I Am Livia

by Phyllis T. Smith

In Rome, a woman’s power, however circumspectly exercised, arouses revulsion.

Do I recoil when I think of him, my beloved? No. But I paid a price in my soul, for loving him.

obscured distasteful truths.

I was borne forward by burning curiosity. Not the random inquisitiveness of a child;

“you taught me that without honesty there can be no honor. I’m only speaking the truth.”

“I have often thought,” she said, “that women are the only true adults in the world, and men are a species of children.

Men said it was unseemly for women to sit up close to watch such bloody spectacles. But then why allow us in at all? The truth was, when it came to this one form of entertainment they loved the most, they had grasped at an excuse to hog the good seats.

When a married woman looks at another man the way I look at you, hasn’t she said far, far more than she should?

would not be fifteen forever, but I always would be a woman. I imagined spending all my years having my words discounted.

I decided that if I survived I would never do what Father had done, never defer to anyone’s judgment or refuse to look clear-eyed at the world. I would never be so blind, never.

I wonder how many women from time immemorial have thought that if only women could rule the world it would be better than it is. Really, has any woman not, some time or other, thought that? Of course I thought it too. I believed women were unquestionably less bloodthirsty than men.

We were fortune’s playthings

there were moments when I truly felt like Hippolita riding out to battle.

“Sometimes you reach a place where the earth seems to open in a great fissure,” Caesar said. “Retreat is impossible. So what you must do is leap.”

You have to choose between two imperfections, because that’s all there is.

Sometimes I can feel history blowing right on the back of my neck, pushing me along.”

A memory came to my mind, of the time I had ridden a horse. All that power, between my thighs, under my control. Then I realized where my thoughts were leading me, and I almost blushed. Of course I wanted to control Tavius—to an extent. And to our mutual benefit, and the benefit of Rome. Any woman who says she does not want to guide the actions of the man she loves is, in my opinion, lying.

“Fortune favors the brave,”

It is a joy to be appreciated for the thing you want to be appreciated for. To be appreciated as a woman, and also to be appreciated as a creature with a mind—what more could I have wanted?

“There are few women in Rome Caesar can’t have. You’re bound to see them throwing themselves at him. You must learn to look away, because it will take on exactly as much significance as you give it. Think of it this way: It’s beneath your notice.”

My mind groped for a gentle way to say what I needed to. Tavius treated the memory of Julius Caesar as sacred. I feared that for this reason he had not been able to extract the right lessons from his “father’s” assassination.

All his mercy won him no goodwill, because he rubbed senators’ faces in the fact of their subjection. He didn’t let them pretend he was their equal.”

The sycophants are your enemies,

If the sea is fierce enough, it swallows everyone, I thought. And in the end, a great sea swallows us all.

unobtrusive scrutiny

Pity anyone who provokes that anger in him,

“This is only a testing time. It befalls heroes on the path to their destiny.

“Will you explain this to me: Why do women conjure up difficulties where none exist?” “Because women are wise, and they see the future coming down the road long before men see it.”

The role I played in Tavius’s government felt completely natural to me. It was the limitations imposed upon me as a woman that seemed unnatural.

After I closed her eyes and put coins on her eyes to pay the ferryman,

I felt that saying anything else would be throwing away all my pride. For who but a fool expected a husband to be faithful? Who? Men of our rank always had other women beside their wives. I had known this. And yet somehow I had refused to believe Tavius could share with someone else what he shared with me. How odd that lack of belief was. It amounted to willful ignorance.

I’m surrounded by idiots here. The stupidity of soldiers is like no other stupidity on earth. Sometimes I think men are physically brave only because they lack imagination and cannot anticipate what a spear in their guts would feel like.

it is only natural for a woman to fear war, and what would be disloyal and cowardly in a man cannot be judged so harshly in a woman.

All my decisions were based on cold logic, a calculation of Rome’s good. That is my defense, and whether it is valid depends on your point of view. If you kill but take no pleasure in killing, do the gods look on you more kindly?

moralistic mewling

I would soar like a bird, solitary, unmated, but untrammeled.

I was the voice whispering in his ear that mercy could be strength. He more than once pardoned men who had sought to undo him, because I asked him to. I saw to it that no one could ever justly call him a bloody-handed tyrant.

People like to tell lies about the great.

I do not look back without regrets. But I have never regretted the choice I made to remain Tavius’s wife.