Daisy Dunn

They weren’t all scheming poisoners: the maligned women of imperial Rome

Joan Smith criticises the distortions of Robert Graves in particular, whose villainisation of the empress Livia had no historical basis whatever

Statue of Livia, the wife of the Emperor Augustus. [Getty Images] 
issue 02 November 2024
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  • Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women

    Joan Smith

    William Collins, pp. 272, £25

Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac must be one of the most eye-catching book titles of the year. I assumed it was just a riff on John Ford’s 17th-century tragedy ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, but apparently it came directly from the mouth of a modern tour guide in a museum in Rome.

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