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Author: Matthew Dennison | Website

Published Works & Book Reviews

Livia, Empress of Rome

This is a new biography of the infamous Empress Livia, a woman long thought to be one of the most feared villainesses of history

Livia, Empress of Rome tells the story of one of the most fascinating, perplexing, and powerful figures of the ancient world: the empress Livia. Second wife of the emperor Augustus and the mother of his successor Tiberius, Livia has been vilified by posterity (most notably by Tacitus and Robert Graves) as the quintessence of the scheming Roman matriarch, poisoning her relatives one by one to smooth her son’s path to the imperial throne.

In this elegant and rigorously researched biography, Matthew Dennison rescues the historical Livia from this crudely drawn caricature of the popular imagination. He depicts a complex, courageous and richly gifted woman whose true crime was not murder but the exercise of power, and who, in a male-dominated society, had the energy to create for herself both a prominent public profile and a significant sphere of political influence.

Reviewer: Danya

Review: Mar 14, 2011

Night Owl Book Review for Livia, Empress of Rome

Genre(s): Biography / Autobiography, Historical Nonfiction

Livia, wife to Augustus and mother to Tiberius, was lauded by some as the supreme example of Roman womanhood and vilified by others as a conninving, manipulative shrew. But as is usually the case, the truth is often between the two extremes. Matthew Dennison explores the woman behind the myth in his book, "Livia, Empress of Rome: A Biography" with a fresh, new look at Livia. The media has sensation

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