Julia the Elder
Encyclopedia : J : JU : JUL : Julia the Elder
- For other Roman women named Julia Caesaris, see Julia Caesaris
Early Life
Julia's childhood was far from happy. Almost as soon as she was born, she was taken from her biological mother (whom Augustus had divorced the very day Julia was born (according to Dio Cassius 48.34.3): Augustus, in accordance with Roman custom, claimed complete parental control over her. Once she became old enough, she was sent to live with her stepmother Livia where she underwent her education as an aristocratic Roman girl. It was Augustus' desire that Julia should be exemplary, and so her education appears to have been strict and somewhat old-fashioned. Thus as well as her studies, Suetonius informs us (Vita Augusti 64) that she was even taught spinning and weaving. Macrobius mentions 'her love of literature and considerable culture, a thing easy to come by in that household' (Saturnalia 2.5.1-10)
Julia's social life was severely controlled, and she was only allowed to talk to people whom her father had vetted (Suetonius Vita Augusti 64). However, Julia must have been a very attractive child and it was hard for her to avoid attention from people. Augustus had a great affection for his daughter and made sure she had the best teachers available. Macrobius (Saturnalia 2.5) preserves a remark of Augustus: "There are two wayward daughters that I have to put up with: the Roman commonwealth and Julia" (Inter amicos [ Augustus ] dixit duas habere se filias delicatas, quas necesse haberet ferre, rem publicam et Iuliam.)
Daughter of Octavian
The career of Octavian progressed steadily after Julia's birth. In 37 BC, during the time of Julia's infancy, Octavian's friends Gaius Maecenas and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa concluded a deal with Octavian's great rival Mark Antony. The deal was sealed with an engagement: Antony's ten year old son Marcus Antonius Antyllus was to marry Julia, who was now two years old.
The engagement never led to a marriage, as civil war broke out. In 31 BC, at the Battle of Actium, Octavian and Agrippa defeated Antony and his wife, Cleopatra VII of Egypt. In Alexandria, they both committed suicide, and Octavian thus became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. In 27 BC, he adopted the honorific name Augustus. He killed Caesarion (Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar) and Antyllus, sparing only the younger children.
Career
As with most aristocratic Roman women of the period, the career of Julia focused squarely on her successive marriages and family alliances. She had two failed alliances, first with Antyllus, son of Marcus Antonius and second with Cotiso (M. Antonius scribit primum eum Antonio filio suo despondisse Iuliam, dein Cotisoni Getarum regi, Suetonius, LXIII, Life of Augustus). Like many Roman girls, she was married off in her early teens.
First marriage
In 25 BC, at the age of fourteen, Julia married her cousin Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who was some three years older. Julia's father was not present: he was fighting a war in Spain and had fallen ill. Agrippa presided over the ceremony. There were rumors that Marcellus had been chosen as Augustus' successor. Marcellus organized splendid games sponsored by the emperor himself. Yet Marcellus died in September 23 BC, when Julia was but sixteen. The union produced no children, possibly because Julia was still fairly young.
Marriage to Agrippa
In 21 BC, having now reached the age of eighteen, Julia married Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a man from a modest family who had risen to become Augustus' most trusted general and friend. This step is said to have been taken partly on the advice of Maecenas, who in counselling him upon these very matters remarked: “You have made him so great that he must either become your son-in-law or be slain” (Dio Cassius, 54.6). Since Agrippa was nearly twenty-five years older than she, it was a typical arranged marriage, with Julia as a pawn in her father's dynastic plans. Even so there is from this period the report of an infidelity with one Sempronius Gracchus, the first of numerous alleged adulteries, with whom she allegedly had a lasting liaison (Tacitus describes him as “a persistent paramour” [Annals 1.53]). Nor according to Suetonius did her marital status prevent her from conceiving a passion for Augustus' stepson Tiberius, so it was widely rumoured ("vulgo existimabatur", Vita Tiberii 7).
The newly-weds lived in a villa in Rome that was excavated near the modern Farnesina in Trastevere. Agrippa and Julia's marriage resulted in five children: Gaius Caesar, Vipsania Julia (also known as Julia the Younger), Lucius Caesar, Agrippina Major (mother of Emperor Caligula), and Agrippa Postumus (a posthumous son). From June 20 BC to the spring of 18 BC, Agrippa was governor of Gaul, and it is likely that Julia followed him to the country on the other side of the Alps. Shortly after their arrival, their first child Gaius was born, and in 19 BC, Julia gave birth to Vipsania Julia. After their return to Italy, a third child followed: a son named Lucius. In the spring of 16 BC, Agrippa and Julia started a tour through the eastern provinces, where they visited the king of Judaea, Herod. In October 14 BC, the couple travelled to Athens, where Julia gave birth to her fourth child, Agrippina. Augustus, who took care of their education personally, adopted the boys Lucius and Gaius Caesar after their father's death in 12 BC.
After the winter, the family returned to Italy. Julia quickly became pregnant again, but the husband died suddenly in March 12 BC in Campania at the age of 51. He was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Julia named the posthumous son Marcus in his honor. He was to be known as Agrippa Postumus. Immediately after the boy was born, and while Julia was still in mourning, Augustus had her betrothed (Dio Cassius 54.31) and then remarried: it was to be Tiberius, her stepbrother.
Marriage to Tiberius
After the death of Agrippa, Augustus sought to promote his stepson Tiberius, believing that this would best serve his own dynastic interests. Tiberius then married Julia (11 BC), but to do this he had to divorce Vipsania Agrippina (daughter of a previous marriage of Agrippa), the woman he dearly loved. The marriage was thus blighted almost from the start, and the son that Julia bore him died in infancy (Suetonius, Vita Tiberii 7.3). Suetonius alleges that Tiberius had a low opinion of Julia's character ("Iuliae mores improbaret" (loc.cit.), while Tacitus claims she disdained Tiberius as an unequal match and even sent her father a letter denouncing Tiberius, written by Sempronius Gracchus (Annals 1.53). By 6 BC, when Tiberius departed for Rhodes, if not earlier, they had separated.
Scandal
Even when Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa were alive, Augustus as her pater familias exerted an enormous influence on her family. His kin were expected to be paragons of Roman virtue. Sadly, the demands that Augustus placed on their standards of conduct were not matched by his own (his infidelities were the talk of the town).
As the daughter of Augustus, mother of two of his heirs, Lucius and Gaius, and wife of another, Tiberius, it must have seemed to Julia that her future was assured. Yet in 2 BC she was arrested for adultery and treason; Augustus sent her a letter in Tiberius' name declaring the marriage null and void. Augustus asserted in public that she had been plotting against the life of her own father (Pliny NH 7.149 adulterium filiae et consilia parricidae). At the time Augustus had been passing legislation to promote family values, and the discovery of his own daughter's actions proved to be a great blow.
Several of her supposed accomplices were exiled (including Sempronius Gracchus), or put to death (especially Iullus Antonius, son of Mark Antony and Fulvia). It is hard to reconstruct what actually happened, but it was proved that she had taken part in nightly drinking parties on the Roman Forum and that Iullus Antonius was certainly her lover. Many other men were also reported to have enjoyed her favors, but this may have been gossip.
Exile
Hesitating whether or not to execute her, Augustus decided on Julia's exile, in harsh conditions. She was confined on an island named Pandataria (modern Ventotene), with no men in sight, forbidden even to drink wine (Dio Cassius 55.10, Suetonius, Vita Augusti 65). The island itself measures less than 1¾ km². She was allowed no visitor unless her father had given permission and had been informed of the stature, complexion, and even of any marks or scars upon his body" Suet. ibid.). Scribonia, Julia's biological mother, accompanied her into exile (Velleius Paterculus 2.100, Dio Cassius 55.10). Upon any mention of him and Julia, he would say: aith ophelon agamos t'emeni agonos t'apolesthai, "Would I were wifeless, or had childless died!" [from the Iliad] (Suetonius, LXV, Life of Augustus). He rarely called her by any other name than that of his three imposthumes or cancers. The exile of his daughter left Augustus both regretful and rancorous for the rest of his life.
Five years later she was brought back to the mainland. Yet Augustus never forgave her and ordered her to remain in Rhegium (Reggio di Calabria). He explicitly gave instructions that she should never be buried in his Mausoleum of Augustus. When Tiberius became emperor, he cut off her allowance and ordered that she be confined to the one room in her house and to be deprived of all human company.
Death
She died from malnutrition some time after Augustus' death in 14, but before 15 (clearly stated in Tacitus, Annals 1.53 ("That same year Julia ended her days..."); cf. Ann.1.55, which commences the narration of events of AD 15). With her father dead and no sons to take the throne, Julia was left completely at the mercy of the new emperor, Tiberius, who was free to exact his vengeance. The circumstances of her death are obscure. One theory is that Tiberius, who loathed her for dishonouring the marriage, had starved her to death. Another theory is that upon learning her last surviving son Agrippa Postumus had been murdered, she succumbed to despair. Simultaneously, her alleged paramour Sempronius Gracchus, who had endured fourteen years of exile on Cercina (Kerkenna) off the African coast, was executed at Tiberius' instigation (Tacitus, Annals 1.53), or on the independent initiative of Nonius Asprenas, proconsul of Africa.
After her death
Suetonius claims that Caligula (Julia's grandson), son of Agrippina (Julia's daughter) and Germanicus (Julia's nephew), loathed the idea of being grandson of Marcus Agrippa (Julia's second husband). He disliked him because of his undistinguished background and felt it insulted his noble and strong family line direct from Augustus. Hence he invented the idea that his mother Agrippina was the product of an incestuous union between Julia and Augustus (Suetonius, Vita Caligulae 23).
Personality
Among ancient writers Julia is almost universally remembered for her flagrant and promiscuous conduct. Thus Marcus Velleius Paterculus (2.100) describes her as being “tainted by luxury or lust”, listing among her lovers Iullus Antonius, Quintius Crispinus, Appius Claudius, Sempronius Gracchus, and Cornelius Scipio. Seneca the Younger refers to "adulterers admitted in droves" (admissos gregatim adulteros, De Beneficiis 6.32); Pliny the Elder calls her an “exemplum licentiae” (NH 21.9). Dio Cassius mentions "revels and drinking parties by night in the Forum and even upon the Rostra" (Roman History 55.10). Seneca (De Beneficiis 6.32) tells us that the Rostra was the place where "her father had proposed a law against adultery", and yet now she had chosen the place for her "debaucheries". Seneca specifically mentions prostitution: "laying aside the role of adulteress, she there [in the Forum] sold her favours, and sought the right to every indulgence with even an unknown paramour."
Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius (Saturnalia 2.5) provides invaluable details of her personality. Julia was well known for her gentle quick wit and sharp tongue. Once, when asked her secret for having affairs, while bearing children resembling her husband, she laughed as she stated that she only took on new passengers when the boat was already full, "numquam enim nisi navi plena tollo vectorem" (Macrobius, Saturnalia, II, 5, 9-10), which meant she only allowed herself affairs when she was already pregnant, and thus would not shame her father or her husband. She was equally celebrated for her beauty, abilities and her shameless profligacy. However, he also mentions that "she abused the indulgence of fortune no less than that of her father" (Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.5.)
Despite Julia's soiled reputation, the people who knew her described her as a good-hearted and kind woman, who never intended to hurt anyone whose only real fault was that she was caught in her actions. Julia was not only physically attractive but her father seems to have deeply loved her. She is described as being very popular with the Roman people not least because of "her kindness and gentleness and utter freedom from vindictiveness" (mitis humanitas minimeque saevus animus" -- Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.5)."
Julia in Literature and Film
Literature
- In I, Claudius, a novel by Robert Graves, the description of Julia's life and personality is generally accurate. She is a sympathetic person who never intended any harm to others.
- *Julia is described as a child who was instantly snatched away from her mother and taken by her father's new wife, Livia.
- *As a child, her stepmother enforced strict discipline and an austere life of labor.
- *She was not allowed to have any friends and if she were caught talking to people not approved by Livia, she was punished. (Graves describes an occasion, which is probably fiction, when a commoner introduces himself to Julia, and Julia has her hair cut off by Livia as punishment.)
- *Livia's cruelty is due to her desire for her line to rule (Tiberius and his descendents), not Julia's, as Julia was from Augustus's previous marriage.
- *Julia's behaviour resulted from Livia and her son (Julia's 3rd husband) Tiberius' mistreatment of her.
- *In the end, Livia manages to turn even Augustus against Julia and, as historical fact proves, she was sent into exile. Augustus initially allows Livia to select the island of choice, and Julia was sent to tiny Pandataria. He later relents and asks where she is; upon discovering that she was stuck on that desolate, tiny isle, he selects the more pleasant Reggio off the strait of Messina instead.
- In Caesar's Daughter, a novel by Edward Burton, Julia is a three-dimensional character. Julia is described as a rebellious little girl who is willful and passionate but with a gentleness and compassion for the people of Rome. She is dearly beloved by nearly everyone she meets except her stepmother, Livia. Loyal to her father, but not afraid to critisise his decisions she is (after Livia) his favourite consort. Julia grows up among intrigue and ultimately becomes its victim. Despite her tragic fate, Julia remains very cheerful and kind nonetheless.
- In Augustus a novel by Allan Massie, Julia is a beautiful, desirable and happy-go-lucky character who is spoilt by her father. They still both love each other deeply. She is jealous of her father's relationship with her first husband Marcellus, disgusted with her marriage to Agrippa (who is thrilled with his younger and beautiful wife) and furious by her marriage to Tiberius. Her adulteries are justified by Augustus' bad treatment of her and she decides finally to rebel, which he denies as true though he is distraught by her banishment.
- Julia appears in The Poetaster, a play by Ben Jonson about the poet Ovid.
- *The character of Corinna in Ovid's poems have widely been thought to be Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus.
- William Auld wrote a short poem called Julia on Pandataria which takes a brief look on Julia's tragedies.
Film/Television
[[Image:Cap061.PNG|170px|thumb|right|Julia, played by Vittoria Belvedere in the mini series [[Imperium: Augustus]]]]
- In the BBC Television mini series adaptation of I, Claudius, Julia was portrayed by Frances White as the overly optimistic, witty and beloved daughter of Augustus. Julia is the only major female character in the entire series that doesn't plot to kill or actually murder someone.
- In the Italian mini series, [[Imperium: Augustus]], Julia was potrayed by Vittoria Belvedere as a very tragic character, a victim of domestic abuse and rape. For a majority of the story, Julia and her father, Augustus, are at the centre of the story as Augustus recalls his life to her just before she is about to marry Tiberius. The character in question has lost her husband and both of her two boys to illness. She is at first innocent, loving, and beloved deeply by her father, but she gets mixed up in an affair with her father's enemy as the result of depression and Tiberius' cruelty towards her. The series took a more modern view of her affairs, that among her many lovers, she had only one true love: Iullus Antonius.
- In the film, The Robe, she is played by Rosalind Ivan, making an inaccurate appearance as Tiberius' wife. #redirect [[Template:Fact]]
Marriages and issue
- 25 BC, her cousin Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus died in September 23 BC.
- 21 BC, Julia married Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
- *Gaius Julius Caesar Vipsanianus
- *Vipsania Julia (also known as Julia the Younger)
- *Lucius Caesar
- *Agrippina maior (mother of Emperor Caligula)
- *Agrippa Postumus (born after Agrippa's death).
- 11 BC, Tiberius
- *Infant son, not named in contemporary sources (by some later historians dubbed Tiberillus), died before adulthood.
Reference
- (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III, Berlin, 1933 - . (PIR2)
See also
External links
- [Julia's wit - Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.5.1-10]
- [LIVIUS: Articles on ancient history (Julia)]
- [BBC Ancient Roman]
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