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It wouldn't be that easy. There were rival claimants to the seat of
imperial authority. First in line were two of Augustus' old friends and
confidants. But more important, there were Augustus' three
grandchildren by the previous wife. One by one, according to Graves,
the rivals died off. Some collapsed mysteriously. Others came down
with lingering diseases. Yet others suffered inconsequential wounds,
but were given the wrong medical treatment. Surely Livia's expertise
in poisons and her network of murderous helpers--much like the
cooperatively cannibalistic crones in Effie the gorilla's clique--had
nothing to do with these deaths.
Finally, only Livia's children were left, as Graves put it, "to carry
on the line... Livia's line."24 Livia, like Effie, had eliminated her
children's rivals and guaranteed her offspring a spot on the top of the
heap. At least she had the good taste not to eat her victims.
One Empress in China roughly 1,700 years ago took Livia's
ambition several giant steps further. To insure her children power
over the Empire, she eliminated every single individual in a rival
extended family. In all probability, this minor act of manslaughter was
not limited to a mere handful of human obstacles. Chinese noble
families of the period usually had hundreds or even thousands of
members.25
Livia, Effie and the Chinese Empress were as bloodthirsty as any
male. And the motivation that drove them was distinctly
maternal--the desire to give every advantage to their young.
Women are violent. In fact, females are as much a part of the
apparatus that triggers male violence as the men themselves. Nobel
Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz described a common behavior
in several species of ducks. The female runs out to the edge of her
husband's territory and tries to provoke another duck, then runs back
to her male, stands next to him, and looks back over her shoulder at the
enraged rival in the hope that her mate will jump into the fray.26 Many
are the human females who have tried to stir up a similar fight.27
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