Antonia Major

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Antonia Major (in latin: Antonia Maior, PIR² A 884) (b. August/September 39BC), also known as Antonia the Elder, was a daughter to Mark Antony and Octavia Minor and niece to Caesar Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor.

She was born in Athens, Greece and after 36BC her mother, along with her siblings and herself were brought to Rome. She was raised by her mother, her uncle and her aunt Livia Drusilla.

Little is known of her, yet she was held in high regard, like her sister Antonia Minor, mother of the Roman Emperor Claudius, who was celebrated for her beauty and virtue.

Around 26/25BC, Antonia married the consul Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. Their children were:

Domitia (PIR² D 171) - She married Gaius Sallustius Passienus Crispus, consul suffect in 27 AD, proconsul of Asia and consul in 44AD (who later married her sister-in-law, Agrippina the Younger).
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (PIR² D 127) - This consul of 32AD married his second cousin Agrippina the Younger; they were the parents to Roman Emperor Nero.
Domitia Lepida (PIR² D 180) - She first married her cousin Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus to whom she bore a daughter, Valeria Messalina. After the death of her first husband, she married Faustus Cornelius Sulla, cos. suff. in 31AD and gave him a son, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (who would become consul in 52AD). At the beginning of Claudius' reign, she married Gaius Appius Junius Silanus, cos. in 28AD (who was put to death in 42AD).

On the Ara Pacis (an altar from the Augustan Era), displays Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and his elder sister Domitia. The woman behind Domitia and Domitius is their mother Antonia Major and the man next to Antonia Major is her husband Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. This can be seen at http://www.indiana.edu/~leach/c414/2005/arapacis3.jpg .

Antonia died before 25AD.

Reference

(edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III, Berlin, 1933 - . (PIR²)

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