I am old enough to remember 1970s BBC TV adaptation of Robert Graves's historical novel "I,Claudius" which still ranks as one of the best TV serials ever. It indirectly inspired another TV serial ("Rome") and actress Sian Phillips would forever in my mind be associated with empress Livia who in serial was power behind the throne. So no surprise I grabbed the book about real historical Livia when I saw the title.
I am actually reading it right now - to my surprise it is a little dry. Surprising, since everything about real- life story and characters involved is very exciting and open to many various interpretations and points of view. Dennison is doing his best, comparing ancient documents and researching daily life of old romans. However, his mission is to show famous "evil" Livia in different light and in this he fails somehow, since there is a lot of assumptions - if documents keep quiet, Dennison simply makes his own conclusions. Its almost as he pushes hard to prove Livia was in fact virtuous and nice person, but has no proof for it. He is perhaps right in pointing that later historians criticized her for simply being powerful and influential woman in man's world - she was definitely woman with privileged,aristocratic and educated background who knew very well how to play political game. Today's readers might find a lot about her cold and manipulative but we are too far removed from ancient Rome to grasp the picture of how it was to live back than. However, when Dennison tries to present Livia as nice person, I find her TV portrait far more fascinating. I rather have Livia sipping wine during dinner and listening conversation of her guests (to easier manipulate them later) than to spoon the wool or whatever housework roman wives were doing back than.
Note: Interesting enough, until I started to read this book,it never occurred to me that Cleopatra's visit to Rome happened at the same time when Livia lived there and two of them actually might have meet in same circles.
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