Domitia Lepida

Domitia Lepida (* around 5 AD; † 54 AD) was a Roman patrician whose fate as the mother of Valeria Messalina , wife of Emperor Claudius , and grandmother of Octavia and Britannicus and aunt of Nero was closely was linked to the power struggles in the Julio-Claudian imperial family .

Life

ancestry

Domitia Lepida belonged to the close family of the Julio-Claudian imperial family . She was probably born around 5 AD as the younger daughter of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus , who lived in 16 BC. Chr. Consul was, and Antonia Maior born. Her mother was a daughter of Mark Antony and Augustus ' sister Octavia .

Domitia Lepida had two older siblings. Her brother Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was married to the younger Agrippina and was the father of the emperor Nero . Her sister Domitia was the wife of Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus , one of the richest men in the Roman Empire. To distinguish her from her older sister, she wore the cognomen Lepida , which otherwise appeared in the gens Aemilia and which was possibly intended to remind of her paternal grandmother Aemilia Lepida, who was probably a daughter or niece of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus .

Lepida has been described as a beautiful and influential woman and, like her sister, was very rich. She owned lands in Calabria, properties in Fundi, and granaries in Puteoli , where grain from Egypt was stored on its way to Rome. Tacitus also called her vicious, a description that she shared with almost all relatives from the Julio-Claudian imperial family.

Marriages and children

Domitia Lepida was married three times. She had two children from her first husband, her cousin Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus : a son and daughter Valeria Messalina , who married the future emperor Claudius around 39 AD . Barbatus probably died in the year his daughter was born, around 20 AD.

A little later Domitia Faustus married Cornelius Sulla , who became a suffect consul in AD 31. Approx. Their son Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix was born in 22 AD .

At the beginning of the year 37, Domitia's brother Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, the younger Agrippina's husband, was charged with "moral misconduct". He was charged with incest with his younger sister Domitia Lepida . However, since Tiberius died in March, the case was not pursued further. When Caligula 39 banished his sister Agrippina and Ahenobarbus died shortly afterwards, Domitia was entrusted with the education of her son, her nephew, the future emperor Nero. According to Suetonius , she is said to have left his education to a dancer and a barber.

When her son-in-law Claudius took over the government in January 41, Domitia Lepida married her third husband Gaius Appius Junius Silanus , who had been consul in AD 28, that same month . Silanus was recalled from Spain, where he had commanded three legions . He was also closely related to the Claudians and should probably be even more closely connected to the emperor through the marriage to the mother of the empress, perhaps even as a possible successor, because Claudius had no son ( Britannicus was born a month later). It is not known whether Faustus Cornelius Sulla had already died or whether Domitia divorced him. In any case, Domitia's sister was forced by the new emperor to get a divorce so that Agrippina, now widowed, could marry the wealthy Passienus after returning from exile.

As early as 42 AD, at the suggestion of Narcissus , his released chief clerk and confidante of the empress, Claudius had Silanus executed without a judgment, allegedly because Narcissus and Messalina had both dreamed that Silanus wanted to murder the emperor. Domitia then broke up with her daughter.

In 47 AD, Domitia's son Faustus Cornelius Sulla married Felix Claudius' daughter Claudia Antonia . Through this marriage, Domitia's relationship to the imperial family became even closer than she already was as the mother-in-law of the emperor and grandmother of Octavia and Britannicus.

In 48 AD, Messalina fell from grace after (allegedly) entering into a second marriage in Claudius' absence. She was executed at the instigation of Narcissus. Although Domitia Lepida did not have a particularly close relationship with her daughter, according to Tacitus she stood by her side in the last hour.

In the following year, Domitia's former sister-in-law, widowed for the second time, became Agrippina Claudius' next wife. Despite Narcissus' intervention, she arranged for Domitia's execution in 54 AD. The official charge was sorcery and the endangerment of the peace in Italy due to the large number of slaves on their property. Agrippina presumably saw in the grandmother of Claudius 'biological son, as in numerous other close relatives, a danger for the rise of her son, who was considered Claudius' adoptive son and, since 53, also heir to the throne. She also feared Domitia Lepida's influence on Nero, who had been in her care during Agrippina's exile from 39 to 41. Even after Domitia's death, her freedman, the actor Lucius Domitius Paris , had a great influence on Nero.

literature

• E. Klebs, H. Dessau, P. Von Rohden (eds.): Prosopographia Imperii Romani. 3 volumes, Berlin 1897–1898. ( PIR ¹ )
• E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen et al. (Eds.): Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III. Berlin 1933-2015 ( PIR ² )
• E. Groag: Domitius 102 . in: Paulys Realencyclopädie of classical Altertumswissenschaft V, 1, Sp. 1511 -1513

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to Groag: Domitius 102 , Col. 1512, Domitia was “a few years older” than the younger Agrippina, who was born around 15 AD.
2. ↑ Tacitus , Annalen , 12, 64.
3. ↑ PIR ² V 141; Suetonius , Vita Claudii , 26, 29.
4. ↑ PIR ² C 1459.
5. ↑ PIR ² C 1464; Cassius Dio 60, 30, 6a.
6. ^ Suetonius: Vita Neronis 6
7. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 6, 9; 11, 29-37; Suetonius, Claudius 37, 2 ; Cassius Dio 31, 4-5; 60, 14; Juvenal , Satire 14, 30-1.
8. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 11, 37.
9. ↑ Tacitus Annals 12.64 .