Livia

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics vor 2 Jahren

First Empress of Rome, faithful wife and influential advisor - or serial killer?

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Livia was the first Empress of Rome, a faithful wife, excellent
friend and trusted advisor. So why is she still best known as a
serial killer?

Natalie is joined by guests Dr Emma Southon and Professor
Llewelyn Morgan to discuss the life of Livia. Her marriage to the
Emperor Augustus (Octavian) was a love-match. They were both
married to other people when they first met, but that didn't last
long, despite the added complication of her pregnancy and
existing child. Before he became Emperor, Octavian was a powerful
war lord who got what he wanted. He wanted Livia. He adopted her
two sons and numerous other children but had none of his own.

The family was unlucky in losing many members to untimely death,
and Livia seems often to have got the blame, however
unreasonably. But Augustus appears to have respected and loved
his wife and not to have listened to the rumours. Their marriage
lasted over fifty years, but still she was accused of poisoning
him (in a mysterious fig-painting incident) when he died at the
ripe old age of seventy six.

Rock star mythologist’ and reformed stand-up Natalie Haynes is
obsessed with the ancient world. Here she explores key stories
from ancient Rome and Greece that still have resonance today.
They might be biographical, topographical, mythological or epic,
but they are always hilarious, magical and tragic, mystifying and
revelatory. And they tell us more about ourselves now than seems
possible of stories from a couple of thousand years ago.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery