Casa di Livia (House of Livia)

Casa di Livia (House of Livia) Review

First excavated in 1839, this house was identifiable from the name inscribed on a lead pipe, Iulia Augusta. In other words, the notorious Livia that made a career of dispatching half of the Roman imperial family—if Robert Graves's I, Claudius can be believed. She was the wife of perhaps the greatest emperor of them all, Augustus. Once he defeated Antony and Cleopatra, he inaugurated the Imperial Age, when Roman civilization exploded across the world. Back at home, Livia was busy dispatching successors to the royal line, to ensure that her son Tiberius, product of an earlier marriage, would take the throne. Here, atop the Palatine, she hatched her plots in this Casa—this was her private retreat and living quarters, not part of her state apartments. The delicate, delightful frescoes reflect the sophisticated taste of wealthy Romans, whose love of beauty and theatrical conception of nature were revived by their descendants in the Renaissance Age.