I, Livia of the Claudii, Julia of the Julii by marriage, the first empress of Rome and mother of our next emperor. Great deeds did I and Gaius achieve, I became a front for women's hairstyling through my eminency. I hear nothing of the likes from other parts of the world. Do the barbarians of the North even understand what it means to be great? Do the unruly people of the East ever take a break from fighting among themselves to establish a leading dynasty?
I agree, women of today speak only of orgies, love affairs, adultery, Baiae, beach parties, banquets, revels, singing, concerts, boat rides. Who now remembers the virtuous women of old? Who now remembers Lucretia or Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi? Who now has the virtue to guard the fire of Vesta? Too long have women been involved with money and politics! The ubiquity of women in the public life has corrupted not only the feminine but also the male virtue. Oh what times! A woman's virtue is in domestic virtue, and a woman brings glory to her household through unwavering loyalty and chastity, by being a quiet but comforting and supporting presence, guarding the hearth at home whereas the man guards the State at the battle-fronts.
So, how is your cooking, my dear Livia?
WEAK? SUBMISSIVE? NO WOMAN OF SPARTA KNOWS THE MEANING OF THESE WORDS! AS WE SAY, ONLY THE WOMEN OF SPARTA GIVE BIRTH TO MEN!
OUR WOMEN TAKE PART IN OUR EXCELLENT EXERCISES AND DANCES FROM CHILDHOOD. THEY COMPETE FOR GLORY JUST LIKE SPARTAN MEN. THEY ARE OUR EQUALS IN STRENGTH AND SPIRIT, AND THE ENVY OF THE GREEKS IN BEAUTY! THEY NEED NO ADORNMENT. THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED JEWELLRY OR MAKEUP OR FANCY DYED CLOTH. THEIR HEALTH AND PRIDE IS A FINE ENOUGH SIGHT TO BEHOLD! ONLY STRONG WOMEN CAN GIVE BIRTH TO STRONG MEN. ONLY THESE CAN GIVE US THE SONS WE NEED.
MY WIFE GORGO IS A FINE EXAMPLE OF THE WISDOM AND COURAGE OF SPARTAN WOMEN. FOR WHEN ARISTAGORAS CAME FROM THE EAST TO TRICK SPARTA INTO WAR WITH THE MEDES, SHE STOOD BY HER FATHER, KING KLEOMENES, AND WARNED HIM NOT TO BELIEVE THE IONIAN'S LIES. SHE PRESERVED OUR STATE AGAINST COUNTLESS EVILS!
I honour you, praiseworthy Livia Augusta, but I'm afraid you are incorrect. If I dare say so myself, I am a worthy heir to your beauty and influence!^1 Why, we only have to look at the beautiful mosaics in Ravenna to see the heady heights of my power. I am no mere lady content to stay in her palace and to live in luxury, for the world is full of injustices (indeed I am no stranger to its cruelties) and I can only do my best to alleviate the suffering of my people. Did you set out to redeem daughters sold by human traffickers? Did you end prostitution in your capital? Did you try to provide a place of safety for women of fallen virtue? I am no pampered heiress, but instead someone who wants to change the world. If I may say so myself, I believe that I succeeded.
Don't get me wrong, I am a pious woman as well, always praising God for his gifts. This is why I built the Church of Bacchus and Sergius in honour of God's glory,^2 why I worked tirelessly to bring unity to the church, and why I acted in concert with my lord Justinian to restore stability to our fair res publica, both in legislation and in our efforts to defeat the foul barbarians of the west. It is a difficult task and we have so much more to do, but I am happy to report that our reign has been recorded positively by noted authors such as John Malalas, John Lydus, and John of Ephesus. Why, even the famous historian Procopius honoured my name in his On Buildings!
I may be many things, dear Livia, but you can hardly call me weak and submissive.
Livia it was only yesterday that your betrothal to Tiberius Claudius was in the mouth of the whole city. What a fortunate man was he, and, I am told, my own adopted Octavius shared such fortune later in life. It is a great shame to me that I could not have seen the day
If noble ladies are the subject of your disapproval, then I must say that I have known many virtuous and forthright women in my life. If my own Pompeia had not cast suspicion of adultery with Publius Clodius and pollution of the Bona Dea's rights perhaps even she might have been remembered as a lady of rare virtue. But never did I meet a woman more capable and humble than my dear Calpurnia, whose concern for me reached the gods, who visited her with dreams warning of my death (as if I have ever had any worry about death). And if I may congratulate myself by praising my own child, my sweet daughter Julia...well, I'll let Pompey defend her, if ever her reputation might be called into question^1
I think, however, that of all the women that I have ever known or had affairs with, there will always be one who outshines the rest. I speak of course of Ptolemy's daughter Cleopatra, with whom I was...intimately acquainted for many years. A more capable, beautiful, and strong woman never lived, though I am told she finds a rival in you yourself. It is with great pain that I hear of her recent enmity towards you and my own adopted son, as well as Marcus Antonius' horrific treachery--I was wise to have written him out of my will
Oh, and for anyone who cares, Cleopatra's panties were really very plain. Usually. Sometimes. Except for the bits of gold thread woven into the...you know...Ahem...
Oh Livia, you just don't have the advantage of eternal life or even divination. And you are looking in the wrong geographic direction! If you could see the future and look at the right fucking corner of the Roman Empire, you'd see that I, Boudicca of the Iceni Celts, born just a few years after your death, led my culture and became famous for taking on the Roman army! I am even discussed by the historians Tacitus and Cassius!
When my weak-willed collaborator of a husband, Prasutagus, died, his pathetic will was ignored by his people (although the Romans loved it). As punishment for rightfully claiming the kingdom for our daughters, our kingdom was ransacked and pillaged, his wife (me), tortured and shamed, and our daughters raped.
Did I hide myself due to shame? Did I let the Romans get away with their crimes? HELL FUCKING NO. I waited for the Roman governor to get involved in putting down a rebellion in part of Wales, and I fucking rebelled against your glorious army. That's right, I, Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, a microcosm of the Roman empire, took on you Romans yourselves to take back what had been taken from us. I attacked knowing that there was a decent chance we would lose (and we did, I even lost my life), but I led a rebellion anyway. I wasn't going to let the Romans think that we'd just lie down and meekly accept your dominance.
tl;dr - I am Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, and I took on the Roman Fucking Army to save my people. Open your eyes, we may be sporadic and poorly documented, but female leaders are out there. Just wait until Wu Zetian arrives on the scene!
Well, there are also those of us women who are known for a bit more than hairstyling. Such things as not needing marriage to become influential, and being such a power behind the throne that we are better-known than the actual ruler.
drops mic puts nose in the air and walks away.
My dear Livia, you are obviously a woman of the highest virtue and exceptional beauty, making it only fitting that a delicious sort of fig, which you introduced, is named after yourself, and this is also why the second highest grade of paper from Egypt, which is made by splitting the Papyrus plant, is called Livia, being second in quality only in that which we call Augusta, after your divine husband. Did you know that there are 29 variations of the fig? Originally, it comes from the East, and nowhere else grows it larger than in Hyrcania, as Onesicritus relates. But I digress.
It is well known that the brain, which is the citadel of the senses and the empire of the mind, is smaller in women than in men, so, as related by Cicero, her domain must be the house, and not the state. This is why we so seldomly find women in the highst function of the state, or even as a ruler. Still, my extensive collection of knowledge allows me to answer your question, empress. In the far reaches of India lives a people, the nation of Pandae, which is ruled over by women, and among them they control over 300 cities, well over a hundred thousand soldiers, and it is said that they command 500 elephants. That this is so must not give pause, since these are the descendants of the favourite and only daughter of none other but Hercules himself, which he set to rule over these lands. And in any case, India is a continent where everything is bigger and more wonderful than in these more civilized lands.
Livia Augusta, you are the living answer to your own question. As a woman of Rome, and not Egypt, that land blessed by the gods with beauty and prosperity, you are a weak and submissive wife. Long have our women been known for their wit, beauty, strength--and fertility as well.
Though we are old, our country is not decadent but eternal, still bringing forth life, why else do your people export both the worship of Isis, loving mother of Horus, and ships loaded with grain every month?
A real man doesn't even need a wife, except as an afterthought.
Livia, you should consider yourself fortunate that technological limitations prevented Rome from being dominated by the supremacy of Korean women. Women from any of the Three Kingdoms were clearly superior to anything the West was able to produce. Both of my wives were the ultimate embodiment of Korean womanly virtue.
In response to your demeaning question
Do the unruly people of the East ever take a break from fighting among themselves to establish a leading dynasty?
My first wife, Kim Jo'ng-suk sacrificed her life overthrowing the yoke of Japanese imperialism, and ultimately succumb to the hardships she had endured during the years as a guerrilla fighter. On the slopes of Mt. Paekdu, her fruitful loins ushered in the greatest offspring that this world has ever known, my son: Kim Jo'ng-il.
Kim So'ng-ae, my second wife, stood by my side as we established the lasting bastion of freedom, democracy, and republicanism that is Juche Korea.
Perhaps, dear Livia of the Claudii, even an empress should look to her august self before complaining about others. One whose descendants include two of the most infamously debauched and terrible emperors in all of the history of the beloved res publica, as well as to both the emperor who married his own niece and the niece in question, ought to refrain from complaining about other imperial mothers and ancestresses.
