In her role as Roman empress, Livia served as an influential confidant to her husband and was rumored to have been responsible for the deaths of several of his relatives, including his grandson Agrippa Postumus.

Her father committed suicide in the Battle of Philippi, along with Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, but her husband continued fighting against Octavian, now on behalf of Mark Antony and his brother Lucius Antonius.

[7] After peace was established between the Triumvirate and the followers of Sextus Pompeius, a general amnesty was announced, and Livia returned to Rome, where she was personally introduced to Octavian in 39 BC.

She always enjoyed the status of privileged counselor to her husband, petitioning him on the behalf of others and influencing his policies, an unusual role for a Roman wife in a culture dominated by the pater familias.

[8] With Augustus being the father of only one daughter (Julia by Scribonia), Livia revealed herself to be an ambitious mother and soon started to push her own sons, Tiberius and Drusus, into power.

[14] There are also rumors mentioned by Tacitus and Cassius Dio that Livia brought about Augustus' death by poisoning fresh figs, although modern historians view this as unlikely.

Tacitus and Cassius Dio wrote that rumours persisted that Augustus was poisoned by Livia, but these are mainly dismissed as malicious fabrications spread by political enemies of the dynasty.

[20] In Imperial times, a variety of fig cultivated in Roman gardens was called the Liviana, perhaps because of her reputed horticultural abilities, or as a tongue-in-cheek reference to this rumor.

The most notable instances were the cases of Urgulania, grandmother of Claudius's first wife Plautia Urgulanilla, who correctly assumed that her friendship with the empress placed her above the law;[22][23] and Munatia Plancina, suspected of murdering Germanicus and saved at Livia's entreaty.

A notice from AD 22 records that Julia Augusta (Livia) dedicated a statue to Augustus in the center of Rome, placing her own name even before that of Tiberius.

[22][25] Until AD 22 there had, according to Tacitus, been "a genuine harmony between mother and son, or a hatred well concealed;"[26] Dio tells us that at the time of his accession already Tiberius heartily loathed her.

[26] But in AD 29 when she finally fell ill and died, he remained on Capri, pleading pressure of work and sending Caligula to deliver the funeral oration.

Her Villa ad Gallinas Albas north of Rome is currently being excavated; its famous frescoes of imaginary garden views may be seen at the National Roman Museum.

While reporting various unsavory hearsay, the ancient sources generally portray Livia as a woman of proud and queenly attributes, faithful to her imperial husband.

When someone asked her how she had gained respect from 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 nor to notice the favourites of his passion.

[citation needed] 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).

Her role in this is unknown, as well as in Tiberius's divorce of Vipsania Agrippina in 12 BC at Augustus's insistence: whether it was merely neutral or passive, or whether she actively colluded in Caesar's wishes.

[33] The ancient sources all agree that Livia was Augustus' best confidant and counselor, but the extent of her influence remained disputed due to the numerous attempts by her political enemies to defame her dynasty.

According to Suetonius, who had access to imperial records, Augustus would write down lists of items to be discussed with Livia, and then take careful notes of her replies to be consulted again later.

Becoming more than the "beautiful woman" she is described as in ancient texts, Livia serves as a public image for the idealization of Roman feminine qualities, a motherly figure, and eventually a goddesslike representation that alludes to her virtue.

Livia's power in symbolizing the renewal of the Republic with the female virtues Pietas and Concordia in public displays had a dramatic effect on the visual representation of future imperial women as ideal, honorable mothers and wives of Rome.

On her deathbed she only fears divine punishment for all she had done, and secures the promise of future deification by her grandson Claudius, an act which, she believes, will guarantee her a blissful afterlife.

However, this portrait of her is balanced by her intense devotion to the well-being of the Empire as a whole, and her machinations are justified as a necessarily cruel means to what she firmly considers a noble aspiration: the common good of the Romans, achievable only under strict imperial rule.

[42][43] In John Maddox Roberts's short story "The King of Sacrifices," set in his SPQR series, Livia hires Decius Metellus to investigate the murder of one of Julia the Elder's lovers.

Luke Devenish's "Empress of Rome" novels, Den of Wolves (2008) and Nest of Vipers (2010), have Livia as a central character in a fictionalized account of her life and times.