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Page 12
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; furthermore, there were
her two sons, Tiberius and Drusus, both intelligent, handsome, full of
activity, docile to the traditional education which she sought to give
them in order that they might be the worthy continuators of the great
name they bore. Livia, with all this in her favor, might have been
expected to live a happy and tranquil life, serenely to fulfil her
mission amid the admiration of the world.
[Illustration: A silver denarius of the Second Triumvirate. The
portrait at the right (obverse) is of Caesar Octavianus (Augustus),
with a slight beard to indicate mourning, and at the left (reverse), of
Mark Antony. The date is 41 B.C.]
[Illustration: Silver coin bearing the head of Julius Caesar. This
coin, a denarius, worth about seventeen cents, represents Caesar as
Pontifex Maximus. Together with all the other Roman coins bearing
Caesar's image, it was struck in the year before his death--44-45 B.C.
The fact that Caesar placed his image on these coins may have
strengthened the suspicion of his enemies that he wished to make
himself king.]
But opposition and difficulties sprang up in her own family. In 39
B.C. Augustus had had by Scribonia a daughter, Julia. Following in the
government of his family, as in so large a part of his politics, the
traditions of the old nobility, Augustus gave his daughter in marriage
when very young,--she was not yet past seventeen,--just as he early
gave wives to Livia's two sons, whose guardian he was. In each case in
order to assure within his circle harmony and power, he chose the
consort in his own family or from among his friends. To Tiberius he
gave Agrippina, a daughter of Agrippa, his close friend and most
faithful collaborator; to Drusus he gave Antonia, the younger daughter
of Mark Antony and Octavia, sister of Augustus. To Julia he gave
Marcellus, his nephew, the son of Octavia and her first husband. But
while the marriages of Drusus and Tiberius proved successful and the
two couples lived lovingly and happily, such was not the case with the
marriage of Julia and Marcellus. As a result, disagreeable
misunderstandings and rancors soon made themselves felt in the family.
We do not know exactly what were the causes of these disagreements. It
seems that Marcellus, under the influence of Julia, assumed a tone
somewhat too haughty and insolent, such as was not becoming in a youth
who, although the nephew of Augustus, was still taking his first steps
in his political career; and it seems too that this conduct of his was
especially offensive to Agrippa, who, next to Augustus, was the first
person in the empire.
In short, at seventeen, Julia desired that her husband should be the
second personage of the state in order that she might come immediately
after Livia or even be placed directly on an equality with her.
According to the Roman ideas of the family and of its discipline, this
was a precocious and excessive ambition, unbecoming a matron, much less
a young girl. For the duty of the woman was to follow faithfully and
submissively the ambitions of her lord and not to impart to him her own
ambitions or make him her tool. In contrast to Livia, who was so
docile and placid in her respect for the older traditions of the
aristocracy, so firm and strong in her observance of the duties, not
infrequently grievous and difficult, which this tradition imposed,
Julia represented the woman of that new generation which had grown up
in the times of peace--a type more rebellious against tradition, less
resigned to the serious duties and difficult renunciations of rank;
much more inclined to enjoy its prerogatives than disposed to bear that
heavy burden of obligations and sacrifices with which the previous
generations had balanced privilege. Beautiful and intelligent, even in
the early years of her first marriage she showed a great passion for
studies, and a fine artistic and literary taste, and with these a
lively inclination toward luxury and display which hardly suited with
the spirit or the letter of the _Lex sumptuaria_ which her father had
carried through in that year. But fraught with greater danger than all
this was her ardent and passionate temperament, which both in the
family and in politics was altogether too frequently to drive her to
desire and to carry through that which, rightly or wrongly, was
forbidden to a woman by law, custom, and public opinion.
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