Aufidia

Aufidia or Alfidia (flourished 1st century BC) was a woman of Ancient Rome. She was a daughter to Roman Magistrate Marcus Aufidius Lurco and an unknown mother. She was a member of the gens Aufidia, a Roman family of Plebs status which appeared in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, and became a family of consular rank. Her father originally came from Fundi (modern Fondi, Italy).

She married the future praetor, Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus. They had at least two children: a daughter Livia Drusilla (58 BC-29) and a son Marcus Livius Drusus Libo, who served as a Roman consul. Livia was to become the first Roman Empress and third wife of the first Roman Emperor Augustus. Aufidia would be the maternal grandmother to Roman emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero and Roman General Nero Claudius Drusus. The Roman emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero were her direct descendants.

Literature and popular culture

Deborah Moore appears as Alfidia, the mother of a fictionalized Livia, in two 2007 episodes of the HBO/BBC series Rome. In A Necessary Fiction, she is present when a married Livia catches the eye of young Octavian, and both women are pleased when he insists that Livia divorce her current husband to marry him. Later, in De Patre Vostro, Alfidia lightly questions Octavian's sister Octavia's loyalty to her family at dinner, and is present when Octavian's mother Atia of the Julii finally puts daughter-in-law Livia in her place.

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