Since the record of Livia’s dynastic crimes is spurious, how do we explain its origin?  What constitutes the proverbial smoking gun—the root cause of the malignant tradition?

            Actually the plural combination smoking guns more aptly describes the basis of Livia’s criminal reputation.  Various factors have united to create the corrupt image we have of her.

Apparent Plausibility

            When considered superficially, the accusations against Livia do seem highly credible.  Augustus uncannily lost one blood heir after another until he had no choice but to make Tiberius his successor.  The pattern of deaths appears wholesale and systematic, until one carefully examines the events that surround each occurrence.  Only then do we perceive that the timings, antecedents, and consequences of the incidents are too random and illogical to be premeditated. 

            Neither the demise of Marcellus, nor that of the elder Agrippa, promised the throne to Livia’s offspring.  Postumus was never a threat in the first place.  Only the deaths of Gaius and Lucius forced Augustus to select Tiberius.  But the clumsy, haphazard, ill-timed procedures by which these princes were supposedly murdered hardly characterize a cunning, incisive thinker like Livia. 

            Other family misfortunes, such as the disgraces of Augustus’ daughter and granddaughter and the death of his grandnephew Germanicus, give the impression of having been premeditated to protect Tiberius’ tenure of the succession.  Scrutiny nevertheless reveals that if Livia perpetrated these tragedies, she wound up worsening conditions for herself and her son.  Once again, such bungling fails to befit an intrepid schemer.

The Literature of the Opposition

            Not all publications dating from Augustus’ reign were complimentary.  Some writers were highly critical of the emperor, his family, his associates, and his regime.

            One offending author was Cassius Severus, a lawyer who routinely produced denunciations of Augustus and other notables.  Paullus Fabius Maximus, himself one of Severus’ targets, successfully prosecuted the writer for treason.  Another muckraker was Timagenes, an Alexandrian Greek who taught rhetoric at Rome and published diatribes of the imperial family.  Misrepresentations of Livia probably originated with these contemporaneous insinuators.  Seneca the tutor and regent of Nero writes that Cassius Severus attacked distinguished women as well as men, and that Timagenes aimed disparagements specifically at Livia.

            None of this hostile literature is extant today, largely because Augustus and later Julio-Claudian emperors suppressed it.  Roman writers like Tacitus, however, had access to this invective—if not to the actual material then to people’s recollections of it. 

Rhetoric

            Imputations of murders and other crimes to Livia abound in the narrative of our muckraking friend Tacitus.  Although less vituperative, Dio Cassius’s account closely parallels that of Tacitus in detail and depth.  Tacitus actually does not mention Livia in connection with the death of Marcellus; Dio does but dismisses Livia’s guilt as questionable.  Tacitus writes that Livia may have arranged the murders of Gaius and Lucius.  Dio attributes those princes’ deaths to natural causes; but he adds that some believed Livia engineered Lucius’ demise because it coincided with Tiberius’ return to Rome from Rhodes.  Tacitus asserts Livia persuaded Augustus to remand Postumus to exile.  Dio hints at this, writing that Postumus’ slanders of Livia were among the principal reasons his grandfather banished him. 

            Tacitus and Dio alike maintain Augustus visited Postumus on Planasia, in the summer of 14 CE.  Tacitus adds that Livia learned of the journey from Marcia, the wife of Augustus’ indiscreet traveling companion Paullus Fabius Maximus.  Both writers suggest Livia murdered Augustus lest he change his mind about bequeathing the throne to Tiberius.  Tacitus writes that after Augustus’ decease, Livia demanded Postumus’ execution to satisfy her stepmotherly hatred for him.  Dio claims Tiberius ordered Postumus’ death, but adds that some believed the mandate came from Livia. 

            Tacitus challenges the popular assumption that Germanicus died of poisoning, but goes on to create the impression Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina certainly did try to poison the prince.  Tacitus also insinuates Livia encouraged the couple’s malfeasance and then obfuscated their guilt.  Now differing sharply, Dio asserts Piso and Plancina definitely poisoned Germanicus.  He adds that Tiberius, hoping to diffuse the suspicion that he had instigated the murder, personally charged Piso before the Senate.  Dio does not connect Livia with Piso and Plancina at all.  He nevertheless joins Tacitus in claiming Livia took pleasure in her grandson’s death.

            Both authors question the reliability of their source material for Livia’s criminality.  They repeatedly employ such combinations as, “some say,” or, “it was suspected that.”  And yet by simply reproducing damaging if spurious information about Livia, Tacitus and Dio focus their readers’ attention upon it.  Tacitus, moreover, employs the rhetorical device of double entendre, which gives particular emphasis to the suspicions he raises.  He makes a strongly factual statement, then immediately contradicts it with innuendo.  For example he writes that Gaius and Lucius perished from natural causes, or perhaps from their stepmother Livia’s treachery. Antonia absented herself from Germanicus’ funeral because of ill health, or because Tiberius and Livia restrained her to conceal their own hypocrisy.  While some of Agrippa’s offspring certainly perished by the sword, others were believed to have been starved or poisoned.  Livia rendered assistance to the younger Julia after having secretly ruined the latter’s family. 

            Tacitus admits to citing rumors, but presents these insinuations as if they were verifiable truths.  Livia and Tiberius hastened the execution of Postumus, Tiberius acting from fear and Livia from stepmotherly contempt.  Germanicus was troubled by the secret hatred of his grandmother and uncle.  Surely Livia urged Plancina to impugn Agrippina.  Livia and Tiberius boycotted Germanicus’ funeral because they felt attendance would belittle their majesty or betray their insincerity.  Livia’s defense of Plancina provoked the contempt of all decent men.  Livia considered Agrippina a threat.

            In one notable description of Livia, Tacitus employs an adjective that carries various meanings.  After deploring Augustus’ rise to power as the development of despotism, Tacitus calls Livia gravis to the world as a mother (i.e., of Tiberius), and gravis to the Caesars as a stepmother.  Translators, looking at the context in which Tacitus uses the adjective, tend to give gravis the pejorative connotation of terrible, dreadful, or horrendous.  Gravis, however, in Latin can simply mean important or significant.

            Tacitus uses another double entendre in his description of Augustus’ feelings for Livia.  “Then Caesar, with desire for her person, wrested [her from her] marriage.” 1  One meaning of the Latin word forma, translated here as person, is physical visage or appearance.  When read from this standpoint, Tacitus’ words suggest that Augustus, in his eagerness to satisfy his visceral infatuation for Livia, married her without regard for her intentions or integrity.