John Williams and feminism

It's turning out that to some degree John Williams's 1972 novel, Augustus, is a feminist look at history; Augustus Caesar, the ostensible focus of this historical novel, may be the most powerful man in the world ca 20 BC, but the women in and around his life are the smartest and most competent - although confined to obscurity and deprived of the right to a full education by the laws and mores of the time. (As a counter-example though, from another culture, there's still Cleopatra, a clear rival to the Roman empire but somewhat peripheral to this novel). Of particular note is Augustus's daughter, Julia, whose diary (fictional, I'm pretty sure) from her late life in exile, is the most insightful strand in this epistolary novel of many voices. She was one of the few women to receive a near-complete education and clearly had the intelligence to succeed her father as emperor, but seems to have been to much of a threat, not only to Augustus' many rivals but also to the entire male hierarchy, which may explain her exile (the two "halves" of the narrative - contemporary records from the time of Caesar's assassination going forward through A's reign and reflective records from ca 5 AD, such as Julia's diary. Interesting contrast here w/ JW's previous and most famous (and best) novel, Stoner, which - though extremely sympathetic to Stoner's student/lover, whose professional life was derailed because of her affair w/ her prof., had little or nothing to do w/ feminist issues and women in power - though it was true to the mores and practices of its depicted era, academic life from the 30s to the 60s.