“First-rate.”—Mary Beard, Times Literary Supplement
 
Livia—wife of the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, and mother of the second, Tiberius—wielded extraordinary power at the center of Roman politics. In this biography of Livia, the first in English, Anthony A. Barrett sets aside the portrait of a cunning and sinister schemer to reveal Livia as a complex figure whose enduring political influence helped shape Roman government long after her death.