Julia (daughter of Augustus)

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Iulia (* 39 BC ; † 14 AD ) was the daughter of Augustus and his second wife Scribonia .

Life

According to Cassius Dio , Julia's father is said to have obtained a divorce from her mother on the day she was born in order to marry Livia Drusilla . Since under Roman law children were subject to the patria potestas of their father ( pater familias ) , Iulia probably stayed with Octavian, who had been with Octavian since 27 BC. Brought the honorable name Augustus, and was brought up by Livia in the virtues of the Roman woman .

The plaything of paternal politics

As the only biological child of Augustus, she was harnessed by him for his dynastic plans and forced to enter into marriages, from which her father expected a political benefit. As a toddler, she was engaged to Marcus Antonius Antyllus , the older son of Marcus Antonius , her father's ally at the time, and Fulvia . After the alliance between Antony and Octavian broke, this engagement was broken. Antyllus stood on his father's side during the civil war and was defeated by Augustus after the battle of Actium in 30 BC. Killed in BC.

In order to secure the succession in his own family, Augustus married Iulia as soon as she had become marriageable, 25 BC. With the seventeen year old son of his sister Octavia , Marcus Claudius Marcellus . After Marcellus' death two years later, her father married her in 21 BC. With the next candidate for successor, his friend and comrade in arms Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa , who had to part with Claudia Marcella , the sister of Marcellus, for this purpose . She had five children with him: Gaius Caesar , Lucius Caesar , Agrippina the Elder (Vipsania Agrippina), Iulia and Agrippa Postumus , who was only 12 BC. Was born after the death of his father. The two older sons were born in 17 BC. Adopted by Augustus immediately after Lucius' birth. 16-13 BC Iulia accompanied Agrippa to the eastern provinces. A statue was erected for her in Sestos . Her daughters were believed to have been born at Agrippa's headquarters in Mytilene . According to a report by Nikolaos of Damascus , Iulia almost drowned when she crossed the Scamandros on the way to Agrippa's camp near Troy .

Since Agrippa also died before Augustus, Iulia was born immediately after the birth of Agrippa's posthumous son in the spring of 12 BC. Married to her stepbrother Tiberius , although according to her father's right to three children, as the mother of five children, she should actually have been free from his patria potestas . Tiberius had to divorce her stepdaughter Vipsania Agrippina , whom he loved very much and who was expecting his second child. The forced marriage was perceived by both partners as torture, although Iulia, Suetonius was, according, already married when she with Agrippa said to have been in love with Tiberius. Julia accompanied Tiberius to Illyria, where the only child in this marriage died soon after birth. Although Julia's marriage to Tiberius was unhappy, her father did not allow her to divorce, probably out of fear that she would remarry and that her new husband might claim power.

Inscriptions from this period praise Iulia as the new Aphrodite .

Affair (2 BC)

Unhappy in their forced marriages and often alone for years, Iulia led a life that did not fit her father's conservative moral policy and which sparked conflicts between the two. 2 v. BC Augustus was supposedly surprised to discover their immoral conduct. According to Pliny , she was accused of plotting parricide with her lovers and banished by her father to the island of Pandateria , where he was ordered to live under the strictest asceticism . Her mother accompanied her into exile. Her marriage to Tiberius, who tried in vain to stand up for her, was dissolved by Augustus in a letter written in the name of his in-law and stepson. Various men were charged with adultery with Julia and treason and were also banished. Her most prominent lover, Iullus Antonius , the younger son of Mark Antony and Fulvia , was either executed or forced to commit suicide. Also involved in the scandal were representatives of important senatorial families of the republic , including Titus Quinctius Crispinus, a Scipio, a Sempronius Gracchus and an Appius Claudius.

This affair coincided with the time that Julia's third husband, Tiberius, was living in Rhodes during his political exile , where Tacitus said he had gone to avoid Julia's disregard. The exact background is not known. Historians who regard Iulia's sexual escapades - including, as Seneca claims, orgies and prostitution in the Rostra - as the main charges, suspect that Augustus posed a threat to his daughter's extramarital relations, which contravene his strict moral codes ( lex Iulia de adulteriis coërcendis ) the reputation of their own sons, the heirs to the throne he adopted, and thus for Augustus' entire political system. Similar points Ulrich Schmitzer the Marsyas statue, mentioned by Seneca meeting of Iulia and their lovers as a symbol of the old republican freedoms in the Roman Forum and in iulias public display of sexual permissiveness a provocation against Augustus' moral laws. Other historians suspect more of a political background and consider the reports of Iulia's excessive sex life to be, at least in part, slander. They assume that Julia's alleged lovers belonged to a group that Tiberius wanted to replace as Augustus' successor candidate with Iullus Antonius. This would explain the letter handed down by Tacitus, written by Gracchus, asking Augustus to allow Julia to divorce Tiberius.

Exile and death

During Julia's exile, her two older sons, Augustus' heirs, died. After a few years Iulia was allowed to leave Pandateria and settle in Rhegium . After Augustus' death she was excluded from the inheritance, which suggests that her father disinherited her. Tiberius completely isolated her and denied her any income. Julia starved to death in exile a little later. Sempronius Gracchus, who 1 BC Was exiled to the island of Cercina , was executed. Her daughter Julia and her youngest son Agrippa Postumus were also banished from Rome because of their allegedly immoral lifestyle. Agrippa was murdered shortly after Augustus' death. According to Suetonius, Augustus described his daughter and her last two children as "boils" and "canker sores".

obituary

Julia was considered beautiful, clever, educated, on the one hand a gentle nature, but on the other hand also sharp-tongued. She was popular with the people because of her friendliness.

All ancient writers characterize Iulia as very easygoing. She is said to have dressed freely and luxuriously, drank more wine than was considered appropriate for a woman in ancient Rome , and had numerous lovers. The oldest source, Velleius Paterculus , a follower of Tiberius, names "men of all classes" in addition to the five noble lovers mentioned above. The later writers increased this number. Tacitus said Iulia had various love affairs during her marriage to Agrippa, who was 25 years her senior. When she was once said to have been asked how she managed to make all of her five children look like her husband, she is said to have replied: “I only accept a guest when the ship is loaded!” She is even supposed to be on the at night Rostra held a drinking bout and - according to Seneca - prostituted themselves.

See also

literature

Fiction representations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cassius Dio 48, 34, 3.
  2. ^ Suetonius , Augustus 64.
  3. ↑ Elaine Fantham: Julia Augusti. P. 62.
  4. ↑ Elaine Fantham: Julia Augusti. P. 66.
  5. ↑ Elaine Fantham: Julia Augusti. P. 79.
  6. ^ Suetonius, Tiberius 7.
  7. ↑ Elaine Fantham: Julia Augusti. P. 84.
  8. ↑ Ulrich Schmitzer: Julia - the impotence of eroticism. P. 161.
  9. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 7, 149: adulterium filiae et consilia parricidae .
  10. ↑ Suetonius, Augustus 65, 2-4.
  11. ^ Cassius Dio 55, 10, 14.
  12. ↑ Velleius Paterculus 2, 100, 4.
  13. ^ Cassius Dio 55, 10, 15.
  14. ↑ Possibly Titus Quinctius Crispinus Sulpicianus .
  15. ↑ Presumably son of the consul 16 BC Chr. Publius Cornelius Scipio and possibly - should Symes ( The Augustan aristocracy. P. 57) Reconstruction of the family relationships apply - a nephew of Juliet.
  16. ↑ Velleius Paterculus 2, 100.4 5.
  17. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 1, 53 ; Cassius Dio 55, 9, 7.
  18. ↑ Seneca, De Beneficiis 6, 32.
  19. ↑ Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum : The Empresses of Rome. From Livia to Theodora . Munich 2002, p. 67.
  20. ↑ Ulrich Schmitzer: Julia - the impotence of eroticism. P. 163.
  21. ↑ So z. B. Ronald Syme : The Roman Revolution. 2003, p. 393.
  22. ↑ a b c Tacitus, Annalen 1, 53
  23. ^ Barbara Levick : Tiberius the Politician. ISBN 0-415-21753-9 , pp. 26-29.
  24. ↑ Elaine Fantham: Julia Augusti. P. 90.
  25. ^ Suetonius, Augustus 65, 4.
  26. ↑ Macrobius , Saturnalia 2, 5: Mitis humanitas minimeque saevus animus .
  27. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia , 2, 5, 9-10.
  28. ↑ Cassius Dio 55, 10, 12; Seneca, De Beneficiis 6, 32.
personal data
SURNAME Julia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Julia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of Augustus
DATE OF BIRTH 39 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 14th