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Julia (Classical Latin: IVLIA•DRVSI•CAESARIS•FILIA[1], 5-43) was the daughter of Julius Caesar Drusus and Livilla and granddaughter to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. She was executed circa 43AD.
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Chronology
At the time of Emperor Augustus' death in 14 Julia was ill. Augustus had asked his wife Livia, before he died whether she recovered [2]. In 20AD, Julia married her cousin Nero Caesar (the son of Germanicus 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, who exploited his intimacy with Livilla to scheme against Germanicus’ family. In the words of Tacitus,
- "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 [i.e. Livilla] and by Livia to Sejanus" [3].
Later in 29AD, 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, taken away in chains in a closed litter. Nero was incarcerated on the island of Pontia (Ponza). The following year he was executed or driven to suicide. Cassius Dio[4] records that Julia was now engaged to Sejanus, but this claim appears to be contradicted by Tacitus, whose authority is to be preferred. Sejanus was condemned and executed on Tiberius’ orders on 18 October 31AD. In 33AD, Julia married Gaius Rubellius Blandus, a man from an equestrian family who was consul suffect in 18AD and later proconsul of Africa [5]. Their children were Sergius (?) Rubellius Plautus (33-62) (cf. Raepsaet-Charlier, p. 89 for Plautus' praenomen) and a daughter Rubellia Bassa who married a maternal uncle of the future Roman Emperor Nerva. Juvenal, in Satire VIII.39, suggests another son, also named Gaius Rubellius Blandus. According to an inscription, Julia may also have been the mother of a certain Rubellius Drusus [6]. Around 43AD, an agent of the Roman Emperor Claudius' wife, Empress Valeria Messalina, had falsely charged her with incest and immorality. 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 [7]. Her distant relative Pomponia Graecina remained in mourning for forty years in open defiance of the Emperor but was unpunished for this.
Robert Graves
In Robert Graves' novels I Claudius and Claudius the God Julia was known as Helen, Helou, Helou and Helen the Glutton. Graves did this as comic relief in the novel. However, in reality she did not have a reputation of gluttony.
Notes
- ^ E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen - e.a. (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III (PIR), Berlin, 1933 - I 636
- ^ Suetonius, Vita Augusti, 99
- ^ Tacitus, Annals 4.60
- ^ Cassius Dio, 58.3.9
- ^ Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopographie des femmes de l'ordre sénatorial, p. 89
- ^ Prosopographia Imperii Romani R 83
- ^ Barrett, Agrippina, pp. 87; 104
References
Biography
- E. Klebs, H. Dessau, P. Von Rohden (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani, 3 vol., Berlin, 1897-1898. (PIR1)
- E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen - e.a. (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.
Portraiture
- Jucker, Hans & Willers, Dietrich (Hrsg.), Gesichter. Griechische und römische Bildnisse aus Schweizer Besitz, Bern 1982, 92-93.
