Cybèle et Amphitrite by Paul Baudry + Cybele & the Legend of Claudia Quinta, ancestor of Livia in Matthew Dennison, Livia, Empress of Rome
CATULLUS READING HIS POEMS AT LESBIA'S HOUSE by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema + Lesbia, aka Clodia Metelli, ancestor of Livia in Matthew Dennison, Livia, Empress of Rome
She was a girl. Instead, within a century, her cult would be worshipped across the breadth of the Mediterranean world and beyond; her features chiselled from marble and basalt in temples remote from Rome; her name invoked in marriage ceremonies and written histories and inscribed on provincial coinage alongside the legend ‘Mother of the World’; her likeness affiliated to personifications of an empires chosen virtues. At the dies lustricus she received from her family two names: Livia Drusilla. For much of her life—and by history—she would be known by the former.
The name of Livia has survived through two millennia, even into generations unfamiliar with ancient history and Rome’s written sources. It resonates beyond the confines of any armarium or noble atrium, bolder but less easily read than the soft translucency of a portrait carved from wax. It is spiced with accretions of legend and malice...sharp-tasting...contentious...perhaps even dangerous. Its associations embrace good and bad: synonymous with lust for power or the exemplary virtue Romans prized in their women. Livia is a villain; Livia is a victim.
—Matthew Dennison, Livia, Empress of Rome
