Livia by Anthony A. Barrett

Author:Anthony A. Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press (Ignition)
Published: 2002-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Plan 3. The Porticus Livia. After Lanciani (1893–1901)

Livia is associated with other buildings in Rome. A market, macellum Liviae, named after her, was restored by Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian (AD 364–78) and is recorded in the regionary catalogues under the sightly different name of macellum Liviani. Unfortunately, nothing more is known about the complex, although there have been many attempts to identify it in excavations.55 There has also been speculation that Livia might somehow have been involved in the restoration of a shrine of Pudicitia Plebeia (Plebeian Chastity). The building was by tradition associated with a Verginia, who abandoned her patrician background to marry a plebeian, Lucius Volumnius, consul in 296 BC. Banned from the shrine of Patrician Chastity because of the marriage, she established a shrine in her husband’s house on the Vicus Longus. Propertius in a poem written by 28 BC refers to temples to pudicitia, and Palmer takes this to mean that Augustus restored the two shrines, and links the restoration to Suetonius’ use of the expression de pudicitia to describe Augustus’ moral legislation. A man could not be involved in the cult of chastity, and accordingly a woman would have had to be called on to sponsor the restoration. Palmer bases Livia’s supposed involvement on evidence that in the early fifth century there existed what was called a Basilica Libiana in the Vicus Longus, which he suggests was connected with the general provision of amenities and linked with Livia’s restoration of the shrine of Pudicitia Plebeia there. But there are problems with the general theory, and also with Livia’s supposed role. The most serious difficulty is the suggestion that Augustus’ social legislation should be placed before 28 BC, the date of Propertius’ poem, and thus even before the settlement. Also, Livia was patrician, and although Augustus was plebeian by birth, he had been enrolled as a patrician by the time of his marriage to Livia.56

Another contribution of Livia to the landscape of Rome was her restoration of the Temple of Bona Dea Subsaxana. The evidence for this work is found in the Fasti of Ovid, in his account of the celebration of Bona Dea held on May 1. Ovid locates the shrine of the goddess below the Saxum or Remoria (on the northeast Aventine), where Remus supposedly stood when he carried out the auguries for the founding of the city. He reveals that it was restored by Livia (it was later repaired yet again by Hadrian).57 The cult was exclusive to females, and there were various explanations of its origins. The third-century AD authority Labeo cites the books of the pontiffs for evidence that Bona Dea was identical with Terra (Earth). Others link her with Faunus (either the Roman form of Pan or an early king of the Latins), as his wife or as his daughter. They claim variously that he committed incest with her (in the form of his daughter) or beat her to death (as his wife). Yet others associate her with Juno, Proserpina, or Hecate.

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