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    o f a number of wives.23      And  like  Effie,  Livia  was  mated  to  the

    dominant male in the pack.  Specifically, Livia had managed to inveigle

    into matrimony a man named Augustus Caesar--the leader who had

    grabbed the reins of Rome from his rivals and stabilized the Empire in

    a time of turbulence.  In the process, Augustus had become the most

    powerful man the world had ever known.

    Gorillas manage to keep a whole gaggle of wives trailing behind

    them simultaneously.  Augustus didn't have that privilege.  The law

    forced him to possess his official mates one at a time.  Livia was

    Augustus' third wife.  She had won him when she was a tender

    seventeen.  Well, maybe not so tender.  According to Graves, the

    teenage beauty had grown contemptuous of a previous husband

    because the unlucky gentleman believed in such outlandish principles

    as liberty for Rome's citizens.  Livia had no patience with these notions.

    She was convinced that all power should be centered in the hands of

    one man--preferably a man under her direct control.  So she had

    divorced her soft idealist and sought out a harder husband whose

    possibilities were more in line with her own aspirations.

    At the time, Augustus was married to someone else.  In fact, he'd

    had a number of children by the woman at his side.  And he seemed

    reasonably pleased with his old wife's ways.  But that didn't stop the

    ambitious young Livia.  She managed to tarnish the reputation of the

    existing spouse and to drive additional wedges between the

    unfortunate lady and her husband.  Then she inserted herself into the

    gap, making her presence the only logical consolation for Augustus'

    distress over his wife's disgrace.

    Livia quickly consolidated her hold over Augustus.  Soon, he

    would not make a major decision without her.  Like Effie the gorilla,

    Livia had struggled to become the first lady in the band.  And like

    Effie, Livia was ambitious for more than just herself.  She was

    ambitious for her children.   Rome had been run in the past by a

    democratic Senate.  But Augustus was shifting power into the hands of

    a one-man emperorship.   Livia wanted the newly established imperial

    throne to go to her own brood.

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