Antonia the younger

Antonia the younger. Bust in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek , Copenhagen

Antonia (* 36 BC ; † 37 AD), called the younger (Latin: Minor ) to distinguish it from her older sister of the same name , was a daughter of the Roman politician Mark Antony and Octavia , the sister of the Emperor Augustus .

Antonia married Nero Claudius Drusus , the son of Augustus' wife Livia Drusilla from a previous marriage and brother of the future emperor Tiberius . Their children were Germanicus , Livilla and the emperor Claudius . She was the grandmother of Caligula and Agrippina the younger and the great-grandmother of Nero .

After the death of her husband in 9 BC BC Antonia did not remarry. She was close friends with Berenike , the granddaughter of the Jewish King Herod the Great , who was a 29 to 30-year-old widow of the Jewish Prince Aristobulus 4 BC. Came to Rome and settled there. Because of this friendly bond, she even supported Berenike's son, Agrippa I , later King of Judea, with considerable sums of money after Berenike's death, thereby saving the lavish prince from bankruptcy.

When Antonia's son Germanicus died in AD 19, Tiberius and Livia forbade her to attend the funeral. After Livia's death in 29, she took over the upbringing of the youngest children of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder , Caligula and Drusilla .

In the year 31 she uncovered a conspiracy of the Praetorian prefect Lucius Aelius Seianus , in which her daughter Livilla was also involved. This led to the fall of Seianus and Livilla's death. Claudius - her greatest disappointment (she is said to have called him a "monster") - was the only one of her children she survived.

In 37 she committed on the orders of the new emperor Caligula - her grandson - suicide after grief over the murder of her youngest grandson Tiberius Gemellus had expressed. However, in Sueton's Life of Gaius , it is mentioned that Caligula may have given her the poison himself. Whether Caligula bestowed the honorary title Augusta on her while she was still alive or posthumously is controversial.

Her freedwoman Antonia Caenis became the concubine of Vespasian .

literature

Nikos Kokkinos: Antonia Augusta. Portrait of a Great Roman Lady. Routledge, London et al. 1992, ISBN 0-415-08029-0 .
Walter Trillmich : Family propaganda of the emperors Caligula and Claudius. Agrippina Maior and Antonia Augusta on coins. De Gruyter, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-11-007259-9 ( Ancient coins and cut stones 8).

Web links

Commons : Antonia the Younger - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Antonia the Younger in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

↑ Strabon, Erdbeschreibung XVI, p. 765; Flavius Josephus, Jewish antiquities (Antiquitates Iudaicae) XVIII 6,1-6.
↑ Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum : The women at the court of Trajan. A contribution to the position of the Augustae in the Principate . Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-11-002297-4 , p. 28 f .; Wolfgang Kuhoff : On the titulature of the Roman empresses during the principle time. In: Klio . Volume 75, 1993, pp. 244-256, here p. 146 with note 7.

personal data
SURNAME	Antonia the younger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Antonia minor; Antonia Augusta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Daughter of the Roman politician Mark Antony and Octavia, sister of the Emperor Augustus
DATE OF BIRTH	36 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	37

[1] Strabon, Erdbeschreibung XVI, p. 765; Flavius Josephus, Jewish antiquities (Antiquitates Iudaicae) XVIII 6,1-6.

[2] Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum : The women at the court of Trajan. A contribution to the position of the Augustae in the Principate . Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-11-002297-4 , p. 28 f .; Wolfgang Kuhoff : On the titulature of the Roman empresses during the principle time. In: Klio . Volume 75, 1993, pp. 244-256, here p. 146 with note 7.