Empress Livia – Murderer or wrongfully accused? An overview of the ancient sources on the empress Livia and what that suggests that shemurdered her husband Emperor Augustus and his adoptive children to make way for herown son Tiberius as the emperor of Rome.This work will analyze the ancient roman sources by the great historians from that time;Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, and their works discussing the murder conspiracy of theempress of Rome; Livia.Here I examine what these ancient sources tell about the possible involvement of Livia, on thedeath of Augustus himself and his adoptive sons. Each author to these ancient sources will beexamined and contextualized according to their contemporary time, but also their political andideological views of women in high position and Ceasarism itself. Their characteristics andstyles of their written account will also be examined.The following issues will be dealt with in this work: What does the ancient sources of; Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio say about theconspiracy theory in which empress Livia is central. What is known about the authors of these ancient sources and to what extant mighttheir political and ideological view affect their written account? Can the allegations directed at Livia be the result of the fact that she was a highlyinfluential woman at her time, something which the ancient authors by romanstandards saw as unfit for a woman, and therefore is mistreated in the written sources? If so, were all women with power under the same time and circumstances criticized inthe same way in which Livia is portrayed? Are there any other aspects that have not been treated equally in the past by authorsand researchers, in which new questionable guidelines can be made? As is very important to point out, this work and essentially all others alike will not evenassume to solve the final question if empress Livias was guilty or not of murdering herhusband, Emperor Augustus and/or his adoptive sons. This work is to be foremost accepted asan appendix of other works regarding the same issue.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:vxu-5821 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Steinvall, Alexander |
| Publisher | Växjö universitet, Växjö universitet, Institutionen för humaniora |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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