Livia Drusilla, the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus by his wife Aufidia, who was a daughter of Aufidius Lurco, a Roman magistrate from an Italic town, had in her mid-teens been married by her father to Tiberius Claudius Nero, her cousin of patrician status who was fighting with him on the side of Julius Caesar's assassins against Octavian.
Her father had committed suicide in the Battle of Philippi, along with Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, but her husband had continued fighting against Octavian, now on behalf of Mark Antony and his brother.
In 40 BCE, the family had been forced to flee Italy in order to avoid Octavian's proscriptions, and joined with Sextus Pompeius in Sicilia, later moving on to Greece.
After the signing of the Treaty of Misenum, a general amnesty is announced, and Livia returns to Rome, where she is personally introduced to Octavian in 39 BCE.
At this time, Livia already has a son (the future emperor Tiberius) and is pregnant with the second (Drusus the Elder).
Legend says that Octavian fell immediately in love with her, despite the fact that he was still married to Scribonia.
Their marriage has not been a happy one; Octavian feels she nags him too much.
In an indication of his desire to achieve a compromise with the republican aristocracy, Octavian, in order to marry Livia, divorces Scribonia in 39 BCE, probably in October, on the very day that she gives birth to his daughter Julia the Elder.
She will never remarry.
Seemingly around that time, when Livia is six months pregnant, Tiberius Claudius Nero is persuaded or forced by Octavian to divorce Livia.