Livilla's Standing in Her Family
Tacitus reports that Livilla was a remarkably beautiful woman, despite the fact she was rather ungainly as a child. The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone patre indicates that she was held in the highest esteem by her uncle and father-in-law, Tiberius, and by her grandmother Livia Drusilla.
According to Tacitus, she felt resentment and jealousy against her sister-in-law Agrippina the Elder, the wife of her brother Germanicus, to whom she was unfavourably compared. Indeed, Agrippina fared much better in producing imperial heirs to the household (being the mother of the Emperor Caligula and Agrippina the Younger) and was much more popular. Suetonius reports that she despised her younger brother Claudius; having heard he would one day become Emperor, she deplored publicly such a fate for the Roman people.
As most of the female members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, she may also have been very ambitious, in particular for her male offspring.
Read more about this topic: Livilla (sister Of Claudius)
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