LIVIA, EMPRESS OF ROME by Matthew Dennison, 2010.

If you are expecting to read about the scheming and malevolent Livia made famous by Robert Graves' novel or the TV miniseries "I, Claudius," you will be disappointed in this biography. Author Dennison has taken the available sources concerning the Julio-Claudian rulers of Rome, carefully sifted through the details, and fashioned a portrait of Livia that is somewhat revisionist (but perhaps more truthful). The book definitely gives the reader the impression that she was not necessarily a malicious, manipulative person with which we are most familiar, but someone who played the role of supporter her husband desired, who made herself indispensable to him, and who used her gifts of intelligence and organization to simply further her family's ambitions. The author is skeptical of sources like Tacitus and others who had an axe to grind against Livia, or who wrote many years after the events they describe. His narrative is smooth and readable, covering Livia's early years (as much as is known); her marriages to Tiberius Claudius Nero and then to Augustus; her life as Augustus' wife and helpmate during the time Rome moved from being a republic to an empire; her tangled and tumultuous familial relationships with her sister-in-law Octavia, her daughter-in-law Antonia, her sons Tiberius and Drusus, her stepdaughter Julia, etc.; her relations with certain Roman political figures; and her pursuit and use of power over eight decades. The author's view is that Livia's crime was not murder, but her scheming and maneuvering tactics to gain power for herself and for her son Tiberius, who became the emperor after Augustus' death. I agree this is surely a more balanced portrait of Livia and it has provided more facets of her life besides the many murders and other wickedness that has been laid at her doorstep. She most likely was over-maligned and accused of horrendous crimes that were not of her doing, but the possibility exists that Livia was behind at least some of them--consider Marcellus' death, Julia's banishment for sexual promiscuity--these events especially were of benefit to Livia or her son, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that she had something to do with them. My one complaint with the book is the author's tendency to whitewash or discount things that he doesn't like or to claim that a source is unreliable in some details but reliable in others that support his claims. However, in the main, Dennison has provided a very readable, interesting account of a truly formidable female who lived during a dangerous and disturbing period in Rome's history, who was able to find and secure her role in its society, to be actively involved in events and maintain her position, and survive to become the matriarch of what was probably Rome's most notorious dynasty.