When as a student of Roman history I was assigned to read I CLAUDIUS and CALUDIUS THE GOD, my feminist bias rejected the emphasis on emperors and generals. Rather it came to rest on the women, who sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes openly pricked the neat 'pseudo-republican' claims of the disgenenous rulers. They say 'behind every successful man is a woman who makes his success possible'. The opposite, logically, is that behind every successful man is a woman who if not controlled threatens his success. This most certainly applies to Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. His wife of decades for whatever her reasons was a bulwark of his politics, a champion of his desires (perverted or not) and a protector of his image. Daughter Julia unwilling to be sacrificed on the altar of her father's political ambitions, positioned herself a a personal and political danger.
Over and over I imagined myself as Julia, with her personal abandon, her political ambition, her rejection of her sacrifice for some man's, albeit her father's, success. Julia emerged in my consciousness as a friend, a sister, a woman whose story I would share, a woman whose story I had to share.
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