u/Dagobertinchen

Background: I am a German citizen living in Australia for 20 years, with a visa by marriage to an Australian (with Italian ancestry, if this is relevant). During the interview, the system flagged that I had spent more than 90 days in a country, to which I responded that this is incorrect. I had been out of the country for 10 months at some point, travelling through Europe, the Middle East and Asia shortly after my husband retired. There has not been a single country that I have spent more than 90 days in since becoming a permanent resident. I walked the officer through all the details I had painstakingly logged in the application. He then requested that I make a statutory declaration about these 10 months, repeat all the countries and all the travel dates and furthermore, to add that I have not been to any country for more than 90 days. Which I did. I even included a breakdown of all my trips to Italy and Germany. The total was 74 days to Italy and 64 days to Germany. He mentioned that he would leave a note in the system that I would make this statutory declaration and “hopefully they see this”.

Now, today I received an email, requesting a police certificate for Italy. I guess “they” didn’t see “this”.

And I am…. It is probably the only country in Europe with an online presence that is worse than Germany’s and a bureaucracy that is famously more arbitrary than Germany’s.

Apart from hoping for some hugs from this community, I just wanted to share this as a data point to “unexpected things that can happen on your journey.” Of course, I am also grateful for any suggestions on how to best obtain this police certificate - I believe there are costly agencies in Italy that provide this service. (Although I am in no particular hurry, I am quite happy to leave that particular struggle to someone else.)

🙏

EDIT: Ok, I found the proper Roman page and it is reasonably straightforward. https://procura-roma.giustizia.it/it/certificati\_del\_casell\_giudiz.page

But I am still baffled (and annoyed) that I need this in the first place.

I Am Livia follows the life of Livia Drusilla, wife of the first Roman emperor Augustus, in a first-person narrative. The novel begins a few days before the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, with Livia as a fifteen-year-old bride in a politically motivated marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero. It concludes with Octavius/Augustus’s return from his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 29 BCE.

My initial impression was positive. The prose is smooth, the historical facts not necessarily in focus but sound, and the female perspective is thoughtful. The novel does not romanticise Livia’s early marriage; her wedding night is presented as something to be endured rather than enjoyed, without slipping into melodrama. Over time, the relationship settles into a functional, at times even amicable arrangement.

However, the shifting alliances of the civil wars influence Livia’s life. She spends time in exile with her young son Tiberius before returning to Rome, where she meets Octavius/Augustus while pregnant with her second son, Drusus. Their subsequent marriage is framed as love at first sight. From here, the book loses some of its earlier strength. Livia’s voice becomes repetitive, circling the same ideas: her love for Octavius/Augustus, her desire for self-determination, and her commitment to peace which sounds more as if the author desperately tries to sanitise Livia.

The later chapters, which depict tension in the marriage around Augustus’s preparations for war and his infidelities are a welcome correction. When Augustus returns from Egypt, they reconcile, partly through Livia’s alleged wish to have a moderating influence on him.

I would have rated this novel a solid 4/5 if not for the overly cheesy and repetitive middle section. Compared to the complexity of Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome or Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy, I Am Livia missed an opportunity to explore the characters with greater depth.

This book rarely gets a passing mention on Reddit and I would love to hear others’ opinions.