Livia, then, about 18 B.C. personified in the eyes of the Romans the perfect type of aristocratic great lady created by long tradition.  Having been safely preserved by good fortune through the long civil wars, this model was now set back again upon a fitting pedestal in the most powerful and richest family of the empire.  She was the living example of all the virtues which the Romans most cherished, a beloved wife and a heeded counselor to the head of the state, honored with that veneration which power, virtue, nobility of birth, and the dignified beauty of face and figure drew from every one; furthermore, there were her two sons, Tiberius and Drusus, both intelligent, handsome, full of activity, docile to the traditional education which she sought to give them in order that they might be the worthy continuators of the great name they bore.  Livia, with all this in her favor, might have been expected to live a happy and tranquil life, serenely to fulfil her mission amid the admiration of the world.

[Illustration:  A silver denarius of the Second Triumvirate.  The portrait at the right (obverse) is of Caesar Octavianus (Augustus), with a slight beard to indicate mourning, and at the left (reverse), of Mark Antony.  The date is 41 B.C.]

[Illustration:  Silver coin bearing the head of Julius Caesar.  This coin, a denarius, worth about seventeen cents, represents Caesar as Pontifex Maximus.  Together with all the other Roman coins bearing Caesar’s image, it was struck in the year before his death—­44-45 B.C.  The fact that Caesar placed his image on these coins may have strengthened the suspicion of his enemies that he wished to make himself king.]

But opposition and difficulties sprang up in her own family.  In 39 B.C.  Augustus had had by Scribonia a daughter, Julia.  Following in the government of his family, as in so large a part of his politics, the traditions of the old nobility, Augustus gave his daughter in marriage when very young,—­she was not yet past seventeen,—­just as he early gave wives to Livia’s two sons, whose guardian he was.  In each case in order to assure within his circle harmony and power, he chose the consort in his own family or from among his friends.  To Tiberius he gave Agrippina, a daughter of Agrippa, his close friend and most faithful collaborator; to Drusus he gave Antonia, the younger daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, sister of Augustus.  To Julia he gave Marcellus, his nephew, the son of Octavia and her first husband.  But while the marriages of Drusus and Tiberius proved successful and the two couples lived lovingly and happily, such was not the case with the marriage of Julia and Marcellus.  As a result, disagreeable misunderstandings and rancors soon made themselves felt in the family.  We do not know exactly what were the causes of these disagreements.  It seems that Marcellus, under the influence of Julia, assumed a tone somewhat too haughty and insolent, such as was not becoming in a youth who, although the nephew of Augustus, was still taking his first steps in his political career; and it seems too that this conduct of his was especially offensive to Agrippa, who, next to Augustus, was the first person in the empire.