Vulgar History - Livia Drusilla, Ancient Rome's (Allegedly) Murderous Empress

00:00:00.040 Hi, everyone. Before we get into today's episode, I just wanted to acknowledge that I know there's a lot of listeners in the United States.

00:00:06.960 A lot of messed up things are happening right now, and so I just wanted to share some ways you can help.

00:00:12.580 So right now in the United States, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has been overseeing a mass deportation campaign

00:00:19.260 affecting hundreds of thousands of people through detentions, confinements, and expulsions.

00:00:23.860 Their stated goal is to arrest 3,000 people per day.

00:00:26.240 To attain this number, people are being taken from public places like churches, schools, and hospitals.

00:00:31.320 The people being targeted are predominantly from a Hispanic background.

00:00:34.920 Families are being separated, and people are living in fear.

00:00:37.820 This is a horrific campaign affecting people all across America.

00:00:41.380 I want to highlight some organizations working to help those being affected.

00:00:44.860 Today, I want to highlight CHURLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles.

00:00:50.140 This is one of the largest and most effective advocates for immigrant rights,

00:00:53.340 organizing, educating, and defending immigrants and refugees in the streets, in the courts,

00:00:57.680 and in the halls of power. Their work includes helping with legal fees for migrants, and lately

00:01:02.060 they have also been helping with fees for those arrested during anti-ICE protests. You can donate

00:01:07.460 to support their work at chirla.org. That's C-H-I-R-L-A dot O-R-G. Enjoy today's episode. 1.00

00:01:23.340 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast.

00:01:31.700 My name is Anne Foster, and this is part two of a duet of episodes.

00:01:37.500 Our voices are so melodic, you'd think we were trained in ancient Rome.

00:01:41.060 Last time we were talking about what was ancient Rome like, especially for women living there.

00:01:45.380 And that was really setting the stage for this part two, which is where we're talking about one specific woman from the Roman era,

00:01:51.240 and her name is Livia and my guest is Gina. Welcome back, Jean Barry. Thank you. So we're

00:01:59.380 talking about Livia and before we get into explaining her whole deal, I need to, long-time

00:02:06.720 listeners of the show will know that about a year ago, I got really obsessed with this 1976 British

00:02:12.920 miniseries called I, Claudius. Have you ever watched it? I have not because I haven't been

00:02:18.120 able to find it so the couple of places i looked i couldn't find it but it's absolutely on my list

00:02:23.740 of must see i believe it is on acorn tv app but um so i watched that and i was like wow this is so

00:02:31.240 good and i loved it was just so like messy and trashy but like all the actors in it are like the

00:02:37.280 finest shakespearean actors so it's kind of like downton abbey in that way where you're like oh

00:02:41.900 this is just like a messy soap opera but the acting is so good you're like this feels like

00:02:46.320 Shakespeare or something where it's like, no, this is just like people, these are ridiculous

00:02:50.120 pot twists. Anyway, in that show, so I, Claudius, the miniseries, it's from 1976 and it's based on

00:02:56.460 a 1934 novel by Robert Graves, also called I, Claudius. And you'll understand why I'm explaining

00:03:04.620 this in a second, because this all sets up what the modern understanding of who Livia is,

00:03:09.660 comes from. So in 1934, Robert Graves was like a penniless author and he's like,

00:03:14.620 I need to get rich quick. I need to write a book really quickly. And I need to, it needs to sell

00:03:18.660 a gazillion copies. I know he could like read Latin. He's like, I'm going to translate these

00:03:23.160 old sources and I'm going to write a history of ancient Rome, but I'm going to include all the

00:03:26.720 messiest, sexiest, like most debaucherous rumors and I'll make it seem like that's true. And so

00:03:32.720 this was his like salacious novel he was writing just to make money. And he made it as salacious

00:03:38.060 as possible to make as much money as possible, which he did. But then to the surprise of, I think

00:03:42.740 him it became accepted as kind of like wow this is what ancient rome was like it's a really pop

00:03:47.260 it became a popular book and then 1976 this mini series came out it was the bridgerton of its time

00:03:53.220 everybody in every country was watching i claudius and it really like and since then people like

00:03:59.980 teachers show it in their history classes and in their latin classes and the book i claudius

00:04:05.820 and then the miniseries that claudius presents livia as this like straight up serial killer

00:04:12.320 murderess but her performance in the miniseries is by this welsh actress called shan phillips and

00:04:19.480 it's amazing i think she won the bafta for it like she's so good at this character so when you

00:04:24.100 and i decided to talk about livia i was like amazing i love this murderous um badass killer

00:04:31.260 And then I started reading and I was like, oh no, yet again, the sources, the sources, it's Cleopatra all over again.

00:04:40.480 I love the yet again.

00:04:42.040 Yet again, yet again.

00:04:45.540 Just like the male historians of ancient Rome hated women so much.

00:04:50.560 And then this was really exacerbated by Robert Graves did this translation in 1934. 0.99

00:04:55.820 and robert graves had a really fucked up relationship with women especially with 0.88

00:05:00.480 strong powerful women so he took these like rumors from ancient rome and then he added 0.98

00:05:04.700 even more salacious detail to it like he added some more murders to her dossier that weren't

00:05:09.840 even in the original sources then that book became popular the mini series is popular you said you

00:05:15.100 were telling me just a minute ago there was this new series called domina that also like so it's

00:05:19.320 like the understood narrative of Livia's whole life because of these sources is that she is this 0.59

00:05:27.480 like murderess who just cleared a murderous path so that her shitty son Tiberius could become

00:05:33.080 the emperor and it turns out the story is more complicated than that it is very much more so 0.98

00:05:39.300 part of me is disappointed because I thought we'd just be talking about this badass poisoning

00:05:44.660 murderer but i'm even more excited because we can talk about how and why her reputation became what

00:05:52.180 it was and her story is so much more nuanced and so much more interesting than just like she was 0.88

00:05:55.520 this lady who murdered a bunch of people i would not put it past her that she did murder a few

00:06:00.280 but it is definitely not in the way or on the level that men have tried to portray her over

00:06:06.560 the years and we're gonna we're gonna go through her life like birth to death basically but what

00:06:12.640 one of the sources I was reading suggested, and this rings true to me, is like other women from

00:06:17.940 this period, like other imperial women who were written about by the haters. And this is like

00:06:24.620 this period of time people 200 years later look back at it as like this debaucherous, awful time.

00:06:29.980 So they really tried to like really build up how horrible it was. They tried to make everyone sound

00:06:34.040 as horrible as possible. And where there were other imperial women like Messalina and like 1.00

00:06:39.020 Lavilla, who had documented like adulterous situations. They just made that even more 0.78

00:06:45.360 extreme. But Livia was the perfect Roman wife. There was never a whisper that she ever had an 0.97

00:06:51.680 affair. So they're like, well, we can't slander her by calling her a slut. So what they did, 0.99

00:06:57.280 what they ended up doing was like, well, let's just slander her by calling her a secret, you

00:07:02.320 know, nagging wife behind the scenes, murdering all these people because they, because she 0.91

00:07:07.380 portrayed herself so perfectly as a perfect Roman wife like that there was nothing else I could use 1.00

00:07:12.580 against her she really was the epitome of what a Roman woman should be and nothing I've ever read

00:07:21.580 tells me differently and it would be quite a burden to me it'd be quite a burden to have 1.00

00:07:29.580 everyone always say basically how perfect you were at least when it came to that um and so

00:07:36.280 I think that there was probably times where in other areas she may may have slipped up because

00:07:43.200 she was so tired of the burden of being the perfect woman wife perfect woman and I mean

00:07:51.080 she was empress for 50 years yep yep like she survived like she made it work and what i want

00:07:59.740 to say before we get into really talking about her story is where i feel like gina you and i 1.00

00:08:03.740 would not have survived in that role is because you and i both have a real resting bitch face 0.81

00:08:08.880 problem yes we do um we both have a situation um of like our feelings are portrayed on our faces 0.99

00:08:18.700 when someone's being foolish in front of me 0.99

00:08:21.840 or asking me something ridiculous. 0.98

00:08:24.380 Like, I'm not smiling pleasantly. 0.95

00:08:26.720 I look like fully like Dorothy from the Golden Girls.

00:08:29.440 Just like, I have no poker face.

00:08:31.980 And I think you're the same.

00:08:33.280 My mom used to tell me when I was a kid

00:08:35.060 that nine times out of 10,

00:08:36.420 when I got punished for something,

00:08:38.240 it was just because of the look on my face.

00:08:41.120 Because she just, they would know

00:08:43.340 what was going through my head.

00:08:44.600 They would know that I probably wasn't regretful

00:08:48.460 for whatever it was I had done but that goes to the point of they're always trying to to keep

00:08:54.800 people in their place and so they knew that I had a rebel spirit they knew that I it was always

00:09:01.660 going to show on my face and that happened I think a lot with a lot of women throughout time that

00:09:08.980 we might not verbalize it but we don't necessarily have to because you're going to see it in our eyes

00:09:14.300 you're going to see it on our face you're going to see it in our body language and i would have

00:09:18.660 never i would have never survived then they would have strung me up so fast because augustus yeah 1.00

00:09:24.660 like the first complete rebellious woman and we can't have that in our society even if i was

00:09:29.080 pretending to be not myself it would be like i see on your face that you think i'm wrong yeah and now 0.95

00:09:37.000 i'm gonna kill you and like you and i could not do this livia like she was a survivor and i think 0.95

00:09:42.900 part of that skill was she could put on that like smiling like I'm the good wifey mask I like I just 0.99

00:09:50.320 you know what I admire people that can do that because that's never been me I've actually seen

00:09:56.980 pictures of myself as a kid and I'm like yeah me too that right there that was the why the hell are

00:10:02.940 you taking another picture of me look I saw like just a family video of something from like a class

00:10:09.080 trip and we were like it's like this class and we're like listening to a tour guide or something

00:10:13.480 and I'm like 12 years old and the look of utter disdain on my face I was like I didn't know that's

00:10:18.660 what I look like but think about how just think about the level that you would have to to put

00:10:28.100 that mask on back then I mean we can get away with that now because people are just like oh 0.96

00:10:32.860 she's just a bitch whatever and they keep it moving but back then you you had to always keep 0.97

00:10:39.080 that mask on and it had to always be at at that pristine level of masks in order to be able to 1.00

00:10:46.920 survive the way that she did and and basically get away with some of the things that she did 0.97

00:10:52.240 because if there was ever a crack in the armor that was it and to have to be that on all the

00:11:01.760 time i just wouldn't be able to handle it well and the fact it's like like it makes me think about

00:11:06.920 someone like in today's world like Kate Middleton for instance she was just like at Ascot a couple

00:11:13.000 weeks ago and it's like she sneezed and people are like oh my god she sneezed and I'm like can

00:11:17.620 you imagine can you imagine being at such a level of scrutiny of having to appear perfect for so long

00:11:23.640 that you sneeze in public and it's like international headlines like why is she sneezing is she is she

00:11:29.160 sick again like is she allergic to horses why is she sneezing like maybe she's allergic to him

00:11:34.500 hope so um but and that's the level of scrutiny she's at now and like but for livia the level 0.94

00:11:41.760 she is that it's like if you don't keep this mask on you will be executed like like your husband is 0.71

00:11:47.360 a tyrannical madman and he will kill you if you let that mask the sheer number of years that they 0.87

00:11:54.720 were married and they weren't even she wasn't even married to him all of her adult life but 0.98

00:11:59.540 she was married to him for like what 50 years 51 years that's a very long time to have to play that

00:12:08.960 role yeah i would fail within two months like absolutely if i even got most people would so

00:12:16.780 if nothing else like this is impressive about her you have to be impressed with her just off of that

00:12:22.120 fact alone and i think well especially we're going to explain who she was where she came from but i

00:12:27.600 think in the last episode that you and I just recorded, we were talking a bit about people in

00:12:33.460 ancient Roman times, like they were living like us in unprecedented times. There's kind of like

00:12:38.960 constant war, chaos, all this stuff happening. And for some people that just like broke them

00:12:44.360 entirely. And for Livia, I think it just like set, she had this strength of character that it just

00:12:49.160 gave her these survival skills to develop this mask, to be able to, you know, hide what she's

00:12:55.180 really thinking or doing like i think she lived through all this stuff and it made her

00:12:58.760 it helped her develop these skills where other people just destroyed them right um i don't want

00:13:05.620 to say that it hardened her because that kind of turns her into an uncaring person and as we'll

00:13:10.660 see later on that just that wasn't her um but it definitely it definitely she was very good at

00:13:17.160 compartmentalizing and I think that um she she really kind of was one of those people that was

00:13:26.020 able to accept the fact right away that there isn't anything I can do to change what just

00:13:32.520 happened so I need to put that aside and I need to keep moving but I need to learn from that thing

00:13:38.160 that happened I need to keep moving and I think she was a master at that and like you said not

00:13:43.840 everybody could do that it would just they just crumble you know there's some things that has

00:13:48.360 happened in people's lives where you'll find them in a corner just curl up in a ball and they can't

00:13:54.960 handle it and then there's other people that you think oh man they're just so cold they're so

00:13:58.700 distanced they're acting like it didn't even happen but it's just a matter of of how you're

00:14:03.520 able to separate things in your mind and I think she was a master at separating things in her mind

00:14:07.440 is what what kept her going what kept her moving forward and continuing to make things happen

00:14:12.600 because she realized what she couldn't could not control so she just did the best of what she had

00:14:17.460 and I think part of it too is that she's growing up in this ancient Roman culture we talked about

00:14:22.820 last time where she knew like as a woman she could never have independence she could never have like

00:14:29.920 true power on her own but it's like knowing that it's like well how can I leverage my situation to 0.87

00:14:36.380 my benefit how can I work within she wasn't trying to break society around her she wasn't trying to

00:14:41.420 be a rebel because she knew that would get her killed but it's just kind of like how can I work

00:14:44.640 within this and be true to myself and and try and accomplish some stuff and she did so I think

00:14:51.260 that's also a sort of like it's admirable to see you know it's like what is the thing it's like

00:14:58.000 grant me the power to change what I can or whatever it's like she knew she wasn't going to

00:15:01.620 change Roman society exactly one woman was not going to do that but she knew that she could work 0.98

00:15:06.700 within it and she was at a ranking level to where she was able to work within it you know we talked 0.99

00:15:14.100 about class system the last time and you know if you were at a lower class within um ancient rome

00:15:21.520 there was nothing you could do you just you had to just live your life hope for the best

00:15:26.700 she was at a high enough class a high enough station high enough everything to where she

00:15:32.540 was able to figure out ways of working within it. Yeah. So we're just going to go through,

00:15:39.120 like you did your research, I did my research. Like we'll just interrupt each other. Like when

00:15:42.700 you have a fact, please throw it in there. So what I'll say is that her name is Livia Drusilla.

00:15:47.740 She was born in 58 before Common Era. So like 58 years before year zero. And she was a member

00:15:58.480 of the Claudian family.

00:16:00.800 And we mentioned last time

00:16:01.620 that was one of the major

00:16:02.940 longstanding, powerful families in Rome.

00:16:06.000 She was part of more than just that, though,

00:16:07.780 because her father was actually adopted

00:16:09.820 into the Jusis family.

00:16:11.680 And Jusis was just a step below 0.95

00:16:14.260 the Claudian family

00:16:15.240 because Claudian and Julian

00:16:17.360 were the top two classes of families.

00:16:20.380 Jusis was right below them.

00:16:21.760 And her father was already Claudian

00:16:23.300 and he was adopted into the Jusis family.

00:16:25.260 So he kind of had prestige

00:16:27.120 and his family roots went way back to like the beginning of Rome.

00:16:31.720 So that really set her up to be, I mean, just born into high station,

00:16:37.080 just right off the bat.

00:16:39.500 Well, and if we're talking about the, like we talked last time,

00:16:41.600 and I'm so glad we did about the society and the culture.

00:16:43.520 It's like, this is a young woman who people are going to want to marry

00:16:47.140 because marrying her is going to elevate whatever man she ends up with

00:16:51.100 because of her, like this important, like bloodline was everything.

00:16:54.460 Like the family name was everything.

00:16:55.720 and she came from the family.

00:16:58.880 Yes, exactly.

00:17:00.340 So, oh, I do want to mention that this book

00:17:03.260 that I got a lot of information from

00:17:05.140 and I really enjoyed it, 1.00

00:17:06.180 it's called Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac.

00:17:09.520 Wait, let me look up the author's name.

00:17:11.100 I forgot to write that down

00:17:12.120 because it's really good.

00:17:14.320 Unfortunately, my computer auto-completed it.

00:17:16.280 I've typed in that sentence so many times.

00:17:18.900 It's a book by Joan Smith.

00:17:20.980 So, A New History of Rome's Imperial Women.

00:17:23.420 So it's like a group biography of various different women from Roman history. And what I appreciated about it is that it's looking, the way that I try to do history, it's like from the woman in, like using them as the focal point and then kind of the men are in the background.

00:17:37.580 So I got some good information here about just the trajectory of like the writing about Livia through to I, Claudius, through like kind of how she developed, the reputation she developed.

00:17:48.320 And a lot of that is from a writer from ancient Roman times called Tacitus, who another writer described as like he hated women the way that most people hate wasps.

00:17:59.520 Like Tacitus just like hated women.

00:18:03.840 And so he never actually said Livia was a serial killer. 0.74

00:18:06.460 she killed all these people. But he's always like, some people said, perhaps Livia had a role

00:18:12.900 in this. Like, he's always just kind of like, so he was the one who really hated her. And then

00:18:20.840 Robert Graves translated that. And then here we all are. Yes. Assuming this. But so part of what

00:18:25.660 I got from this book, unfortunately, she was an infomaniac, was just sort of like the context of

00:18:31.380 like teen Livia. So, and this kind of puts it in a place and time that people might be familiar

00:18:38.280 with, which is like the assassination of Julius Caesar. So she was 14 years old when that happened.

00:18:44.500 And that just sent everything into chaos. Cause this is where Rome, we didn't get into this last

00:18:49.780 time, but like it was the Republic, right? It was led by these three kind of guys. Then Julius

00:18:54.220 Caesar's killed by Brutus. Then the other two guys are left. One of them is Mark Anthony.

00:18:59.480 Julius Caesar's heir was his adopted nephew, Octavian, who's later known as Augustus.

00:19:04.060 And it just, everything suddenly turns into like a civil war of like, who supports Octavian?

00:19:09.140 Who supports Mark Antony?

00:19:10.620 Which caused the vast majority of everything that we are currently taught about Roman history

00:19:18.900 is it really does start at that point when Julius Caesar is killed.

00:19:23.960 We obviously know things that happened before then, but the height of what is taught about ancient Rome takes place at the time that he's killed on the Senate floor, because that's when basically all hell broke loose in Rome.

00:19:37.540 And that's when everything started to shift for everyone.

00:19:42.160 And where this eventually ends is that Octavian, a.k.a. Augustus, ends up taking over.

00:19:48.220 And this is where Rome shifts from a republic to an empire.

00:19:52.700 So instead of having these kind of three guys, the consuls leading it, you have one guy and then his heir and then it becomes like he becomes a king, like it becomes a dynasty instead of just like an elected position anymore. So that like that's a major shift in Roman history. And this is like Livia.

00:20:08.700 so it's she's 14 years old and julie caesar is killed and that's around the same time that she

00:20:14.500 is married to her first husband because as we said last time like 40 year old men marrying 14

00:20:20.900 year old girls that's what rome is all about yeah um but also i think it's just like she was such a

00:20:25.960 valuable wife she was because she brought so much family history so much stature so much class with 0.95

00:20:34.100 her that, I mean, I would assume she probably had quite a few suitors. So the fact that Tiberius

00:20:41.960 won out because it was ultimately her father's choice on who she married. So I've always wondered

00:20:48.340 what did Tiberius bring to the table where he won because he could not have been her only suitor.

00:20:53.320 It's just not possible. I think, and I do want to clarify for everybody that ancient Rome,

00:20:58.420 and this drives me crazy has like three names everybody has the same names so yes her husband

00:21:06.260 is named Tiberius that is also the name of her son she's going to later on have um so Tiberius

00:21:12.940 one is the dad we can call him Tiberius Nero oh my gosh wait so no her I think her dad oh no sorry

00:21:20.500 her dad is not called Tiberius her husband is called Tiberius there's a lot of repeated names

00:21:26.040 Anyway, so it's just like in the wake of the assassination of Julius Caesar, she, a 15-year-old girl, is married to this guy.

00:21:32.360 So her father at that time sided with the assassins.

00:21:38.320 Like he sided with killing Julius Caesar.

00:21:41.200 But then as like the politics kind of played out, it's kind of like that's not the side that he should have sided with.

00:21:47.140 And then the whole family has to flee.

00:21:48.960 Basically, they're on the run.

00:21:50.680 So the reason why they had to flee was because they were unprescripted.

00:21:54.800 And what it was is Octavian and Antony and Lepidus, I believe, was the other guy that was part of the newly created council.

00:22:07.440 They decided that they needed money to fight the war that was coming up, that they knew was coming up, to chase down and kill the killers of Julius Caesar.

00:22:20.900 And so what they did was the rich noblemen that sided with the killers, they had their wealth taken from them and they were killed.

00:22:35.680 And the family was basically thrown into poverty and their family name was Dirt and so on and so forth.

00:22:44.760 And what happened was Livia's father was one of them that was very popular, very wealthy.

00:22:52.340 He sided in with the killers, but they didn't kill him.

00:22:57.600 They just took his money.

00:23:00.340 I think I would assume because he's so rich and powerful or they wanted to keep him around for political reasons or something.

00:23:05.700 They probably didn't kill him because of the families that he belonged to.

00:23:09.300 The Julia O'Claudian. Yeah, yeah. 0.54

00:23:10.800 And so he left and joined the armies to fight against Octavian and Antony.

00:23:17.220 She was left with her husband, but her husband also backed the wrong side.

00:23:21.180 Sorry, side note, she's left 16 and pregnant. 0.92

00:23:23.600 Yes.

00:23:24.420 And now since they backed the wrong side, they had to leave too.

00:23:28.940 So her father ended up going someplace completely different than she did.

00:23:32.580 But at that point, when we talked about it before, 0.99

00:23:36.680 women weren't in charge of anything. 1.00

00:23:38.400 so either your father was in charge of your life or your husband was in charge of your life so the

00:23:42.500 two men that have been in charge of her life all of a sudden have to be on the run and she's 16

00:23:47.560 and pregnant and it's like how how does that not break a person number one yeah i'm sorry me at 16

00:23:54.920 pregnant and both people that i would look up to to protect me are on the run how how does this

00:24:00.520 even work i mean exactly this is where we start seeing just like what a remarkable strength of

00:24:04.980 character what an unusual person this is yes that she goes through all this like she has the baby

00:24:11.380 it's her for it's her son his name is Tiberius the same as his dad and they're on the run like

00:24:16.740 this is happening I believe they were in Sicily I think they went to Sicily um but again you you're

00:24:26.280 on the run and you have a baby your husband and your father could be killed at any time because

00:24:34.060 because they've they've backed the wrong people you don't know for sure if you can even trust the

00:24:39.780 people that you're staying with basically in a foreign land because Cicely is not Rome she

00:24:44.660 wouldn't have known anyone there her husband wouldn't have known too many people there either

00:24:47.900 so it's just like you would be in constant fear of your life of your baby's life she might not

00:24:54.520 have cared about the guy who knows because I've never read anything where they were in love so

00:24:58.340 she probably was like screw them up he could die I don't care yeah just somehow protect me and my

00:25:03.000 son so that I mean talk about serious postpartum depression after going through all of that I mean

00:25:11.280 the fact that she didn't even she didn't have a miscarriage during all of that is amazing in and

00:25:16.960 of itself because that would have been a hard trip to take yeah it's not if you hop in a plane

00:25:22.500 and go somewhere you were on horseback or you were in some sort of wagon and you're going that

00:25:28.300 distance. I mean, you're like pregnant or you just gave birth or you have a baby. And this is not just

00:25:33.320 like this. She had to make one run for her life and it took one night. This is like a very long

00:25:38.020 period of time. It is place to place to place to place during the midst of all of this. Her father

00:25:42.620 kills himself. Yes. He lost a battle at Philippi and he realized that it was just never going to

00:25:50.520 work out for him. So he did what he was. He considered to be the honorable thing. It's that

00:25:54.920 noble roman thing right and and he took his own life and i don't even know i don't know that i've

00:26:00.600 read i don't know how long it took for her to find out that happened but from what i've read

00:26:06.060 from what i know she actually had a pretty good relationship with her father so um she was allowed

00:26:11.700 to do things that a lot of girls her age weren't allowed she was allowed to learn at a higher level

00:26:15.780 than than others were she was able to study um a lot more of greek history and learn other languages

00:26:22.200 And she was allowed to be smart beyond what women were expected. 0.60

00:26:28.720 And that could have only happened if her father allowed it.

00:26:31.980 And so that would have been devastating to find out that her father, I mean, she would have understood why he did it.

00:26:38.120 But that still would have hurt her deeply that her father was gone in that way.

00:26:43.000 And she's still like, just to keep track, like still on the run.

00:26:46.460 So this is like, so a year, a year on the run.

00:26:50.500 She's got a year old child.

00:26:51.540 So just like, Gina, you're a mother, like, imagine being on the run with an infant for a year.

00:26:58.160 Like, I can't because I think I barely survived that first year with both of them.

00:27:03.020 No, I mean, just like emotionally, physically, everything like so on top of that to just be like on the run for your life.

00:27:08.980 I mean, and think about this as well. A lot of women in her position, they probably would have abandoned the child and went off to to survive on their own because it's it's a lot easier to survive without a child. 1.00

00:27:23.220 It's not easier to survive without another person, period. But to have a small child like that, an infant like that, I kudos to her that she didn't abandon the kid because a lot of women in a position would have. 0.82

00:27:35.160 Well, and in her sort of like wealthy position too, 0.79

00:27:37.880 like ordinarily she would have a lot of assistance,

00:27:39.960 like if she was not on the run for a year,

00:27:42.620 like she would have had like all these household servants,

00:27:44.120 but because she didn't want to be identified as who she was

00:27:46.800 and who her father was and who her husband was,

00:27:49.060 she had to travel with just one servant.

00:27:50.560 So she wouldn't look like she was as important as she was.

00:27:52.620 So she had some help,

00:27:54.080 but not as much as she would have ordinarily had.

00:27:57.160 And as much as I would argue any new teenage mother would need at this place.

00:28:02.820 So I just want to give you this tidbit.

00:28:04.680 So towards the ends of 41 BC, so her baby is a year old.

00:28:08.380 She is, she spends her 18th birthday.

00:28:11.400 She's trapped.

00:28:12.480 There's a siege of the city of Perugia.

00:28:15.600 So Octavian seizes the city, cuts off all of their food supply.

00:28:19.760 So everyone in the city is just like starving. 0.88

00:28:22.300 It's a shitty situation.

00:28:24.120 Eventually they enter the city. 0.99

00:28:25.380 They slaughter 300 of the city's leading citizens and burn it to the ground.

00:28:28.780 Like she's there with her baby and somehow she escapes.

00:28:31.540 And now for a quick advertising break.

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00:29:23.800 The war is over and both sides lost.

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00:31:00.860 This is her 18th birthday.

00:31:02.960 She was a survivor.

00:31:05.440 And it's at this point, then they go to Sicily.

00:31:08.360 Maybe they were there before as well.

00:31:10.540 But anyway, so this is, this is her teenage origin story.

00:31:16.280 Like, she's 18 and all this has happened already.

00:31:18.880 and i am not sure if uh if she's pregnant again at this point but she does become

00:31:26.760 oh my gosh sorry i was just looking at this this like screen capture i have from this book and

00:31:31.700 the second child comes along i think after they've gotten back to rome

00:31:35.920 i just wanted to mention they left at one point while they're on the run with the baby

00:31:40.660 they left sparta by night under cover of darkness and walked into a sudden outbreak of forest fire

00:31:45.800 that came so close that part of her robe and her hair were scorched.

00:31:49.960 This is like, I was going to say trial by fire,

00:31:52.820 but like literally, this is like...

00:31:54.080 It really is.

00:31:56.700 Anyway, but this is...

00:31:58.580 So the child that she's got with her, Tiberius,

00:32:00.620 grows up to be like a profoundly disturbed, rotten individual.

00:32:06.100 And perhaps his entire childhood being on the run

00:32:10.700 and escaping forest fires could have added to that

00:32:14.860 or cause that we'll get to it eventually but he played the he played the part for quite some time

00:32:21.000 until he just said screw it and decided to turn into the Tiberius we all know and love

00:32:26.340 so she's pregnant again and this is the point at which Octavian I think he's sort of solidifying

00:32:34.520 his power at this time and I don't know where they first met each other and I don't know if

00:32:40.800 they had met each other but he's like guess what I'm already married to somebody else I want to

00:32:44.680 marry her. Divorce, we didn't talk about this before, was very, very, very, very straightforward

00:32:48.520 in ancient Rome. You basically just are like, we're divorced.

00:32:51.860 And it was so easy. And when you think about it, because that didn't change, I read until

00:32:57.640 Constantine. We all know about Constantine. We need to get deeply into that one. But it was really

00:33:04.020 easy for either a man or a woman to get divorced back then. And what was really even more interesting 0.98

00:33:09.280 to me is in a marriage, with the exception of the dowry, everything that woman came into that

00:33:15.580 marriage with, she left with. She did not have to give it over to the man. The man didn't have

00:33:21.380 to give her anything either. He got to keep the kids. The woman could not take the kids,

00:33:26.540 but they always kept everything that she had before marriage separate from the husband. So 1.00

00:33:32.720 if there was a divorce, she got to go back to that. And to me, that is completely unheard of

00:33:37.860 in ancient times because we all know that i mean it's sort of like that now the woman loses

00:33:43.720 everything when she gets married she loses her name she loses kids she loses the money she loses 0.59

00:33:48.200 everything she's basically destitute if she divorces that's why so many women didn't divorce 1.00

00:33:52.580 back then but it wasn't like that for women back then they could divorce a man and they could take 1.00

00:33:57.100 everything that they had and then just hope for the best with being able to get visitation with 0.97

00:34:01.100 the kids that was that's weird to me because that's just with how they were with against women

00:34:07.880 so much in that society but yet they let them have that it feels weirdly progressive to me

00:34:14.300 like having just been reading about the french revolution a lot like one of the things that

00:34:18.420 they were like some women who are in shitty marriages were fighting for was like can we

00:34:22.180 have like basically no fault divorce can we just make divorce possible and it's like french 0.84

00:34:27.100 revolution, like you want to be like ancient Rome, take on this part. Like this was maybe a

00:34:32.300 good thing they did. So Octavian, he's like four years older than her. He's like in his early 20s.

00:34:37.180 He's married to a woman who is also pregnant. Livia is 18 years old and pregnant, ready to

00:34:44.540 give birth. And Octavian is like, I want to marry her. So his wife gives birth to a daughter named

00:34:52.040 Julia. And then he divorces her. He marries Livia, I believe it's three days after she gave birth

00:34:59.360 to her second son, Drusis. And in that wedding, did you read what I read that her... About her

00:35:07.280 husband, Tiberius? He actually gave her away at the wedding. I'm sorry, you what? You have to get

00:35:15.880 a divorce because octavian has decided he wants your woman and you willingly just give her away 1.00

00:35:22.760 at the wedding he he claimed that the baby as his um so i guess kudos to him for that

00:35:29.920 but well i feel like if he hadn't done that octavian would have killed him probably and so

00:35:37.900 much of that and we talked about this before where there was just so much death where just

00:35:42.580 the slightest thing could get you killed and one major thing that would get you killed is going

00:35:47.640 against the person in power and Octavian was the person in power but I mean how shitty would that

00:35:53.880 man have felt to give away his his wife to another man I just that had to hurt at in some way three

00:36:02.740 days after she gave birth so even if we're like oh the Romans they were debauched whatever um this

00:36:08.700 sequence of events like even roman historians were like oh this was the abduction of a pregnant 0.99

00:36:15.880 woman this was kidnapping this was rape like at the time they were like what the fuck like this 0.94

00:36:22.720 is not done because he had to get like a whole lot of permissions from multiple people in areas 0.98

00:36:29.740 to make this happen granted like you said earlier if you went against them you're probably going to

00:36:35.000 end up dead but there were a lot of people that questioned it and you know that that the society

00:36:43.180 that she belonged to probably always kind of looked at her out the corner of her eye for the 0.97

00:36:48.480 rest of her life like yeah bitch what were you doing yeah no and just to be clear like she had 0.97

00:36:55.280 no choice like she was her husband's property and now she's his property but the fact that at the 1.00

00:37:00.700 time people were like oh this was the rape and abduction of a pregnant woman like mark anthony

00:37:05.920 who's a man who like left numerous wives for numerous other wives he was like bro this is a

00:37:10.840 lot like mark anthony like people are just kind of like if he's telling you you're wrong dude you

00:37:17.240 should probably pivot so part potentially one of the reasons why octavian like marrying her

00:37:25.380 kind of legitimized him in terms of being now all of like their potential children would be

00:37:30.240 have the julio claudian heritage that she brought to the party so it's like her like i think that's

00:37:35.600 a lot of why he wanted to marry her she sort of elevated him in a way and also she had she was

00:37:41.320 actively pregnant she'd had two children and he in a real henry the eighth vibes way wanted a son

00:37:47.380 he'd had i think two wives before the first wife didn't have any children um before he divorced

00:37:54.020 her the second wife as i said like gave birth to a daughter and then he divorced her so he's just

00:37:59.020 like i want a son here's this like fertile 18 year old with all these connections that's going

00:38:03.880 to elevate me like yeah she's technically married and so am i but like that won't get in the way

00:38:08.760 let's do this yeah and so this is where it's like her survivor instincts are like

00:38:14.060 this is the situation she's in she can't get out of this situation so it's like how is she

00:38:18.980 going to survive this situation but let's take a moment to talk about what was it about her

00:38:24.800 that intrigued Octavian the most? Because like I said, she's married. She has a kid. She's

00:38:31.040 pregnant with the other one. She's not that much younger than him. So the age gap wasn't really an

00:38:36.580 issue. But what was it that drew him to her? Her father went against him. Her name and money got

00:38:45.140 restored after she married him. But there was a whole lot about her that should have been off

00:38:52.880 putting to him what was it that drew him in i have a theory oh please was it was it the poker face 0.61

00:39:01.040 so you and i have both read i'm sure that people consider her to be um fairly beautiful

00:39:08.320 um whether we can believe that or not i don't know because they thought cleopatra was beautiful

00:39:13.820 yet we've seen the coinage and that did not look like a beautiful woman i think that he fell into

00:39:19.940 the same trap that Caesar did, he was intrigued by her intelligence. Because everything I've read

00:39:28.140 talks about how intelligent this woman was, how well-spoken she was, how quick she was with her

00:39:34.920 answers to things. And I think given the type of person that Octavian has been portrayed to be,

00:39:43.080 I think that's what intrigued him the most. She wasn't just some flighty, oh, I'm just gonna,

00:39:49.940 sew your clothes and make sure the house is taken care of kind of roman woman she was she's like i 0.98

00:39:55.040 am gonna do those things because i am perfect right but i'm also gonna like give you advice

00:40:02.440 and i think that's written down we said last time like the romans worked on everything but i think

00:40:06.800 there's stuff like octavian is he went to meetings and he's like i just need to talk to livia about

00:40:10.820 this like i just need to get her take on this like he was clearly getting her advice and i think that

00:40:16.940 he saw early on that she would be someone that he could go to about that, that he would always have

00:40:22.860 this, you know, he had his advisors, his guy advisors, but I think she always, she probably

00:40:29.020 always gave him another way to look at things because she was going to look at it like a woman.

00:40:34.380 She was going to look at like his, his buddies that were running the military. They all had kind

00:40:39.080 of a one track mind when it came to doing things. We, you can see that by how they would always

00:40:45.280 kind of run their campaigns the same

00:40:46.820 and how they always had the same suggestions,

00:40:48.660 she would come at it from a different angle.

00:40:50.540 And I think that he really appreciated that

00:40:52.920 on being able to see it from multiple sides

00:40:55.500 and from making his ultimate decision.

00:40:57.900 You're so right.

00:40:58.620 I think that he came to her for advice. 0.96

00:41:01.600 Like she got pregnant pretty much.

00:41:04.280 Well, I mean, she just gave birth.

00:41:05.660 When she was next able to,

00:41:06.720 like she got pregnant pretty much right away.

00:41:08.260 And then that was, it was a stillbirth,

00:41:09.780 like the child to not survive.

00:41:10.680 And she never had another pregnancy again. 0.77

00:41:13.220 Octavian, in a real Henry VIII,

00:41:15.160 the vibes obsessed with having a son clearly physically incapable of doing so but this is

00:41:23.920 where like his first two wives he'd cast aside because they couldn't give him the son she couldn't

00:41:27.820 give him the son but he stayed married to her until his death like 50 years and i think that's

00:41:31.800 because she was she's bringing something else to the party exactly and i really think that that's

00:41:37.220 why he pushed so hard to to be able to marry her is because he saw those other things he saw the

00:41:44.480 value in her being able to possibly give him a son, but he saw the immense value in all the other

00:41:50.360 things that she could bring to the table. And, you know, with being as perfect as she was and

00:41:56.100 having all of that, there's no way any man in his right mind would get rid of a woman like that. 0.97

00:42:02.320 This is a quote I want to read. So this is from Cassius Dio, who's one of the other people who 1.00

00:42:08.640 wrote about this whole situation and this is where um according to him Livia explains because

00:42:15.520 someone was like how did you keep him married to you when he was like we we don't need to talk

00:42:21.660 about it a lot but Octavian was like a tyrant um like huge temper like he would just randomly

00:42:29.900 point at a person in the crowd and have them killed like he was a terrifying like abusive

00:42:34.440 tyrant. And yet he turned to her for advice and support. He never got mad at her. Like he never 0.99

00:42:41.540 was like, how dare you tell me what to do? Like they had this, some, they'd figured out some sort

00:42:46.300 of relationship. Anyway, here's how she explains how she's able to stay married to him, according

00:42:49.840 to a historian. When someone asked her how and by what course of action she had obtained such a

00:42:55.600 commanding influence over Augustus, she answered that it was by being scrupulously chased, doing

00:43:00.980 gladly whatever pleased him not meddling with any of his affairs and in particular by pretending not

00:43:06.240 to hear or notice the favorites that were the objects of his passion so i think she's smart

00:43:11.460 she's giving him good advice but she's also not pushing up against him she knows that like he's

00:43:16.340 violent he can be like uncontrollable so she knows like i can give him this good advice but i'm never

00:43:23.060 i'm never gonna like step one step out of line like the mask is perfect and it's 24 hours a day

00:43:29.480 she's like i'm the perfect little wifey and also i'm super smart yeah i mean she learned how to

00:43:35.960 play the game quickly and it definitely worked to her advantage because um you know i i kind of

00:43:43.660 wondered who was it that really pushed the agenda of women should be seen and not heard who who

00:43:51.760 pushed the agenda they weren't really smart enough to be giving any kind of opinions or anything

00:43:55.840 And in my research, I discovered that it was actually Cicero that pushed that agenda.

00:44:01.880 He was the one who hated Cleopatra, as I recall.

00:44:04.100 Oh, God, what a passion, which is probably why he got killed the way he did.

00:44:08.280 But it was Cicero that pushed the thought that women were just incapable of proper thought. 1.00

00:44:18.720 They had weak judgment. 0.92

00:44:19.920 They should never be trusted to make any sort of major decisions.

00:44:24.640 they can't be trusted to to really keep any sort of anything in line even though they were the ones

00:44:31.540 that were entrusted with the um keeping the home going and the home finances they were trusted with

00:44:37.160 all that but according to Cicero they couldn't be trusted with anything because they just they were

00:44:40.900 were not smart enough and honestly when I discovered that I'm like how did she not have

00:44:48.960 him killed because that went against everything that she was you know she was extremely learned

00:44:55.320 she was actually smarter than the vast majority of men she was ever around and i just i don't 0.71

00:45:01.440 know how sister lasted that long because me and her position would have had him disposed of quickly

00:45:07.440 because he was making a mockery of her intelligence really i think this is again where it comes up to

00:45:14.120 like she had figured out or what worked for her and it worked because she lived to be 86 was to

00:45:21.060 not push things but and maybe she did bring this to augustus maybe she brought to augustus several

00:45:26.800 times but she knew if that was a no like i'm not going to push this like this is not worth it

00:45:33.640 it's not risking my life again i would not survive that no no our faces if augustus was

00:45:41.980 like i'm inviting sister over for dinner like my like dorothy from the golden girls like

00:45:46.780 like i would be murdered yes yes absolutely because sister ain't stepping foot in my house

00:45:54.160 so this is like so how do we get from um this olivia who's this like super smart she's supporting

00:46:02.920 her man who is like a chaos nightmare person but the most powerful person in the ancient world

00:46:08.860 perfect wifey not having any more children actually i want to mention her husband

00:46:12.920 tiberius did die of like whatever people don't have lots of things some people allege she killed

00:46:20.120 him why why she's fine anyway so he died and then so like you said before like when the when there

00:46:27.460 was a divorce the husband would keep the kids so he did but when he died her older son was like

00:46:32.000 five and then they came to live with her at the palace and so that's her two sons tiberius the

00:46:37.460 oldest one and drusus are her two sons um and yeah so how do we get from this kind of like

00:46:45.220 perfect ideal in every way roman woman to this myth of this like murderer and so part of it

00:46:54.260 is people looking back at it afterwards because like at the time like at the time that her first 0.93

00:47:00.380 husband died no one was like ha ha olivia killed him because like why would anyone think that it's

00:47:04.120 Just like after the fact, after you know that her son Tiberius becomes the next emperor and he's awful and he's succeeded by Caligula.

00:47:13.020 Awful.

00:47:13.840 Awful.

00:47:14.560 Then you have Claudius and then he's followed by Nero.

00:47:17.260 Awful.

00:47:18.320 So when people are just looking back at this era with retrospect, they're like, okay, so how do we, how can we blame a woman for these awful emperors? 0.99

00:47:28.160 Oh, let's say that Livia schemed.

00:47:30.200 There's a whole lot that happens in between Augustus being in charge and Tiberius taking over after his death.

00:47:37.560 People completely gloss over everything that happened in between there.

00:47:42.560 They just automatically say, oh, she did everything in her power to make sure that Tiberius would be named heir.

00:47:49.020 But he, even though he was, no, he was not the first person named heir.

00:47:53.420 There was, there's like three or four of them in between there.

00:47:56.600 Shall we go through?

00:47:57.160 Because this is, this is the rumor.

00:47:59.260 this is the like after the fact rumor Tiberius was I'm going to say fifth in line to be the next

00:48:04.440 emperor the people in between all die and that's where the conspiracy theory comes in where it's

00:48:10.960 like she must have murdered them to make Tiberius be the next emperor because she wanted her son to

00:48:15.780 be the emperor and that's the whole plot line of I Claudius but so the people just to quickly go

00:48:20.720 through them so first there was octavian's nephew marcellus and he was really being raised to be the

00:48:30.160 next heir like he was leading armies when he was like a teenager he was like the crown prince of

00:48:35.020 the city like everybody loved him everyone knew he's going to be the heir and then this disease

00:48:38.860 swept through that so many people died of and he was one of them like not suspicious at the time

00:48:46.440 like he just died of this disease at the same time everyone else was also and then so the next heirs

00:48:51.520 were augustus's two grandsons who are gaius and drus dais and i forget they're all called the

00:48:57.700 same thing yeah yeah there's two grandsons and so one of them um they both die of like things

00:49:05.320 people die of in ancient rome one of them i think had a disease and one of them he was leading an

00:49:11.600 army and he got stabbed so much that he succumbed to his like they both died of just infections

00:49:16.000 probably things people die of like not actually suspicious for a young man at the time but then

00:49:21.640 it's like huh three people ahead of tiberius all just i think they all died within like a year or

00:49:28.860 two of each other yeah it was pretty close in succession yeah and if you're not thinking of

00:49:33.300 this as a conspiracy then you think of like this is a huge tragedy to this family like to have three

00:49:38.860 basically healthy young men one after another all die at the same time and you know octavian is just

00:49:44.940 sitting there like what the entire hell is happening here yeah he was pissed because

00:49:50.500 he never likes Tiberius no that's the thing so that's why if Livia wanted Tiberius to be emperor

00:49:57.500 he was never going to do it if there's any other option so the only other option was a guy um his

00:50:03.800 name was I don't know Claudius they just call him posthumous I forget his name was like Marcus

00:50:09.040 posthumous oh what's his first name Agrippa no I think it's I think it's Agrippa it's like Marcus

00:50:14.020 agrippa posthumous because agrippa was his dad agrippa was dead yeah because um he was

00:50:20.280 julia's was he julia's son i think he was julia's youngest yeah yeah yeah so he like this is the

00:50:29.760 only remaining like grandson this is the only other person yes ahead of tiberius and octavian

00:50:35.660 is just like literally anyone other than right even from a young age tiberius is just like a 0.84

00:50:40.380 dork he's just like the worst it's like oh this is like a nightmare person and rome will be destroyed 1.00

00:50:47.320 if he's the emperor and also he's an asshole it's like sorry olivia your son is an asshole 1.00

00:50:52.700 you're great sometimes this just happens but your offspring not so much maybe he took after his dad 1.00

00:50:58.900 anyways posthumous dies um and i think he was i forgot what the situation i think he was

00:51:07.320 he had like an anger problem and so augustus had like send him off to live in this isolated island

00:51:12.900 somewhere and then people went to fetch him and he fought those people and then he was

00:51:16.720 something like that so by this point like you've kind of got okay so that's several people have

00:51:26.380 died and suddenly tiberius is like i think the tiberius and posthumous were both named

00:51:33.220 co-heirs at the same time because augustus was like who's left i guess these two and then 0.96

00:51:39.160 posthumous dies and it's like fuck it's just this kid he probably would have taken drusus at that 0.84

00:51:46.120 point if he had survived yeah oh and that's true yeah because drusus um livia's other son that's 0.99

00:51:53.840 another alleged murder of hers but i don't believe that she would have had anything to do with that 0.68

00:51:59.580 one because she seemed to really adore him because after his death is when she became a lot more 0.58

00:52:05.720 active in the public started building a bunch of statues around um she built a huge market in rome 0.99

00:52:11.900 she would give money to people that needed it if she saw people in need she would never kill her

00:52:16.920 own son and also of of all of them drusus died he was like on a military campaign in like germany

00:52:22.900 yeah um and he fell off a horse so like how would you propose livia made that happen through poison

00:52:32.100 because it's like alleged that she killed all these people through poison which is like people 0.87

00:52:35.800 did kill people from poison at this time they did but the people also died from infections and

00:52:42.240 plagues and bad water and all that yes yeah so there's just kind of like because from what i

00:52:49.780 understand she pretty much mourned juices for the rest of her life well here's the thing here's the

00:52:55.560 thing she had one good son and one shitty son yeah and unfortunately the good son is the one 0.97

00:53:01.460 who died yes she's stuck with goddamn tiberius so at this point when all these people have died 0.96

00:53:12.000 like even within her lifetime it's just kind of like this is like we talked about the romans 0.90

00:53:16.460 they're superstitious people and so they're just like why like this is so many deaths in quick

00:53:23.660 succession in one family every time Augustus names a new heir they're gone no he dies

00:53:29.480 nope I can see how I'd be completely suspicious but honestly back then they you didn't have

00:53:38.580 forensic evidence that you could prove this than the other and people really did kind of just drop

00:53:43.500 black flies back then so i could see how they would just kind of let it go because that really

00:53:50.100 was just a part of life back then where at any time anyone could die from anything and that that

00:53:57.020 was just the way it was unfortunately in this family like a bunch of like just it affected a

00:54:02.660 bunch of people in this family all at the same time and i'm sure other families are affected

00:54:05.440 similarly but also it's like if livia had secretly poisoned these people what are you going to do

00:54:11.240 about it she's Augustus's wife yep he's never gonna turn on her I mean think about it there

00:54:20.000 were three women that were elevated to very high positions within Rome under Augustus Octavia his

00:54:26.340 sister Julia his daughter and Livia his wife they were all granted privileges that no other woman

00:54:35.260 in Rome was granted. Octavia and Livia had their faces on coins. Octavia was the first one ever in

00:54:42.700 Roman history to have that done. So clearly he held her in high regard. He held all three of

00:54:50.460 those women in high regard. Any one of those women could have gotten away with anything they wanted

00:54:54.780 because there was no way he was going to hold that against them. It just, it was never going to happen.

00:55:00.840 And this, also this environment of just like the whole thing about families, everything,

00:55:04.740 like what is your you know what's your family name what's your heritage like he just felt like

00:55:08.840 his family was so important and sort of godlike like for him he turned against his daughter julia

00:55:15.620 only after yeah but he exiled her to an island which is like exile me to an island in the 0.87

00:55:22.300 mediterranean i'm fine and i don't have to deal with all this bullshit that's going on in the 0.57

00:55:25.500 city send me i don't care because the thing is it's fine you exiled her but you know what 0.95

00:55:30.180 she was still living like a princess she she still had her servants she still had everything 0.91

00:55:36.240 she could possibly want and she lived out the rest of her life i i actually read at one point

00:55:42.520 she can't think that it's assumed she had a female lover fine whatever but she got to do 0.99

00:55:49.420 what she wanted to do she did she was not held to that standard of having to have that mask on

00:55:55.300 in rome all the time so i can't imagine she put up much of a fight he's probably like you know 1.00

00:56:01.360 what bitch i don't know you're i'm done with you go to this island she's probably like deuces i'm 0.99

00:56:06.900 out you know i i sure would have been yeah if like the options are like either you're gonna be like 1.00

00:56:12.680 suddenly stabbed by an angry octavian or it's like go live on this mediterranean island it's like

00:56:20.200 I choose the island right could be a lot worse because unless she's gone you don't hear anything 0.56

00:56:26.440 about her anymore but not really but I just can't imagine she was living a rough life honestly I 0.58

00:56:32.420 don't see that happening yeah just because of her like who she was her pet she wasn't like

00:56:37.500 what's it um Tom Hanks in that movie where he's on the island by himself it's like she's got

00:56:41.940 servants like she's fine but Livia she was given I don't have it in front of me but I know that

00:56:48.000 She was given various, like, sort of, like, titles.

00:56:50.400 Augustus was called, he was, like, the king of everyone or something.

00:56:53.260 She was called, like, the queen of everyone.

00:56:54.800 Like, she was...

00:56:55.500 She's the mother of all mothers and mother of Rome and all of that. 0.99

00:56:59.200 Because she's, like, the perfect, like, domestic white... 1.00

00:57:02.680 You know, like, I'm trying to think of something equivalent. 0.84

00:57:05.260 It's somebody like Queen Elizabeth II, where it's just kind of like, oh, she's all of our grandmother.

00:57:11.320 And Queen Elizabeth II, someone who's always just like, I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm also a queen.

00:57:16.080 but like i always look smiling and perfect like even in her latter years when was with the second

00:57:21.560 it's like apparently she needed a wheelchair and stuff but she would never appear in public in a

00:57:25.520 wheelchair it's like i always only ever look perfect and that was kind of what livia was up

00:57:29.820 to just kind of being like because that was important to octavian as well that like his

00:57:35.020 family and his marriage were like the model for how everybody should be in rome and you know 0.79

00:57:39.780 another thing that she was given that is really sort of interesting to me is women back then that

00:57:48.520 had three or more children were added to a list. You got like bonus like status or something when

00:57:57.280 you had three or more children. You were basically allowed to do whatever you wanted at that point

00:58:00.480 because think about it it was it was probably sort of difficult to get pregnant back then.

00:58:05.080 it was even more difficult to carry to term because you just never know what was going to

00:58:09.540 happen. And then it was a bit more difficult to keep that child alive until adulthood. So

00:58:15.300 she, even though she only had two children, because the baby that she had with Octavian

00:58:20.900 didn't make it, she was still listed to, it was like a public listing of matrons or something

00:58:26.980 like that. She was still put on that list and given all of those freedoms, even though she

00:58:32.260 technically didn't belong on that list and i'm like you know that that just shows just how

00:58:40.120 highly revered she was amongst everyone because i haven't read anything that anyone really opposed

00:58:47.640 her being put on there because i'm sure that would have showed up in someone's writing somewhere if

00:58:53.520 one of the haters would have mentioned that for sure and that's the thing that the haters who

00:58:57.780 wrote about her were like oh and some said maybe she was responsible for this murder but during 0.76

00:59:01.760 her life no one ever said anything against her because she was only ever seen as being like the 0.85

00:59:07.460 perfect wife and mother the perfect empress yep like what she was doing on behind the scenes we

00:59:12.940 don't know but like no one ever spoke out against her during life because they knew that Octavian

00:59:16.640 would kill them if they did there was a certain level of status that you could be given can't

00:59:23.200 think of the name of it but it um protected you from being physically or verbally abused or

00:59:33.220 harassed so it basically kind of protected you against cyber bullying and she was given that

00:59:39.000 status um which is probably why we don't see very many negative things written about her

00:59:45.620 um in in the height of what she was doing because she had this protected status

00:59:51.640 and if you wrote something like that about her you were going to get killed so not saying that

00:59:58.580 she would have deserved to be written like that in any way but she did have that protective status

01:00:03.580 no one could yeah well and that's where like when you start seeing stuff about um was she really a

01:00:09.240 murder for instance um the next alleged murder that she did is augustus himself who died at age

01:00:15.800 77 and at the time let me see what this says so one of the sources like there was no um

01:00:23.680 like at the time nobody was like we think she killed him but like 200 years later

01:00:29.600 when people are looking back at this like dynasty and all these like debaucherous things that

01:00:34.500 happened they're like yeah she might have killed him so it's like they could never accuse that

01:00:38.040 during her life because she would have them killed yeah she would yes and the funny thing

01:00:44.160 about it is um after his death she she pretty much kept all her statuses um but after tiberius

01:00:56.240 finally got over himself came back to rome to be emperor he he really i think stifled her

01:01:05.180 let's like let's just take this piece by piece so tiberia like augustus dies allegedly i mean

01:01:12.720 seemingly natural causes allegedly from eating a poison fig allegedly because livia went out in

01:01:18.720 their fig orchard and painted poison on the figs and then fed it to him right off the tree because

01:01:24.860 there's like you know food tasters and stuff around the palace which is like a great scene

01:01:29.600 and i claudius but is also like a pretty unlikely like sequence of events to happen tiberius becomes

01:01:36.580 the emperor against his will he's just like cranky he wants to be like a military commander and not

01:01:42.700 be emperor but he is emperor and livia is like i was like kind of co-emperor with augustus so i'll

01:01:47.800 be kind of your co-emperor as well people respect me and he was always bumping up against that he

01:01:52.100 didn't want her to have any responsibility she would go around his back to like get stuff done

01:01:57.320 because he was so bad at it and then he would get mad at her and eventually he just like storms off

01:02:01.560 to capri to just like again just like oh i'm just gonna go live on this island so he's the emperor

01:02:07.820 but he's like not even there because he's just like hates it so much and they wanted to bestow

01:02:13.960 so many different titles and this and that and the other on her and he was like no senate would

01:02:20.100 vote on it they'd pass it and he's like no she doesn't need that they wanted things on him too

01:02:25.420 And he's like, no, I don't need that.

01:02:27.060 They wanted to give her like different titles or statues or temples.

01:02:30.480 And he was always like, no, no, don't do anything nice for my mother.

01:02:33.240 It's like your mother who like saved you from a forest fire when you were two.

01:02:37.160 Like that mother. 1.00

01:02:38.580 Like, fuck you, Tiberius. 1.00

01:02:39.860 She did everything she could possibly do to ensure the life he ended up with. 1.00

01:02:46.420 And the ungrateful wretch storms off to an island. 0.92

01:02:51.400 and then tries to withhold everything possible from her. 0.99

01:02:57.720 Now, I get it. 1.00

01:02:58.960 The history is full of overbearing mothers. 0.94

01:03:01.880 You know, Henry VII had one, Margaret Beaufort. 0.99

01:03:04.060 She was probably the epitome of overbearing mothers. 0.80

01:03:08.140 You know, Queen T was, from what I've read,

01:03:11.580 slightly overbearing with Akhenaten

01:03:13.480 until he kind of put her in her place.

01:03:16.160 But there's no lack of overbearing mothers in history.

01:03:21.400 And I'm not so sure I would probably list her as overbearing as much as I would. 1.00

01:03:26.880 She realized that he was a fucking idiot and she did what she needed to do. 1.00

01:03:32.180 Somebody had to step in because he was useless. 1.00

01:03:35.100 Exactly.

01:03:35.860 And she was just doing what she had to do to keep the Roman Empire going and really just keep him from suffering the same fate as Caesar.

01:03:44.520 Because they would have got fed up with him.

01:03:46.160 She was 14 years old when Julius Caesar died.

01:03:48.840 She lived through everything we talked about, like being on the run.

01:03:51.400 like which faction is with who,

01:03:53.280 like living in that city where like there was raised to the ground.

01:03:56.140 Like she knows what happens when a civil war breaks out and Octavian was

01:04:01.860 emperor for long enough that kind of stability came back in,

01:04:05.600 but she knew how easily it could all be upended again.

01:04:10.180 If there wasn't a strong person at the head of the empire and Tiberius was 1.00

01:04:14.320 just like a bitch and like didn't listen to her, 0.99

01:04:18.420 even though she was the smartest person in the room she had all this life experience she knew 1.00

01:04:24.040 personally the damage it can cause when there's not a good when things are chaotic and he's just

01:04:30.360 like meh no but i also think some of her driving force was um her her lineage her her family name

01:04:38.420 because they held that in such high regard everyone did if you were part of any of those

01:04:44.800 families that was like the end-all be-all of stature within society and i think that in a way

01:04:53.220 she was trying to protect the lineage of the family as well with some of the things that she

01:04:58.960 probably did all of those years because she didn't want to see her family line she didn't

01:05:06.780 want to see the julians or the claudians or the jerseys just die out like that right like it's

01:05:11.880 personal to her like saving rome is like her family like rome is her family yes yeah exactly

01:05:18.360 like rome is her so tiberius threatened that like to the core he threatened that and so i don't blame

01:05:25.640 her one bit if she tried to step in and keep that from happening i'm gonna reduce just listeners but

01:05:32.440 also gina some highlights of tiberius being the worst so he avoided private meetings with her

01:05:38.320 refused to listen to her advice and responded furiously when the Senate proposed to honor him

01:05:43.680 with the title son of Livia. He also warned her to keep out of matters unbecoming to a woman.

01:05:53.800 He resented. So she did, you mentioned before that she was like not a frigid person. She was

01:05:58.360 like, she did a lot of charitable work. Like she did outreach stuff. Like she was like

01:06:02.660 Princess Diana-esque in that way. So at one point there had been a fire near the temple of Vesta

01:06:08.100 and she directed rescue operations she's in her 70s she's like going to the site of this temple

01:06:13.840 that's kind of in her honor and like directing firefighters anyway he was really mad that she

01:06:20.740 did that and then eventually he removed her entirely from public life and then in the final

01:06:27.320 three years of her life he only saw her once she felt ill with whatever she's 86 years old in

01:06:33.440 ancient Rome and he refused to come back from Capri to even visit her and then when she died

01:06:40.440 he took so long leaving Capri they were I don't know maybe you know about this but like the funeral

01:06:45.380 processes and stuff but they kind of kept the body out so he could come and visit but he took

01:06:49.780 so long to visit that the body started to rot so that they had to like put the body away so she

01:06:55.400 didn't she was denied a proper funeral and had to be hastily buried in defiance of tradition

01:07:00.440 because her son was the worst he definitely was and there was probably i mean there could have

01:07:08.880 been an actual mental illness there we don't know because they didn't they didn't know about that

01:07:14.440 back then but like you had mentioned he had some seriously deep-rooted ptsd and obviously there

01:07:22.440 was something not right in his bloodline because you ended up with claudius well claudius was

01:07:28.740 those weren't his children they were in his bloodline oh i guess you're right yeah and so

01:07:36.300 it's just like i i i want to give him slight benefit of the doubt that he might have been

01:07:43.480 battling some mental illness in there because i don't think ptsd would turn you into that big of 0.99

01:07:48.760 an asshole it could but i want to say there was something else working in there but i think he 0.99

01:07:56.920 also really was jealous of her because absolutely from the get-go when octavian met her and decided 0.99

01:08:06.700 i want that person there she clearly was always gonna rank high with him and his mind and his

01:08:13.780 hearts just always rank high with him tiberius i would assume probably wasn't hugged enough as a

01:08:23.180 child i guess i mean honestly look at all the drama that was happening and i think he really

01:08:27.800 grew up to have jealousy of her if anyone had anything to do with drusus dying i would say

01:08:34.040 it was him because she clearly loved the hell out of drusus and for all we know tiberius could

01:08:39.800 have had something done to him and then be like okay say he fell off a horse you know i wouldn't

01:08:44.560 put that past his brother yeah i think the tiberius thing like you mentioned the bloodline

01:08:48.920 and stuff you're right i can't keep track of the bloodline of who's related to who everyone's

01:08:53.200 related to everyone in this family or they adopted somebody and then suddenly that's in their bloodline

01:08:57.360 as well but yeah like the fact that you have like octavian who is like he was i will give him the

01:09:03.540 credit of saying he was a successful emperor for 50 years during an extremely contentious time 0.88

01:09:09.080 was he like a nightmare asshole chaotic tyrant who was the worst yes but he was a good at being 0.96

01:09:17.700 emperor for the time he was the emperor tiberius disaster like caligula complete disaster nero 0.99

01:09:25.080 disaster and this is like this is why you don't have this is why maybe rome was better off with

01:09:30.700 elected leaders instead of the heir because like four in a row like the heir of the previous

01:09:36.920 emperor was like not suited for the role but think about the inbreeding because you have

01:09:44.680 this person who's a cousin or this one was a sister of this person but now we're marrying

01:09:51.720 the brother of this you had it was a very roundabout way but you had quite a bit of

01:09:57.620 inbreeding going on there and it's like the only trait that like passed through the inbreeding was

01:10:03.660 like being a terrible emperor was like coded into their dna because i mean in the podcast we did

01:10:11.200 about um hat all of the the male heirs that her father had whoever they they didn't really survive

01:10:23.300 the one tetlos what was the third second third her her um stepson he his mother was part of the

01:10:33.440 harem his mother brought in some new dna yes she wasn't of royal blood you look at at um tut and

01:10:40.960 his sister. They didn't have any surviving children. They were brother and sister. That

01:10:47.000 wasn't going to work. History shows inbreeding really is just not going to work. And I think

01:10:53.500 some of those people were just too closely related because they wanted to try to keep

01:10:57.520 everything in the Julian family. They wanted to keep everything in the Julian family.

01:11:00.740 Exactly. You're like, this family is so important. Yeah. Because even I think Livia's first husband

01:11:05.900 was he was a Claudian as well like which means Tiberius was the product of some level of incest

01:11:13.180 as well and Drusus is yeah and that's the we see this over again like in ancient Egypt we see that

01:11:18.300 but then also you get into that with like the Habsburgs and like European history like when

01:11:22.380 the family lineage is so important everyone marries within the family eventually like

01:11:27.080 this does not work out eventually everyone becomes infertile and you have to switch to

01:11:31.200 another family anyway. And I think that that might have played a part in that succession of

01:11:36.300 really terrible leaders. I think they've really had some not so great things happen and look in

01:11:42.460 their DNA. That's the risk you get like in any of the history that I look at where it's a dynasty

01:11:47.480 where it's just like, who's going to be the next monarch? Oh, it's the son of the guy. Like,

01:11:52.220 and you never know if that's going to be a good king or a bad king. And more than often,

01:11:57.520 it's a bad game so like maybe this isn't a good system of like pretending that one family is like

01:12:04.600 pure and godly because then we just get stuck with like the worst yep i'm not trying to make

01:12:12.960 it for for tiberius because he was a jerk but there might have been other things at play that 0.95

01:12:18.580 i mean obviously genetics just weren't something they thought about back then all they thought 0.99

01:12:22.160 about was keeping things pure i mean it even happens within like dogs the purebred dogs yeah

01:12:27.280 they have the most medical issues it just that doesn't work yeah no exactly when it's just

01:12:34.780 eventually what's the one it's like they like their face is so short they can't breathe properly

01:12:39.960 like some of those dog breeds yeah tiberius is kind of that but um you just call it dog breed

01:12:46.340 purebred overly purebred but yeah i mean that's the thing and on the podcast too like when i

01:12:53.820 encounter somebody where it's just like i try to have empathy for people but at the same time it's

01:12:57.200 Like, there's lots of people with lots of health conditions and lots of mental health conditions who would have been a much better emperor than Tiberius. 0.99

01:13:03.120 Like, ultimately, he was a shitty person. 0.97

01:13:05.700 And maybe that was exacerbated by some of these other things. 0.99

01:13:09.080 You know, another thing that contributes to that is the lifestyle that you live.

01:13:14.120 If you're always kind of told you're special, you're treated like you're special.

01:13:18.720 We see that a lot, don't we? 0.98

01:13:21.160 Yeah, you start getting those asshole actions about you because you're always told you can do no wrong. 1.00

01:13:26.680 so you know and like octavian and if anyone dares to challenge you you just kill them yeah so 0.99

01:13:32.820 everyone around you always tells you you're great and like we were talking before about there's a

01:13:36.440 good scene in i claudius the series where it's tiberius and his astrologer and the astrologer

01:13:41.460 was always like great news it looks like your life's gonna go great because like the astrologer

01:13:45.860 knows if he gives bad news tiberius will murder him yeah so like everyone around you is like

01:13:50.580 you're favored by the gods like so no one ever calls you in and then you just get so more and

01:13:56.460 more extreme until you're just like barely even a person anymore yeah so there's there's a lot of

01:14:02.180 a lot of contributing factors to how he ended up the way he did but like you said there are a lot

01:14:10.460 of people they have a lot of things going on in their lives and they don't grow up to be complete 0.97

01:14:13.900 assholes it's a matter of what type of mentality did you have what is your actual deep down 0.96

01:14:19.160 personality are you going to lash down to the ugliness are you going to try to make it better 0.99

01:14:23.020 and he lashed down for the ugliness.

01:14:25.760 And it's just, this is where,

01:14:27.100 like we talked so much last time

01:14:28.220 about Roman society and stuff,

01:14:29.780 but it's like if Octavian had died

01:14:33.640 and then Livia could have taken over,

01:14:36.600 everything's great.

01:14:37.880 She was doing the job for 50 years anyway.

01:14:41.280 Everyone respects her.

01:14:42.240 She's so smart, 1.00

01:14:42.900 but it's just like a woman could never do that. 1.00

01:14:44.380 It has to be the son. 0.99

01:14:45.500 And then it's just like nightmarishly.

01:14:48.260 And if maybe, no,

01:14:51.180 Maybe one day I'll read a biography of Tiberius.

01:14:53.480 No, I'm never going to read a biography of Tiberius.

01:14:56.080 But like maybe some of the stuff that's written about him was also overblown by the haters later on.

01:15:01.280 There's a lot of stuff about his like sexual habits.

01:15:04.480 But what we do know is that he was he treated his mother really badly.

01:15:08.560 He ran off to Capri because he didn't want to be emperor so much.

01:15:12.880 I mean, I would rather be at Capri right now, too.

01:15:15.180 So I can't fault him for that.

01:15:16.600 but yeah he totally just shirked his responsibilities because i mean and it wasn't

01:15:21.800 the first time he had done it you know while activian was still alive he was like you know

01:15:25.860 what i don't really think i want to do this i mean he had been elevated to such levels given

01:15:29.780 so many titles just this that and the other and he's like you know uncle stepdad i don't really

01:15:35.640 like this so i'm just gonna go ahead and bounce i'll catch you on the flip side it's like the 1.00

01:15:41.840 worst kind of nepo baby you know like when you look at I won't name names but sometimes when 0.99

01:15:47.460 you look at the adult sons of some celebrities who are just bouncing from like so-called career 1.00

01:15:52.400 to so-called career it's just like they've been handed everything their whole life they don't

01:15:56.440 know how to stick with anything and so there's clearly some sort of like soul emptiness where

01:16:01.420 they just want to find a reason to you know they want to find a passion so it's just like now I'm

01:16:08.520 a chef. Now I'm a photographer. Now I'm a rapper. And it's just like when you're given everything

01:16:13.580 your whole life, like sometimes there's just this emptiness. I think Tiberius is a cautionary tale

01:16:18.200 of that. And I'm not sure I'm not going to sit here and say that Livia was a bad mother because

01:16:23.220 I don't know that I really read too much about what her mothering skills were. But if she was

01:16:28.180 like a typical Roman woman, she didn't pay that much attention to her kids because she was busy 1.00

01:16:35.860 with society things um you know having lunches with the other high society women and you know 1.00

01:16:41.580 doing all that kind of stuff um they really did have servants that raised the kids and the servants 0.99

01:16:48.020 weren't allowed to tell the kids stop being an asshole and do what you're told to do because 0.99

01:16:52.580 they're servants yeah and so you know she her or her mothering or lack of mothering probably had 1.00

01:17:01.880 a lot to do with how he ended up because she wasn't there to put her foot in his ass and tell 1.00

01:17:07.400 him stop being a dick and he just kept doing it and she wasn't paying attention to it or she'd 1.00

01:17:13.820 just be like oh he's just being a boy or it's his right to be able to act that way because 0.99

01:17:18.360 this is the the status level that he's going to get to so yeah you know some of them might have

01:17:23.260 had to have been done what had it could have been her mother and i i don't know it could have been

01:17:28.980 But, you know, lots of people were raised in ancient Rome.

01:17:31.560 Well, we don't know about all the other people who were raised in ancient Rome.

01:17:33.920 Yeah, because no one's going to write about anyone unless they felt they were important.

01:17:36.960 And the funny thing is, is they didn't even write about some of the people that really actually were important.

01:17:41.460 So, you know, who knows how it really truly was?

01:17:45.400 Because, like I said, everyone that wrote that stuff down had an agenda.

01:17:48.820 And if you didn't fit the agenda, you weren't getting put in.

01:17:52.100 So I don't know.

01:17:53.920 I think she might have dropped the ball on some things when it came to him.

01:17:57.080 she didn't call him out when she saw things were happening i'm not so sure octavian paid enough

01:18:02.720 attention to him to to really always disliked him that's right and so because he had other

01:18:09.780 successors in line he kind of didn't have to worry about him yeah he probably didn't really call him

01:18:15.140 out on any of his bs because he's thinking i've got all these other people that can take over for

01:18:19.460 me i'm never really gonna have to worry about you taking over and so i would have thought these like

01:18:23.120 four healthy young men exactly boom boom boom boom like all just died of like mysterious

01:18:28.120 circumstances you know olivia was probably thinking the same thing to a certain extent where

01:18:32.060 i probably don't really need to harp on tiberius because you know like who cares like this like

01:18:37.640 this kid like whatever like he'll grow up and he'll be like a twitch streamer or whatever like

01:18:42.720 he'll just like do his own like little incel podcast and like you just stay over there

01:18:48.380 but then unfortunately everyone else died and he became emperor and no one had like prepared him for

01:18:53.940 that because they were just kind of like no one wants to deal with him yeah i think to some extent

01:18:59.960 the same thing happened with akhenaten because his brother tetmos was you know first in line

01:19:05.320 he was raised to be the next uh the next pharaoh amenhotep the fourth was not he was allowed to do

01:19:12.900 things that just kind of like you know william and harry william was raised to be the next king

01:19:17.820 harry was not you always have that this person is held to this standard this person could maybe

01:19:24.520 possibly become that is the successor but it's highly unlikely so we're gonna just let you be

01:19:29.840 over here and do you know and that's the henry the eighth thing as well because he had an older

01:19:33.080 brother henry the eighth is being trained to be the next like archbishop or whatever and then

01:19:37.580 suddenly he's thrust into becoming the king where it's like that was not what you were raised to do

01:19:41.580 yep you always have the air and the spare kind of you gotta raise the spare you can't ignore the

01:19:47.440 despair everyone exactly because the better person but you know seems like but maybe it's

01:19:54.480 because they're left alone so i don't know if you recall gina at the end of these biographical

01:19:58.740 episodes i have the four categories to score the people i forgot to remind you about this but we've

01:20:03.000 done this before so every score is out of 10 um and there's four categories the first one is

01:20:09.880 scandalousness how scandalous was livia and usually i try to say that in the time in which

01:20:16.560 she lived but i'll say people weren't allowed to say anything against her in the time in which

01:20:21.280 she lived so all we can look at is like after well how people treated her how she was what

01:20:28.520 regard she's held in when she lived but then how people look at her after like now because of

01:20:34.020 tacitus and because of i claudius like there's a high level of scandal associated with her but

01:20:40.480 like would there have been during her life what do you think i don't think so no i think she was

01:20:45.660 like the perfect like kate middleton like wife and mother like always pretty my first exposure

01:20:51.740 to her was by all the hater men that wanted to label her this that and the other and when i

01:20:56.740 really actually read up on her i'm like that i don't think that really fits her i think that

01:21:03.240 she just was genuinely just i won't say she was a good person but i just think she just really

01:21:09.520 wanted to see rome thrive and and try to fit the societal expectations as much as possible

01:21:16.900 i don't think i would really call her scandalous really at all i mean like the fact that the that

01:21:24.220 the haters like who knows what she's really like or like what she did behind closed doors but the

01:21:28.880 fact that they couldn't even pretend that there is anything scandalous about her during her life

01:21:33.560 that all that they could do is like well all these people mysteriously died at times and in other

01:21:39.980 countries maybe she poisoned them it's like they couldn't find anything to use against her like

01:21:44.260 there was she she didn't let there be anything to use against her because she like always betrayed

01:21:48.700 herself and I think Octavian was an extremely smart individual and if he thought that she was

01:21:55.280 conniving like that he would have ditched her yeah absolutely he was so paranoid he was so

01:22:01.920 paranoid there was one story i read where he was in a group of people and he thought that a guy had

01:22:06.400 a weapon and he's like arrest that man and then the guy was like no it's just this tablet i'm just

01:22:11.100 like taking notes and he still had him executed like that was the sort of person he was like he

01:22:15.820 he went from zero to execution like right away so like if he hit you're right if he had suspected

01:22:23.020 anything about her yeah i'll say on a scale of like zero to ten i'm gonna give her a one 0.87

01:22:30.120 for scandalousness. I completely agree. Yeah. Like I think she like really lived her life

01:22:36.040 again we don't know what's happening behind closed doors but she just

01:22:39.440 ensured that she always like the mask was always on. She was the perfect Roman woman 0.99

01:22:45.960 and that allowed her to live to the age of 86. And that was the feat in and of itself 0.62

01:22:52.800 in that day and time to live until 86 as a woman. How many plagues were going through there like

01:22:58.700 giving birth like on the run like all the stuff she went through like yeah yeah but here's the 0.99

01:23:05.180 next one so the next category is scheminess how schemey was she on a scale of zero to ten and

01:23:11.100 that's not just like literally murder schemes but also just the way that she knew this is how i'm

01:23:16.080 going to survive this is how i'm going to get by like i truly believe she was in octavian's ear

01:23:22.220 quite a bit um and that's just kind of shown by him saying i need to run this by my wife first

01:23:29.140 before i i come up so like not being embarrassed to admit that i i would actually put her at at 0.99

01:23:36.320 least a five maybe oh i would give her much more for scheminess i think just her like 1.00

01:23:42.840 survivor's ability like yeah because she would have had to have played her cards right in many 1.00

01:23:48.660 different situations to get out of some of the things that she got out of to to live as the

01:23:55.200 empress of rome married to octavian for 50 years that's not just someone being passive and like

01:24:01.520 okay dear like that's someone who's like every day what about like like an eight something like

01:24:07.580 that i can go with that i can go with that yeah i think again like we don't know specifically

01:24:14.640 what her schemes were but like clearly they were there yeah like just presenting herself in this

01:24:21.000 perfect way all the time that takes so much energy her significance oh i think she would

01:24:28.460 have to rank really high in that again because how many times did she say i gotta run this by 0.96

01:24:34.060 olivia first i mean she i think i think she ranks like really high in that one at least

01:24:41.660 the eight or a nine because i really don't think that rome would have become what it did if it

01:24:47.620 wasn't for her yeah if it was just him because of all the chaos that was happening at that time

01:24:54.720 no she's not the one that expanded the roman empire to the extent that it was but at at that

01:25:00.660 one point where it could have gone either way for rome it could have it could have gone the way it

01:25:06.540 did or it could have just completely collapsed i think she had a lot to do with that so i would

01:25:11.560 rank her really high in that yeah i think that marrying her was the smartest thing octavian did

01:25:16.920 both for himself and like he's remembered as this very significant leader but it's like

01:25:22.780 he wasn't making all the decisions by himself like he was running everything by her she was so smart

01:25:27.740 and but also we mentioned just a little bit but like just the charitable work she did during her

01:25:32.940 life and stuff just like building temples and like giving to the poor and stuff like she was

01:25:37.040 like you said like she was rome yeah and she she made it like rome could have fallen at this point

01:25:44.220 but it didn't and i think she had a a lot to do with that yeah and the roman empire is like

01:25:52.360 the most famous you know like people still talk about it today and she kind of she's like in the

01:25:58.160 background but so important and then even just like so her significance now is mostly people

01:26:02.220 oh she's this murderer or whatever but like people know her name like she's not forgotten

01:26:08.000 like i'm content i'm happy to give her a 10 for significance oh absolutely saving the roman empire

01:26:15.020 yeah because if you think about it people talk about julius caesar they talk about him all the

01:26:20.780 time they sometimes talk about augustus even though he was the first emperor he doesn't get

01:26:28.220 talked about as much as Julius Caesar. He was the emperor. Why? A lot had to do with her. He started

01:26:37.040 some of the basic things that were core parts of Roman society that continued on for hundreds of

01:26:45.380 years. He was just as important as Julius Caesar. And because of her is why he was that important,

01:26:54.100 because I really believe that he would have angered his way right out of that position.

01:27:00.440 He would have killed so many people, pissed off so many people, 1.00

01:27:03.400 done so much dumb stuff that they eventually would have just killed him. 1.00

01:27:06.840 She kept him sane enough to stay in power that long. 0.99

01:27:10.480 Because she knew that they needed that stability.

01:27:12.520 Like Rome needed this period of 50 years with the same emperor

01:27:15.900 to just sort of like calm down from the whole Julius Caesar assassination thing

01:27:20.920 and to get people used to the fact that like now there's an emperor.

01:27:23.540 yeah like we've pivoted our like it's an empire now guys because in that 50 years look at how many

01:27:30.500 you could have gone through like maybe three generations of people because not everybody

01:27:35.280 made it to adulthood you know or if you got to adulthood you didn't get that far into it

01:27:39.320 you know by the time some of these young ladies were 14 15 16 they were already having kids 0.51

01:27:44.840 well you know by age 25 that woman could be dead the next kid comes along so you could have had

01:27:49.680 you know, a number of people where if you didn't have that 50 years stability of having that same

01:27:55.340 person in charge that whole time, imagine the chaos that could have happened.

01:28:00.420 I just speaking of like the giving birth and stuff, like Livia had her children so young,

01:28:04.200 like when she's like 16 and 18. And then just reproductively, she and Octavian, like they had

01:28:11.500 the one like stillborn child and that was it for them. But it's like the fact that they didn't have

01:28:16.460 any more children i think kept her able to have her eye on the prize and like stay like because

01:28:21.640 she wasn't busy with like pregnancy and postpartum and breastfeeding and like the danger of giving 0.83

01:28:26.700 birth like she she was just she was like a retired festal virgin in that way she was just like yeah

01:28:32.180 like she she had her time freed up like her kids were like by the time she was what 30 her kids

01:28:38.400 were like basically independent like so she could just be doing her own thing yeah so the final

01:28:44.580 category the fourth and final category is what we call the sexism bonus which is just like how

01:28:49.680 much more could this person how much did like the patriarchy and sexism hold them back how much more

01:28:55.260 could this person have accomplished if not for that 20 if she had been able to be in charge yeah 0.87

01:29:03.960 i think there probably would have been no limit to what she could have accomplished if she'd had

01:29:09.200 the backing of the Senate and Rome the way the men always had the backing. I don't think that

01:29:17.400 she would have gotten involved in any wars. If she did, it might have been just a couple.

01:29:22.360 I think she really would have had a very straightforward way of accomplishing the

01:29:28.340 goals that she saw as being the best for Rome overall, if she just had that backing, if she

01:29:35.100 had the trust if they didn't look at her the way Cicero did and said oh she's weak in judgment

01:29:40.620 can't figure anything out for herself they if they would have let that woman just be her man

01:29:46.700 yeah wrong I mean we but different I think here's what's amazing I'm just so her total score then

01:29:55.080 is a 29 and you know who else is a 29 is Hatshepsut because had they just let her be her 1.00

01:30:01.980 she could have accomplished exactly the same reason exactly the same reason she's also scheminess 0.97

01:30:06.960 she's also got the significance but then it's just like let her be actually in charge not having to

01:30:13.140 be like oh i'm co-pharaoh with my like baby brother or whatever she had to do um amazing

01:30:19.940 gina thank you so much there's no one else i could have done this with and now i understand

01:30:24.820 ancient room so much better thank you well i appreciate you having me back on i know all the

01:30:29.640 listeners this is not what you're used to hearing me talk about but i i am multifaceted when it

01:30:35.160 comes to to ancient whatever so i'm really glad we got a chance to talk about ancient rome because

01:30:41.400 it it definitely is where i started out my fascination with studying ancient history and

01:30:46.600 there's just there's so many different ways of understanding ancient rome um that you know

01:30:53.360 you can look at what was written shortly after someone died you could look at what was written

01:30:59.480 centuries after someone died. You can look at it, just combining it all and coming up with your own

01:31:04.440 opinion, which is usually what I end up doing. But there's just so much to it. And there's just

01:31:09.860 so much that we don't know because again, they weren't really stakeholders in what this person

01:31:15.320 was trying to get across in their opinion. But ancient Rome is just so fascinating because

01:31:21.700 it involved so much more than just the city of Rome. You know, you talk about ancient Egypt

01:31:27.280 And it revolves around mostly Egypt. 0.82

01:31:29.420 You know, you've got the Nubians and then the Syrians. 0.86

01:31:31.480 But for the most part, everything you really think about, it just revolves around Egypt.

01:31:36.240 It's not that way with Rome.

01:31:37.840 Rome involves so many other countries, so many other different people.

01:31:41.460 And if you really dig into it, it's just kind of a little bit overwhelming because it's just so much information.

01:31:49.680 But ancient Rome is still going to be near and dear to my heart.

01:31:54.280 And it's always going to be my first love when it comes to studying ancient history.

01:31:59.100 And anytime you want to talk about it again, just let me know.

01:32:03.320 Hell yes.

01:32:03.840 I think we'll make this at least an annual event because we both need the time to research.

01:32:09.900 Right.

01:32:10.140 But yeah.

01:32:11.220 Thank you so much for coming on the podcast again, Gina.

01:32:13.680 Thank you.

01:32:18.960 So I'm so excited.

01:32:20.140 Well, I'm just so happy that I got to hang out with Gina in the form of recording the

01:32:24.660 last podcast episode about ancient Rome, as well as this one about Livia.

01:32:28.020 And I love getting to learn all this stuff about Livia and what could be more timely

01:32:32.400 than to let you know, if you want to celebrate Livia through beautiful jewelry, then I should

01:32:37.640 mention our brand partner, Common Era Jewelry.

01:32:40.480 So Common Era Jewelry, it's a small business that's owned by a woman named Tori, who recently

01:32:45.640 had a baby.

01:32:46.300 Congratulations, Tori.

01:32:47.180 and she all the designs are inspired by her love of the ancient world like she and Gina very much

01:32:52.660 have that in common and so the the jewelry that they make is inspired by women from history but

01:32:59.140 also kind of like classical history in general but there is specifically a Livia design from

01:33:04.260 common era so you can get this on a beautiful pendant it's just like Livia's gorgeous face

01:33:09.300 and so the design of their Livia necklace is based on a famous statue of Livia made during

01:33:14.180 her lifetime in 31 BCE. And this Livia piece, this Livia design is part of Common Era's Difficult

01:33:21.020 Women collection, which I love the name. I love the concept. So it's a whole collection inspired

01:33:25.380 by powerful women from history whose reputations were affected because the history was written by

01:33:30.000 the haters. So as Tori from Common Era says about Livia, Livia's impact on the Roman Empire cannot

01:33:36.740 be denied. Her shrewd political maneuvering and cultural influence shaped the foundations of

01:33:41.420 Augustine Rome, and she embraced a role that was unlike that of any other women in Roman history.

01:33:47.280 So if you want to get Livia in a beautiful pendant necklace, it's available in solid gold

01:33:53.520 as well as in more affordable gold vermeil. And Vulgar History listeners can always get 15%

01:33:59.240 off your items from Common Era Jewelry by going to commonera.com slash vulgar or using code

01:34:05.160 vulgar at checkout. And I want to mention also, I wrote a book. It's called Rebel of the Regency,

01:34:13.360 colon, the scandalous saga of Carolina Brunswick, Britain's Uncrowned Queen.

01:34:18.020 And the subtitle might change. It's like the book has not been printed yet. We're still going back

01:34:22.220 and forth, but it's for sure. My book is called Rebel of the Regency. And it's about another

01:34:25.860 woman who, like Livia, was misunderstood by a lot of historians and is being reexamined now by

01:34:33.560 people like me who want to celebrate Carolina Brunswick, who was this iconic queen from

01:34:38.200 British history. Anyway, my book comes out next February, but you can pre-order it now. And when

01:34:44.860 you pre-order things, first of all, if you order it from an online retailer, that means the day

01:34:48.900 it's published, it just shows up at your door. Amazing. Or if you pre-order it from your local

01:34:53.820 bookstore, you can go into your bookstore and pick it up that day. You'll get a happy message

01:34:57.440 from them being like, guess what's here? Your book you ordered months ago. And you'll be like,

01:35:00.640 I don't even remember ordering a book months ago. How exciting. Anyway, right now the book is

01:35:05.880 available for pre-order in Canada and the US, and we are actively figuring out how to make it

01:35:11.640 available in other countries. And once we figure that out, I will let you know, as well as when

01:35:16.000 there's news about the audio book. At the moment, it's available as a print book and as an ebook

01:35:20.820 in Canada and the US. So you can pre-order it at your local independent bookstore, or you can go

01:35:26.060 to online retailers to order it. I have a bunch of links to order it at rebeloftheragency.com,

01:35:32.200 the website. You can also add it to your to-be-read list on Goodreads or Storygraph if

01:35:37.400 that's where you track what you're reading. That also is so valuable and so important just to show

01:35:41.280 my publisher and everybody that there's hype about this book because I want them to let me

01:35:46.400 write another book. And an important part of that, as I have come to learn, is for this book to do

01:35:51.220 really well and then also if and when you pre-order the book you can get some nice treats from me like

01:35:57.080 you can get one year free patreon access one year free paid membership to my sub stack and also a

01:36:03.980 beautiful carolina brunswick themed paper doll so you can submit your receipt from your pre-order

01:36:09.900 at rebel of the regency.com as well and next week we're still we're still sticking on ancient rome

01:36:16.760 because there's more ancient Roman ladies

01:36:18.940 that we need to talk about. 0.99

01:36:21.060 And well, that's what it's going to be next week

01:36:23.260 because overall this theme, vulgar history,

01:36:26.640 French Revolution leading up to talking about Marie Antoinette.

01:36:30.420 But like it all connects

01:36:32.040 because even Marie Antoinette was compared

01:36:33.680 in like a defamation-like way

01:36:35.800 to some of the women from ancient Rome. 1.00

01:36:37.600 Like at French Revolution, 1.00

01:36:38.940 people were obsessed with ancient Rome.

01:36:40.460 Next week we're going to talk about

01:36:41.640 another woman from ancient Roman times

01:36:44.520 with another very special guest. 1.00

01:36:46.760 And until then, my friends, keep your pants on and your tits out. 1.00

01:36:52.320 Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Anne Foster. 1.00

01:36:56.220 That's me.

01:36:57.360 Editor is Christina Lumagi.

01:36:59.380 Theme music is by The Severn Duo.

01:37:01.700 Transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com by Aveline Malek.

01:37:06.140 You can get early ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon

01:37:10.760 for as low as $1 a month at patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer.

01:37:15.200 Vulgar History Merchandise is available at vulgarhistory.com slash store for Americans and for everyone else at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com.

01:37:24.400 Follow us on social media at vulgarhistorypod and get in touch with me via email at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com.

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Vulgar History - July 25, 2025

Livia Drusilla, Ancient Rome's (Allegedly) Murderous Empress

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