Marcus Claudius Marcellus (nephew of Augustus)

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Possible portrait of Marcellus
Marcellus Theater

Marcus Claudius Marcellus (* 42 BC ; † September 23 BC in Baiae ) was the nephew and son-in-law of the Roman emperor Augustus .

Life

Marcellus was the son of Gaius Claudius Marcellus ( consul 50 BC) and Octavia , sister of Augustus.

When Octavian (later Augustus) himself in 39 BC He had reconciled with Sextus Pompey in the Treaty of Misenum , the infant Marcellus was betrothed to confirm the unity he had found with Pompeia , a daughter of Sextus Pompeius. After the renewed outbreak of civil war between Octavian and Sextus Pompeius, this engagement became obsolete.

29 BC Augustus distinguished his nephew by the fact that he was allowed to accompany him on the triumphal procession after the battle of Actium and then in the Cantabrian War .

25 BC Augustus Marcellus married his only daughter Julia . The young man was admitted to the college of pontifices , was given the right to hold the consulate ten years earlier than permitted, and began as an aedile in 23 BC. BC well before the usual age with the official career . But he died that same year after staging major games and was given a state funeral, where he was buried in the Augustus mausoleum that had just been built . After him the 13 BC. Chr. Opened Marcellus Theater named in Rome . Virgil mourns Marcellus in a passage through the Aeneid . Properz wrote an elegy about his death.

The numerous awards that Augustus bestowed on his nephew and son-in-law indicate that he had envisaged him as a possible successor to his position as princeps - although the emperor was still relatively young and only a few years ruler . According to the information provided by Velleius Paterculus and Tacitus , Augustus' closest confidante Agrippa and his stepson Tiberius allegedly feared being set back in favor of Marcellus. They later both became husbands of Juliet, one after the other. At the same time, later authors claimed that Livia Drusilla , the wife of Augustus and mother of Tiberius, had poisoned Marcellus in order to secure power for her family branch.

Several pictorial representations of Marcellus have survived, including a statue in the Louvre, presumably made posthumously by order of Augustus .

literature

  • Hartwin Brandt : Marcellus "successioni praeparatus"? Augustus, Marcellus and the years 29-23 BC Chr. In: Chiron . tape 25 , 1995, pp. 1-17 .
  • Karl Christ : History of the Roman Empire. From Augustus to Constantine . 4th edition. CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-36316-4 , p. 70, 89-90, 150, 179 .
  • John Hazel: Who's Who in the Roman World . 2nd Edition. Routledge, London 2002, ISBN 0-415-29162-3 , pp. 184 .

Web links

Commons : Marcus Claudius Marcellus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Virgil, Aeneis 6, 860-886.
  2. Properz 3.18