dared not deny Cæsar any thing, and the latter divorced Scribonia on the day in which she became the mother of Julia. Livia was proclaimed Augusta, and mother of her country. The Romans even pursued their flattery so far as to erect temples in her honour, and Augustus saw them with pleasure exalt to a divinity a woman whom he loved, who, always equal in her temper, shut her eyes on his irregular conduct, and as much as she could, consistent with that dignity she was tenaciously preserving, mixed in the pleasures he had provided for others. By this conduct she not only secured the affection, but ruled the mind of her husband. Despairing to have children by her, he adopted those she had had by Tiberius; and she so loaded them with honours, that the sceptre could not but pass, on the death of Augustus, into the hands of one of them.
"Livia," says M. de Serviez, "had an enlarged and cultivated mind, capable of all the refinements of policy. A quiet understanding, just discernment, delicate and enlightened taste, and a profound penetration, which, in the most difficult situations, always pointed out the best way to pursue; so that Augustus had never any serious conversation with her which he did not insert in his journal. Yet she was lofty, proud, ambitious, and though without the severe virtue of the ancient Roman ladies, kept up the decorum of their manner, softened by the most finished politeness and address.
The unexpected death of Marcellus, the nephew, and Caius and Lucius, the grandsons of Augustus, whose deaths Livia is supposed to have caused by poison, and the exile of Agrippa, their younger brother, did not diminish her favour or her power. Augustus even kept secret from her a voyage which he made to see the latter in his banishment.
But this interview, which was tender and affecting, neither of them long survived. The death of Augustus, as it was supposed, was hastened by Livia, and the other put to death, as she affirmed, by his order.
Some one demanded of Livia the means she made use of to govern so completely the mind of the emperor: "By obeying him blindly," said she, "by not attempting to discover his secrets, and by feigning ignorance of his intrigues." Thus it was the governor or the lord of the world was deluded. He knew not that affection, if it cannot correct, mourns over the vices of those it loves, and that none can see with calmness the misconduct of another, but those who feel for them a portion of contempt. Her son, however, did not reward her ingratitude, for no sooner was he seated upon the throne, than he strove to confine her power in more limited bounds. By a feigned humility, he refused to suffer the decrees of the senate in her honour to pass, either during her life or afterwards; and yet, fearful to embroil himself with this able princess, he fixed his residence at Caprea.
After the death of Augustus, Livia bore the name of Julia, because he had adopted her into that family, and instituted her heiress of a third part of his possessions.
Caius Caligula pronounced her funeral eulogium.