Women on Top: Livia and Andromache

Abstract

Abstract This chapter sees both the Leges Iuliae and the Ars Amatoria as creative attempts to redraw the boundaries for different groups of women. Focussing on two named individuals – the historical ‘first lady’ Livia and the mythological Andromache – it demonstrates the ways in which these two women at one time represent polar opposites (the ideal wife and the concubine respectively), and at another appear to occupy a ‘middle ground’ between the two poles. The instability of female categorisation in the Ars is, in turn, a (playful) commentary on the negotiation of gender roles in the Augustan age.