As in her own day, Livia (born in 59/58 BCE) remains an enigma for historians. The facts of her life are well known, from her divorce and hasty marriage to Octavian in 38 BCE, her previously unprecedented position as the wife of the first emperor and mother of the second, to her death in 29 CE and deification in 42 CE by her grandson Claudius. However, her character, motivations, and the behind-the-scenes role she may have played are subject to very divergent interpretations. The historian Tacitus, writing more than 80 years after the death of Livia, opens his Annales with a description of Augustus' efforts to secure the succession of a Julian male to the principate (see this slide show of the candidates). While Livia is not the focus of Tacitus' narration, he uses oblique references, hearsay, and innuendo to suggest that Livia played a role in state events that was highly inappropriate for a woman. His portrayal of her has been exaggerated and popularized by the novelist Robert Graves in I, Claudius and the television series based upon it. For the history of public honorific statues of women in Rome, particularly Livia, see Flory (1995) in the Bibliography.