Julia Augusta (Livia), Augusta, 14-29. Dupondius (Orichalcum, 31 mm, 14.66 g, 6 h), Rome, struck under Tiberius, 22-23. PIETAS Veiled, diademed, and draped bust of Julia Augusta (Livia) as Pietas to right.
Rev. DRVSVS•CAESAR•TI•AVGVSTI•F•TR•POT•ITER• around large S•C. BMC 98. CBN 74. Cohen 1. MIR 37-5. RIC 43. A very attractive coin with a wonderful brown patina and a particularly fine portrait of Livia. Slightly rough and with very light doubling on the reverse
, otherwise, nearly extremely fine.
From the Aes Augustorum Collection, formed since the late 1990s.
This fine dupondius shows Livia, wife of Augustus and mother of Tiberius, in the guise of Pietas. Her image was already complex in Antiquity, ranging from an archetypical Roman matron dedicated to family and piety to a ruthless, power-hungry schemer assassinating anyone standing in the way of Tiberius' rise to power. Much of this duality probably stems from the fact that she had an unprecedented amount of
auctoritas for a woman, allowing her to intrude in the male-dominated sphere of politics in a way the Senate was unaccustomed to. Moreover, while Augustus had been able to treat Livia as his equal in many ways, her position became considerably more complicated under Tiberius. Livia, it seems, was not content to retire into private life, but Tiberius could ill afford to be seen as dominated by his mother. This tension erupted in 26, when the emperor retreated to Capri, supposedly to escape her. When Livia died three years later, her son did not even attend her funeral, and it would fall to Gaius and Claudius to restore her reputation as Rome's first First Lady.
