Julia Livia (AD 7–43) was the daughter of

Drusus Julius Caesar Drusus Julius Caesar (7 October – 14 September AD 23), also called Drusus the Younger, was the son of Emperor Tiberius, and heir to the Roman Empire following the death of his adoptive brother Germanicus in AD 19. He was born at Rome to a ...

and

Livilla Claudia Livia (Classical Latin: CLAVDIA•LIVIA; – AD 31) was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor and sister to Roman Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus, and thus paternal aunt of emperor Caligula and mate ...

, and granddaughter of the Roman Emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...

. She was also a first cousin of the emperor

Caligula Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), also called Gaius and Caligula (), was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Ag ...

, and niece of the 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

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

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

Livia Drusilla Livia Drusilla (30 January 59 BC AD 29) was Roman empress from 27 BC to AD 14 as the wife of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. She was known as Julia Augusta after her formal adoption into the Julia ''gens'' in AD 1 ...

through her son

) and Livilla (a granddaughter of Livia Drusilla through her son

Nero Claudius Drusus Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (38–9 BC), commonly known in English as Drusus the Elder, was a Roman general and politician. He was a patrician Claudian but his mother was from a plebeian family. He was the son of Livia Drusilla and the s ...

, and a granddaughter of

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

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 ...

). 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 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

Agrippina the Elder (Vipsania) Agrippina the Elder (also, in Latin, , "Germanicus's Agrippina"; – AD 33) was a prominent member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (a close supporter of the first Roman emperor, Aug ...

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

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

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

, : 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 Italy, 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 ...

). 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 of 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 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 Rubellius Plautus (33–62 AD) was a Roman noble and a political rival of Emperor Nero. Through his mother Julia, he was a relative of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He was the grandson of Drusus (only son of Tiberius Caesar), and the great-grandson ...

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...

, 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 daughter or step-daughter Rubellia Bassa who married a maternal uncle of the future Roman Emperor Nerva. Around 43, an agent of the Roman Emperor

' wife, Empress Valeria Messalina, 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'' 944–946: ''"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 an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

' 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. 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 1st-century Romans Executed ancient Roman women People executed by the Roman Empire