A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Livia
LIVIA,
Daughter of Livius Drusus Calidianus, married Tiberius Claudius Nero, by whom she had two sons, Drusus and the Emperor Tiberius. Her husband was attached to the cause of Antony; and as he fled from the danger with which he was threatened by Octavianus, afterwards the Emperor Augustus, Livia was semi by Octavianus, who immediately resolved to marry her. He divorced his wife Scribonia, and, with the approbation of the augurs, married Livia. She enjoyed, from this moment, the entire confidence of Augustus, and gained a complete ascendency over his mind by an implicit obedience to his will—by never expressing a desire to learn his secrets—and by seeming ignorant of his infidelities. Her children by Drusus she persuaded Augustus to adopt as her own; and after the death of Drusus the eldest son, Augustus appointed Tiberius his successor. The respect and love of Augustus for Livia ended only with his life. As he lay dying, he turned his gaze on her, drew her in the grasp of death towards him, and said, "Livia, be happy, and remember how we have loved."
Livia has been accused of having involved in one common ruin the heirs and nearest relations of Augustus, and also of poisoning her husband that her son might receive the kingdom sooner; but these accusations seem to be unfounded. By her husband's will she was instituted co-heiress with Tiberius, adopted as his daughter, and directed to assume the name of Livia Augusta. On the deification of Augustus, she became the priestess of the new god.
Tiberius, her son, and the successor to Augustus, treated her with great neglect and ingratitude, and allowed her no share in the government. She died A.D. 29; and Tiberius would not allow any public or private honours to be paid to her memory. Tacitus speaks of her as being strictly moral, but says she was "an imperious mother, a compliant wife, a match for her husband in art, and her son in dissimulation." But if she was "strictly moral," she must have been far worthier than her son or her husband.