The politics of the historian Livy as seen through female narratives
This post contains discussion and description of rape and violence against women. In addition, the presented narratives are greatly shortened in the interest of length.
The Ancient Roman historian Livy came of age against the political backdrop of the power struggle between Antony and Octavian. He began his writings after Octavian’s victory over Antony, and continued with his writings through the period in which Rome definitively ceased to be a Republic, and Octavian began to style himself as the Emperor Augustus.
To legitimize his rule, Augustus sold himself on a platform of renewal. In his quest to return Rome to the moral and spiritual state of its much idealized founding, he re-introduced the state religion, and passed a series of highly unpopular social and moral reforms. Notably, these reforms criminalized women who engaged in sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and idealized women who behaved in a chaste and virginal manner.
Though Augustus claimed to be working towards the revitalization of the Republic through these reforms, he was in reality continuing the transformation of Rome from an empire ruled by a Republican form of government into an empire ruled by a dictator.
Because Livy was writing his History of Rome during the time of Augustus’ rise to power, and because the works of ancient Roman historians are deeply influenced by contemporary politics, it is necessary to understand Livy’s views on Augustus before being able to truly evaluate the History of Rome as a source of knowledge.
There are, perhaps, many places within said work which may be used to draw conclusions about Livy’s politics, but I find that they are the most evident in the early books of the History of Rome within narratives concerned with female bodies and the actions taken upon them by men. The first of these narratives is that of Lucretia, which takes place in book 1.57-1.60 of the History of Rome, and the second is of Verginia, in book 3.44-3.58.
The narrative of Lucretia is concerned with the founding of the Republic. It opens with a debate between Sextus Tarquinius—the son of the king—and his friend Collatinus over whose wife is better. To settle the dispute they decide to drop in on their wives unannounced to evaluate the appropriateness of their behavior. They find Collatinus’ wife Lucretia spinning wool with her maids; the epitome of a good Roman woman.
Tarquinius became obsessed by Lucretia’s beauty, so one night he dropped in on her unannounced and crept into her bedchamber saying “Silence, Lucretia! I am Sextus Tarquinius, and I have a sword in my hand; if you utter a word, you shall die.” He told her that if she refused him, he would rape her, murder her, murder a slave, and leave their bodies entwined in order to post-humously disgrace her. Seeing no other option, Lucretia gave in to him.
When he was gone, she summoned her husband, father, and two of their trusted friends. She told them what Tarquinius had done to her, and asked them to avenge her honor. She then took a knife and declared that “I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty; no unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example,” and sunk the knife into her chest.
Brutus, a friend of Collatinus, took the knife from her chest and swore to overthrow the monarchy in her name. He rallied the public into action with a speech in which he asserted that Lucretia’s father was far more distressed by the fact of her rape than of her death and led them into armed revolt. Tarquinius was executed, the king and his family were exiled, and the Republic was formed with Brutus and Collatinus as consuls.
The narrative of Verginia is very similar to Lucretia’s, but for the fact that Verginia lacks even the tiny amount of agency allowed to Lucretia. The narrative of Verginia is concerned with the abolition of the corrupt rule of the patrician Decemvirate law-makers in the fifth century BCE. Verginia was the plebeian daughter of a respected officer named Verginius, and betrothed to a respected former tribune named Lucius Icilius. She was very beautiful, and attracted the attention of the decimvir Appius Claudius.
After failing to coerce Verginia into his bed, Appius devised a plan: he had an associate of his seize Verginia as she made her way through the forum, claim her as his slave, and bring the case before Appius for a final judgment. The plan was meant to force Verginia into a position in which she would not be able to refuse his advances. The plan went off without a hitch, and Appius ruled that Verginia was the property of his associate. This decision enraged the public.
Verginius, feeling that there was no other way to protect his daughter’s virtue from the lust of Appius, seized a butcher’s knife and put it though Verginia’s chest. He placed the blame for her death on Appius’ head, declaring that her life had meant more to him than his own, and that when he’d seen her being dragged off as a slave, he’d thought it better to lose her to death than to dishonor.
Appius lost control of the crowd as Verginius and Icilius, with the plebeian men and the army behind them, marched to the Senate and demanded the return of basic rights to the plebeian class and the re-establishment of the traditional Republican form of government. They were successful, the Decemvirate was abolished, and the Republic was restored.
Both these stories use the deprival of agency and subsequent honor killings of women as catalysts for political change. They seemingly mirror the content and purpose of Augustus’ reforms through the high importance they place on female virtue, and the presentation of the fight for morality as the fight to return Rome to its proper form of rule.
However, both stories also show a vehement opposition to any form of rule in which power is concentrated in the hands of the few, and portray such a government as inherently immoral. Further, both stories use the violation, or intended violation, of female bodies to symbolize the violation of the Roman state. Thus, instead of supporting the Augustine reforms, Livy is, through the narratives of Lucretia and Verginia, accusing Augustus’ administration not only of immorality, but of the violation of Rome itself.
Through this examination of narrative and context, it can be seen that Livy was opposed to the rule of Augustus. Without an understanding of these political leanings, we would be without a lens through which to analyze his works and form an understanding of what they truly say about Roman history.
This post does not contain an underlying point as many of my posts tend to do; I just think it’s really interesting how these female narratives, based in Roman oral history even before they were recorded by Livy, can inform how we are able to perceive a source.
