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If the position of Augustus within the Roman state was made deliberately ambiguous, then that of his wife was even more so. She could not base her status on tenure of office or by virtue of great achievements in war. She enjoyed her privileged position only by virtue of being the wife of the princeps. Perhaps her great achievement was the way in which she managed to turn this ambiguity to her advantage. It enabled her to cast her own definition of her political role, which gave her an influence over affairs of state to a degree unprecedented for a woman. Generally, she appears to have conducted herself with great skill, as a discreet background adviser, with a good sense of how to tread the careful mid-course between docile passivity and unwelcome intrusion into spheres where woman by law, custom or social climate would not be welcomed.