Roman women used cosmetics, and we may suppose that Livia was no exception. Creams, perfumes, and unguents were widely sold. Makeup for the face consisted of a grease base, often lanolin from unwashed sheep’s wool, mixed on small plates with various colored substances—ocher or dried wine lees for rouge; black from ash or powdered antimony for the eyebrows and around the eyes. Chalk and, dangerously, white lead were applied to the face and arms.
Livia had a robust constitution. Like her husband, she ate sensibly. Late in her life she attributed her good health to the wine she habitually drank; this was a highly select vintage from Pucinum, a rocky promontory in the Gulf of Trieste where a small castellum used to stand (and nowadays the Castle of Duino).
Drinking wine was not Livia’s only prescription for longevity. She produced recipes for various ailments, some of which have survived. One of these was for inflammation of the throat and was a concoction of opium, anise, aromatic rush, red cassia, coriander, saffron, cinnamon, and other herbs mixed with Attic honey. Another promised to relieve nervous tensions and included fenugreek, Falernian wine, olive oil, marjoram, and rosemary. This was cooked and strained and mixed with half a pound of wax. It was to be rubbed gently into the body.
Livia’s interest in homemade medicines, employed (it may be guessed) on reluctant relatives and members of her household, could well have contributed to the reputation as a poisoner that she acquired after Marcellus’ death.
How exactly Livia passed her time received little attention from contemporary historians. Although a Roman upper-class woman was free to go out, attend public entertainments, visit temples, and play an active role in high society, she was not expected to have a public career; rather, she was to pursue a vocation of looking after her husband and children. She ran the household while her spouse entered politics, fought wars, and governed provinces. In his absence, she would make sure that all was well on his estates and with his finances. Even more important, she would tend the family’s political connections and, when necessary, pull strings behind the scenes.
Provided she adhered to the rules, an intelligent Roman woman like Livia would have little difficulty in bending them to her purposes. She was well advised to take account of two models of feminine behavior, one to admire and the other to avoid. In the first category was Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, reformers who lost their lives in struggles with the Senate in the second century B.C. Once, when another woman who was a guest in her house showed off her jewelry, the finest in existence at that time, Cornelia kept her in talk until her children came home from school, and then said: “Here are my jewels.” When the boys were grown, she helped them in their political careers, and she bore their loss “with a noble and undaunted spirit.”
The alternative paradigm illustrated the grave danger a woman faced if she tried to play too active a part in a man’s world. In the following century, a certain Sempronia, mother of Caesar’s assassin Decimus Junius Brutus, associated herself with the radical politician Lucius Sergius Catilina.
Among their number [women who joined Catilina] was Sempronia, a woman who had committed many crimes that showed her to have the reckless daring of a man. Fortune had favored her abundantly, not only with birth and beauty, but with a good husband and children. Well educated in Greek and Roman literature, she had greater skill in lyre-playing and dancing than there is any need for a respectable woman to acquire, besides many accomplishments such as minister to dissipation. There was nothing that she set a smaller value on than seemliness and chastity, and she was as careless of her reputation as she was of her money.
This is a nearly contemporary assessment of a woman as able and attractive (it would appear) as Cornelia. Lubricity does not sit easily with the roll call of her good qualities, and her sexual history, whatever it may really have been, was evidently a metaphor for political impropriety. Sempronia had stepped out of line and so her personal character had to be blackened.
Livia had no intention of making the same mistake. She kept a low profile, which won her much respect. She took care not to meddle in what her husband saw as his business and turned a blind eye to his sexual liaisons (not a word was ever whispered impugning her chastity). She was completely discreet and kept silent about all she knew. The princeps, for his part, respected her intelligence and often consulted her. It is a mark of his respect and affection, we can assume, that he did not divorce her and find another wife who might have borne him a son. Many of his contemporaries would have done precisely that.
Tacitus saw Livia as a feminine bully who controlled her husband, but she is said to have believed that she had no real power over Augustus and that she exerted influence only because she was always willing to give way to his wishes. A number of recorded occasions illustrate Augustus’ readiness to refuse her requests, but he may have followed her recommendations at other times. It seems most likely that he treated her as he did other senior officials in whom he had confidence; like any chief executive of a large organization, he would expect his advisers to make sure that their advice was consistent with his overall policies and, if it was, he would be inclined to accept it.
Livia’s morning was devoted to handling domestic matters and supervising her substantial business interests. After lunch she took a bath, and it was now that the greatest amount of time and attention will have been given to her toilette. If guests were coming to dinner, she would need to look her best.
The Roman year was punctuated by holidays during which lavish public entertainments were staged. Augustus was aware that these shows—especially the munera, the gladiatorial displays—were important for the ongoing popularity of the regime.
The munera were extraordinarily expensive even for the princeps’ deep pockets and he usually limited funding to two regular seasons, lasting between six to ten days in December and up to four in March. Most of the year’s numerous other feast days were devoted to the very popular chariot races at the Circus Maximus and to drama and dance spectaculars at various theaters in the city, including the one dedicated to the memory of Marcellus.
The Circus Maximus (which was used for gladiatorial displays as well as the races) was overlooked by the steep slope of the Palatine Hill. Augustus had a habit of watching shows from the upper rooms of houses on the Palatine that belonged to friends or his freedmen. Occasionally he sat in the pulvinar, a roofed platform at the Circus on which a couch carrying images of the gods was placed and which was used as a box by him and members of his family.
Augustus did not always arrive at the beginning of the games or even for the first day or so, but he always presented his excuses and appointed a substitute “president.” He did not repeat Julius Caesar’s mistake of reading papers and dictating replies during performances, a habit much disliked by the crowd. He watched intently “to enjoy the fun, as he frankly admitted to doing.” Augustus’ favorite sport was boxing; in the professional game he liked to pit Italians against Greeks, but he also had a taste for slogging matches between untrained roughs in narrow street alleys.
The princeps took a friendly interest in professional entertainers of all kinds and got to know some of them personally. However, there were limits of propriety on which he insisted; he banned gladiatorial contests sine missione, that is where a defeated fighter could not be reprieved and so had to be killed by his opponent. Augustus wanted to see bravery, but disliked pointless bloodshed. He also severely punished actors and other stage performers for licentious behavior. Women were not allowed to watch athletic contests (competitors did not wear clothes), and Augustus barred them from sitting alongside men at other entertainments; they were banished to the back rows.