Atia (also Atia Balba) ( 85 – 43 BC) was the niece of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

(through his sister Julia Minor), and mother of Gaius Octavius, who became the Emperor

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

. Through her daughter Octavia, she was also the great-grandmother of

Germanicus Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was a Roman people, Roman general and politician most famously known for his campaigns against Arminius in Germania. The son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia the Younger, Germanicu ...

and his brother, Emperor

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

Biography

Early life

Atia was the daughter of Julia Minor and her husband

praetor ''Praetor'' ( , ), also ''pretor'', was the title granted by the government of ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected ''magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to disch ...

Marcus Atius Balbus. Atia had at least one younger sister, and possibly an older one. Due to this, she is sometimes called ''Atia Secunda'' or ''Atia Balba Secunda''. She may also have had a brother.

First marriage

Her first marriage was with Gaius Octavius, the praetor in 61 BC and then Macedonian

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

. Her family lived close to

Velitrae Velletri (; ; ) is an Italian ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome, approximately 40 km to the southeast of the city centre, located in the Alban Hills, in the region of Lazio, central Italy. Neighbouring communes are Rocca di Papa, ...

, ancestral home of the Octavii. They had two children: Octavia Minor, born 66 BC, and Gaius Octavius (Augustus), born in 63 BC. In his '' Dialogus de oratoribus'',

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. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

notes her to be exceptionally religious and moral, and one of the most admired matrons in the history of the

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

In her presence no base word could be uttered without grave offence, and no wrong deed done. Religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but also their recreations and their games.

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is ''De vita Caesarum'', common ...

' account of Augustus mentions the divine omens she experienced before and after his birth:

When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of
Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
. Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from Atia's womb. (Suetonius:94:4)

The day he was born the conspiracy of
Catiline Lucius Sergius Catilina ( – January 62 BC), known in English as Catiline (), was a Roman politician and soldier best known for instigating the Catilinarian conspiracy, a failed attempt to seize control of the Roman state in 63 BC. ...
was before the House, and Octavius came late because of his wife's confinement; then Publius Nigidius, as everyone knows, learning the reason for his tardiness and being informed also of the hour of the birth, declared that the ruler of the world had been born. (Suetonius:94:5)
Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is ''De vita Caesarum'', common ...
. ''
The Twelve Caesars ''De vita Caesarum'' (Latin; "About the Life of the Caesars"), commonly known as ''The Twelve Caesars'' or ''The Lives of the Twelve Caesars'', is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 Roman Emperor, emperors of the Roma ...
''. Retrieved a
UChicago.edu
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Octavius died in 59 BC, when their son Gaius Octavius (future Roman emperor

) was four years old.

Second marriage

The same year as her first husband died, Atia remarried to Lucius Marcius Philippus, consul in 56 BC. Philippus already had three children at the time; the already adult Lucius Marcius Philippus (''consul suffectus'' in 38 BC who ended up marrying Atia's younger sister), Marcia (the wife of Cato the Younger) and Quintus Marcius Philippus (proconsul of

Cilicia Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

in 47 BC).Sumner, "Lex Annalis", pp. 252–254. It's possible that she and Philippus had children. Atia was so fearful for her son's safety that she and Philippus urged him to renounce his rights as Caesar's heir. She died around 43 BC. Octavian honored her memory with a public funeral.

Cultural depictions

A fictionalised Atia of the Julii is portrayed by Polly Walker in the BBC-HBO-RAI television series ''

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

''. There, she is portrayed as ambitious, shrewd, manipulative, sexually uninhibited, and morally bankrupt; the programme also shows her as involved in a long-term romantic relationship with Marc Antony. Jonathan Stamp, the historical consultant for ''Rome'', stated that in addition to the historical Atia, the character version of Atia draws significant influences from other Roman women from the same time period, such as the infamous Clodia, and Marc Antony’s wife,

Fulvia Fulvia (; d. 40 BC) was an aristocratic Roman woman who lived during the late Roman Republic. Fulvia's birth into an important political dynasty facilitated her relationships and, later on, marriages to Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gaius Scribo ...

Footnotes

References

Sources

External links

A portrait bust of Atia, from the Getty Museum

{{Authority control 80s BC births 43 BC deaths 1st-century BC Roman women 1st-century BC Romans Atii Burials at the Mausoleum of Augustus Family of Augustus Family of Julius Caesar Mothers of Roman emperors