Femina princeps

Från his exile in a remote province on the Black Sea the Roman poet Ovid wrote a letter to his wife, urging her to safeguard his return by praying not to the traditional gods, but to Livia, the femina princeps. In the Roman society women were traditionally associated with the domestic sphere, yet Livia Drusilla, the second wife of the emperor Augustus, managed to live at the very centre of political life for nearly seventy years. Ovid’s appeal illustrates Livia’s paradoxical position: one that s