
According to wikipedia.org
Livia Drusilla, after 14 AD called Julia Augusta (Classical Latin: LIVIA•DRVSILLA, IVLIA•AVGVSTA[1]) (58 BC-29 AD) was the wife of Augustus and one of the most powerful women in the Roman Empire, being Augustus' faithful advisor. She was also mother to Drusus and Tiberius, grandmother to Germanicus and Claudius, great-grandmother to Caligula and Agrippina the Younger and great-great-grandmother to Nero. She was deified by Claudius who acknowledged her title of Augusta.
While reporting various unsavoury hearsay, the ancient sources generally portray Livia (Julia Augusta) as a woman of proud and queenly attributes, faithful to her imperial husband, for whom she was a worthy consort, forever poised and dignified. With consummate skill she acted out the roles of consort, mother, widow and dowager. Dio records two of her utterances: "Once, when some naked men met her and were to be put to death in consequence, she saved their lives by saying that to a chaste woman such men are in no way different from statues. When someone asked her how she had obtained such a commanding influence over Augustus, she answered that it was by being scrupulously chaste herself, doing gladly whatever pleased him, not meddling with any of his affairs, and, in particular, by pretending neither to hear or nor to notice the favourites of his passion."[23]
With time, however, and widowhood, a haughtiness and an overt craving for power and the outward trappings of status came increasingly to the fore. Livia had always been a principal beneficiary of the climate of adulation that Augustus had done so much to create, and which Tiberius despised ("a strong contempt for honours", Tacitus, Annals 4.37). In 24, typically, whenever she attended the theatre, a seat among the Vestals was reserved for her (Annals 4.16), and this may have been intended more as an honour for the Vestals than for her (cf. Ovid, Tristia, 4.2.13f, Epist.Ex Ponto 4.13.29f).
Livia played a vital role in the formation of her children Tiberius and Drusus. Attention focuses on her part in the divorce of her first husband, father of Tiberius, in 39/38 BC. It would be interesting to know her role in this, as well as in Tiberius’ divorce of Vipsania Agrippina in 12 BC at Augustus' insistence: whether it was merely neutral or passive, or whether she actively colluded in Caesar’s wishes. The first divorce left Tiberius a fosterchild at the house of Octavian; the second left Tiberius with a lasting emotional scar, since he had been forced to abandon the woman he loved for dynastic considerations. Ancient testimonies are lacking, but it may well be that Tiberius’ deep-seated antipathy towards Livia is rooted in these two events.
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