Julia Livia (7 – 43 AD), was the daughter of Drusus Julius Caesar and Livilla, and granddaughter of the Roman Emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

. She was also a first cousin of the emperor

Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germani ...

, and niece of the emperor

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor ...

Biography

Early life

Julia was born in the later years of the reign of her adoptive great-grandfather, Emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

, and was the daughter of Drusus Julius Caesar (a grandson of Augustus wife'

Livia Drusilla Livia Drusilla (30 January 59 BC – 28 September AD 29) was a Roman empress from 27 BC to AD 14 as the wife of Emperor Augustus Caesar. She was known as Julia Augusta after her formal adoption into the Julian family in AD 14. Livia was the da ...

through her son

) and Livilla (a granddaughter of Livia Drusilla through her son Nero Claudius Drusus, and a granddaughter of

Mark Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the au ...

through his daughter

Antonia Minor Antonia Minor (31 January 36 BC - 1 May 37 AD) was the younger of two surviving daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligu ...

). At the time of Augustus' death in AD 14, Julia, who was in early childhood, fell ill. Before he died, the aged emperor had asked his wife Livia whether Julia had recovered.

Marriages

Upon the death of Augustus, Julia's paternal grandfather, Tiberius, succeeded him as Rome's second Emperor. It was during her grandfather's rule, when she was around the age of 16, that Julia married her cousin Nero Caesar (the son of

Germanicus Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was an ancient Roman general, known for his campaigns in Germania. The son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia the Younger, Germanicus was born into an influential branch of the pa ...

and Agrippina the Elder). The marriage appears to have been an unhappy one, and fell victim to the machinations of the notorious palace guardsman

Sejanus Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian ...

, who exploited his intimacy with Julia's mother Livilla to scheme against Germanicus’ family. In the words of

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

, : Whether the young prince spoke or held his tongue, silence and speech were alike criminal. Every night had its anxieties, for his sleepless hours, his dreams and sighs were all made known by his wife to her mother Livia '' .e. Livilla' and by Livia to Sejanus. Later in 29, owing to the intrigues of Sejanus, and at the insistence of Tiberius, Nero and Agrippina were accused of treason. Nero was declared a public enemy by the Senate and taken away in chains in a closed litter. Nero was incarcerated on the island of Pontia (

Ponza Ponza (Italian: ''isola di Ponza'' ) is the largest island of the Italian Pontine Islands archipelago, located south of Cape Circeo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is also the name of the commune of the island, a part of the province of Latina i ...

). The following year he was executed or driven to suicide.

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

records that Julia was now engaged to

, but this claim appears to be contradicted by

, whose authority is to be preferred.

was condemned and executed on Tiberius’ orders on 18 October 31. His lover, Julia's mother Livilla, died around the same time (probably starved by her own mother: Julia's grandmother Antonia, or committed suicide). In 33, Julia married Gaius Rubellius Blandus, a man from an

equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: *Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes in ...

background. Despite that Blandus had been consul suffect in 18, the match was considered a disaster; Tacitus includes the event in a list of "the many sorrows which saddened Rome", which otherwise consisted of deaths of different influential people. They had at least one child, Rubellius Plautus,

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the '' Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...

, in Satire VIII.39, suggests another son, also named Gaius Rubellius Blandus and an inscription implies Julia was probably the mother of Rubellius Drusus, a child who died before the age of three. Julia also had a step-daughter Rubellia Bassa who married a maternal uncle of the future Roman Emperor

Nerva Nerva (; originally Marcus Cocceius Nerva; 8 November 30 – 27 January 98) was Roman emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became emperor when aged almost 66, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the succeeding rulers of the Flavian dy ...

. Around 43, an agent of the Roman Emperor

' wife, Empress

Valeria Messalina Valeria Messalina (; ) was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputation ...

, had falsely charged Julia with incest and immorality. Messalina considered her and her son a threat to the throne. The Emperor, her uncle Claudius, without securing any defence for his niece, had her executed 'by the sword' ('' Octavia'' 944-6: ''"ferro... caesa est"''). She may have anticipated execution by taking her own life. Her distant relative Pomponia Graecina remained in mourning for 40 years in open defiance of the Emperor, yet was unpunished.Tacitus, ''Annals'' 13.32 Julia was executed around the same time as her first cousin Julia Livilla, the daughter of Germanicus and sister of the former Emperor Caligula.

Cultural depictions

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celt ...

' novels '' I, Claudius'' and ''Claudius the God'' Julia was known as "Helen the Glutton". Graves did this as comic relief in the novels, but in reality she did not have a reputation for

gluttony Gluttony ( la, gula, derived from the Latin ''gluttire'' meaning "to gulp down or swallow") means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or wealth items, particularly as status symbols. In Christianity, it is considered a sin ...

. In the 1976 television adaptation she was played by Karin Foley. It unhistorically has her mother attempting to poison her to prevent Sejanus from marrying her, but it is not explicit about whether she died as a result, so glossing over her fate under Claudius.

Ancestry

References

Citations

Biography

* (edd.), ''Prosopographia Imperii Romani'', 3 vol., Berlin, 1897–1898. (''PIR¹'') * (edd.), ''Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III'', Berlin, 1933 - . (''PIR²'') * Raepsaet-Charlier M.-Th., ''Prosopographie des femmes de l'ordre sénatorial (Ier-IIe siècles),'' 2 vol., Louvain, 1987, 360 ff; 633 ff. * Lightman, Marjorie & Lightman, Benjamin. ''Biographical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Women.'' New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2000. * Levick, Barbara, ''Claudius''. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990. * Barrett, Anthony A., ''Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire.'' Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996. * Jucker, Hans & Willers, Dietrich (Hrsg.), ''Gesichter. Griechische und römische Bildnisse aus Schweizer Besitz,'' Bern 1982, 92–93. {{Authority control AD 7 births 43 deaths Julio-Claudian dynasty 1st-century Roman women Executed ancient Roman women People executed by the Roman Empire