# Empresses of Rome

An audiobook by Joseph Martin McCabe, read by LibriVox volunteers (14 h 4 min, English).

The story of Imperial Rome has been told frequently and impressively in our literature, and few chapters in the long chronicle of man’s deeds and failures have a more dramatic quality. The fresh aspect of this familiar story which I propose to consider is the study of the women who moulded or marred the succeeding Emperors. Woman had her part in the making, as well as the unmaking, of Rome. Long before the commencement of our era, the thought and the power of the Roman woman went out into the larger world of public life; and when the Empire is founded, when the control of the State’s mighty resources is entrusted to the hands of a single ruler, the wife of the monarch may share his power, and assuredly shares his interest for us. Roman women were not content to be secluded from the new culture, and could not escape the stimulation of their new world. An inscription found at Lanuvium, where the Empress Livia had a villa, shows that the little provincial town had a curia mulierum, a women’s debating club. The walls of Pompeii, when the shroud of lava had been removed from its scorched face, bore election-addresses signed by women. As single figures and types rising to the luminous…

[Listen](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/books/librivox/14592)
[Read the book](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/books/gutenberg/60933/read)

## Chapters

0. Introduction (14:24): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_00_mccabe_64kb.mp3
1. The Making of an Empress (Livia) (38:13): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_01_mccabe_64kb.mp3
2. The End of the Golden Age (Livia and Julia), part 1 (32:11): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_02_mccabe_64kb.mp3
3. The End of the Golden Age (Livia and Julia), part 2 (22:43): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_03_mccabe_64kb.mp3
4. The Wives of Caligula (Junia Claudilla, Livia Orestilla, Milonia Caesonia) (31:27): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_04_mccabe_64kb.mp3
5. Valeria Messalina (48:56): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_05_mccabe_64kb.mp3
6. The Mother of Nero (Agrippina the Younger), part 1 (40:05): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_06_mccabe_64kb.mp3
7. The Mother of Nero (Agrippina the Younger), part 2 (29:23): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_07_mccabe_64kb.mp3
8. The Wives of Nero (Octavia, Poppaea, Antonia), part 1 (23:51): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_08_mccabe_64kb.mp3
9. The Wives of Nero (Octavia, Poppaea, Antonia), part 2 (18:12): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_09_mccabe_64kb.mp3
10. The Empresses of the Transition (Galeria Fundana, Domitia Longina) (34:25): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_10_mccabe_64kb.mp3
11. Plotina (33:05): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_11_mccabe_64kb.mp3
12. Sabina, the wife of Hadrian (37:42): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_12_mccabe_64kb.mp3
13. The wives of the Stoics (Annia Galeria Faustina, Faustina the Younger) (38:56): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_13_mccabe_64kb.mp3
14. The wives of the Sybarites (Lucilla, Crispina,Marcia) (36:26): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_14_mccabe_64kb.mp3
15. Julia Domna (32:58): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_15_mccabe_64kb.mp3
16. On the Days of Elagabalus (Julia Maesa) (29:30): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_16_mccabe_64kb.mp3
17. Another Syrian Empress (Julia Mamaea) (25:22): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_17_mccabe_64kb.mp3
18. Zenobia and Victoria (42:33): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_18_mccabe_64kb.mp3
19. The wife and daughter of Diocletian (Prisca, Valeria) (29:59): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_19_mccabe_64kb.mp3
20. The First Christian Empresses (Helena, Theodora, Constantia, Fausta), part 1 (23:23): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_20_mccabe_64kb.mp3
21. The First Christian Empresses (Helena, Theodora, Constantia, Fausta), part 2 (27:43): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_21_mccabe_64kb.mp3
22. The Wives of Constantius and Julian (Galla, Constantina, Eusebia), part 1 (22:53): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_22_mccabe_64kb.mp3
23. The Wives of Constantius and Julian (Galla, Constantina, Eusebia), part 2 (26:16): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_23_mccabe_64kb.mp3
24. Justina (32:12): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_24_mccabe_64kb.mp3
25. The Romance of Eudocia and Eudoxia (44:11): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_25_mccabe_64kb.mp3
26. The Last Empresses of the West (26:42): https://archive.org/download/empresses_of_rome_2010_librivox/empressesrome_26_mccabe_64kb.mp3