But was it necessary that Tiberius should marry the widowed Julia? Was the match capable of being represented to him as a necessity of state, as a duty so imperative as to override all questions of private inclination? Certainly it was so, though the public grounds were essentially of a private and personal nature. The two hostile forces in the Imperial House were Livia and Julia, the former the embodiment of the stern virtues of the Roman matron, personified rectitude and humility in her outward demeanour, inwardly unscrupulous and domineering, free from the more amiable but less dignified weaknesses of a woman, incapable of being led away by the love of admiration, icily regular, intemperate only in her pursuit of the greater ambitions, unmoral rather than immoral, she shunned attracting public notice, preferred the enjoyment of power to the demonstration of power, but was none the less keenly jealous of any encroachment on her domain. It is curious how little we hear of her; the poets do not mention her, gossip did not concern itself with her name; it is only from one or two casual references in Josephus, and a few incidents recorded by Tacitus, that we divine the activity of this force behind the throne. Portraits of Livia survive; her high nose is to be seen behind that of Augustus on the coinage; there are busts, and at least one statue. The countenance is that of a very handsome woman and a very dignified woman, but not of a woman who could laugh readily, the mouth looks as if it could smile to order, but not spontaneously. We may surmise that her virtues were of such an obvious type as to constitute a standing provocation to the wicked, that she was one of those women who are more dangerous to sound morality than a bad example, and against whose standards it is impossible not to rebel secretly if not openly; this is especially the case when it is suspected that behind the genuine inclination to correctness in smaller matters lurk the real deadly sins of the soul, hardness, avarice, lust of power. The story that she was blind to the infidelities of Augustus, and even provided the opportunities, may not be true; the infidelities may be, and probably are, as chimerical as the connivance; but even such a myth may be allowed to indicate the type of character.