The Horrific Tale Of Julia—An Emperor’s Daughter Who Died From Imprisonment And Neglect

By
thehistorianshut
-

To understand the troubled life of the Roman noblewoman, Julia, one must understand the chaotic times and the complicated family environment in which she lived. Her father, Octavian (later known as Augustus), grew into adulthood while his great-uncle and adopted father, Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE), overthrew the Roman Republic and established an authoritarian regime in Rome. Octavian must have absorbed a lot of information during that time, observing how autocracies function, as well as the dangers an autocrat could face if the reality of their tyrannical power was not framed carefully and presented palatably to the suspicious public. Julius Caesar was not able to maintain that public relations balance, as he was stabbed to death by conspirators in 44 BCE, but he laid down the foundations of the principate model of autocracy that Octavian would later go on to perfect. Only eighteen years of age, Octavian entered the deadly fray of Roman politics after Julius Caesar’s death, asserting himself as the late dictator’s heir.

Octavian soon had his own first taste of dictatorial power when he formed the Second Triumvirate alongside Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 43 BCE, outlawing thousands of rivals and enemies together, resulting in at least hundreds of executions (including that of Cicero). It was also during this time of the Second Triumvirate (c. 43-32 BCE) that Octavian attempted to forge a political union with another rival named Sextus Pompeius—the son of Pompey the Great—by marrying Scribonia. As political unions go, the alliance and the marriage both fell through, but not before Octavian and Scribonia had a daughter named Julia in 39 BCE, the main subject of this article. Octavian divorced Julia’s mother almost immediately, within days after the birth. In the next year, 38 BCE, Octavian found his permanent partner by marrying formidable Livia, who brought two young male children (Tiberius and Drusus) from a previous marriage into Octavian’s household. Julia, her stepbrothers, and a cousin named Marcus Claudius Marcellus (who was Octavian’s nephew) seemingly got along fine while they were children, but tensions arose when public duties, dynastic ambitions, and the prospect of succession were thrown into the mix.

Julia grew up during Octavian’s ascendance to sole rule in Rome. Her father and Mark Antony (who by that time was involved with Cleopatra of Egypt) forced Lepidus out of the triumvirate around 36 BCE. Several years later, Octavian put in motion an impressive feat of senatorial maneuvering to lure Mark Antony into a political trap. In 32 BCE, he convinced the Roman Republic to declare war against Egypt and its queen, Cleopatra. At that time, it was open knowledge that Cleopatra and Mark Antony were lovers, so the move also served as a painful test of loyalty that was carefully crafted to target Antony. Octavian’s rival took the bait, for Antony sided with the woman he loved, sparking a civil war. In 31 BCE, Octavian’s talented admiral, Agrippa, caught Antony and Cleopatra’s forces at the pivotal Battle of Actium. The couple survived and escaped, but the majority of their fleet and forces were lost in the battle, making their chances for recovery slim. A year later, Antony took his own life and Cleopatra joined him after Egypt was occupied by Octavian’s forces. Following his rival’s demise, Octavian was left in full control of the Roman Empire, and his position was formally cemented when he received the new regal name of Augustus in 27 BCE.

With his rivals defeated and his power consolidated, Augustus soon turned his mind to founding a dynasty. At that time, Julia remained his only biological child, but, as a woman, she was deemed ineligible as a candidate for ruling Rome. To Augustus, Julia’s only option for maintaining and extending her influence in Rome was for her to wield power indirectly through marriage and children. As a result, Julia became a political pawn who was married off by her father to prospective successor candidates. When she was in her mid-teens, Julia was placed in an arranged marriage with her cousin, Marcus Claudius Marcellus—the son of Augustus’ sister, Octavia. After Marcellus died in 23 BCE, Augustus then offered his widowed daughter to his right-hand man, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who married Julia in 21 BCE. As far as is known to outside observers, the marriage between Agrippa and Julia was happy. Together, they had five children: Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Agrippa Postumus, Julia the Younger, and Vipsania Agrippina “the Elder.” Julia’s eldest sons, to Livia’s displeasure, were adopted by Augustus in 17 BCE and seemed to be on the path to succession. Nevertheless, Agrippa died in 12 BCE, and without his powerful presence, the status of Julia’s children became thrown into uncertainty.

At this point, Livia exponentially ramped up her persuasion campaign on her husband, lobbying for her own sons to be favored as heirs. Augustus agreed with his wife, but with the caveat that his biological daughter, Julia, still needed to be married to a top successor candidate. In keeping with this decision, Augustus arranged for his daughter to wed Livia’s son, Tiberius, in 11 BCE. It was a disastrous marriage, as Tiberius loved another woman and Julia was attracted to other men, and they both ended up disliking each other. While Tiberius gloomily moped and brooded, Julia began to have affairs—a dangerous thing to do under Augustus’ morality laws, which severely punished such infidelity. Despite their marital troubles, Tiberius and Julia eventually had a child around 6 BCE, but being parents did not mend their strained relationship. Tragically, the child died as an infant that same year. It was a major breaking point in the marriage, and Tiberius, who by that time suspected his wife’s infidelity, departed from Rome after the death of the child to live apart from his wife.

Augustus’ partner, Livia, seized on the instability and spent years undermining the influence of Julia and her children. Notably, Livia began to dig for evidence to prove that Julia had begun to see other men in spite of her marriage to Tiberius. Unfortunately for Julia, Livia’s spies and sleuths were thorough and effective, and their inquiries pieced together a strong case. Of the affairs, Julia’s alleged dalliance with Mark Antony’s son, Jullus (or Iullus) Antonius, was the most salacious and embarrassing for the regime. Livia presented the convincing evidence of Julia’s affairs to Augustus in 2 BCE, who responded by sentencing his daughter to house arrest on the island of Pandataria. An official divorce between Tiberius and Julia also occurred. Her youngest son, Agrippa Postumus—who was deemed to not be among the brightest of the princes—was placed under house arrest around that time, too. Also in 2 BCE, Julia’s son, Lucius Caesar, died suspiciously in Massilia (Marseille). Meanwhile, Julia’s eldest son, Gaius Caesar, was wounded battling the Parthians in Armenia around 2 CE. He died, reportedly of his lingering wounds, in the year 4 CE. Thus, Tiberius, Julia’s estranged ex-husband, became the heir apparent of Augustus.

Julia, who was relocated to Rhegium (Reggio di Calabria) in 4 CE, remained under house arrest for the rest of her life. She was still confined to her compound in 14 CE, when her father, Augustus, died and power in Rome transitioned to Emperor Tiberius (r. 14-37). Upon this succession, Julia’s house arrest suddenly changed to torturous imprisonment. Her remaining son, Agrippa Postumus, was promptly murdered, and Tiberius allegedly let all supplies be cut off from Julia’s prison. On this, the Roman historian, Tacitus (c. 56-117+), wrote:

“This was the year when Julia died. Her father Augustus had imprisoned her—for immorality—first on the island of Pandateria and then in the town of Rhegium on the straits opposite of Sicily. While Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar were still alive, she had been married to Tiberius, but had looked down on him as an inferior. That had been the fundamental reason for his retirement to Rhodes. When he became emperor, he eliminated her last hope by the removal of Agrippa Postumus. Then he let her waste away to death, exiled and disgraced, by slow starvation” (Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome, 1.53).

Unfortunately, the unlucky fate of Julia (d. 14 CE) was inherited by her descendants. Her three sons—Gaius Caesar (d. 4 CE), Lucius Caesar (d. 2 BCE), and Agrippa Postumus (d. 14 CE)—all met violent or suspicious deaths. Julia’s daughters also shared in the family’s hardship. Ironically, the daughter who shared Julia’s name became embroiled in morality law troubles, just like her mother. On the two Julias and Augustus’ clashes with them, the Roman scholar, Suetonius (c. 70-130+), wrote, “He found out that both the elder and the younger Julia had been indulging in every sort of vice, and banished them” (The Twelve Caesars, Divus Augustus, chapter 65). Julia the Younger was banished in 8 CE and remained under house arrest until her death in the year 28. Her sister, Vipsania Agrippina the Elder, had a more successful political career, but she ultimately suffered the same fate. Agrippina the Elder had been married to the talented and popular general, Germanicus, who died suspiciously in the year 19. She and Germanicus had prominent children such as Caligula and Agrippina the Younger ( who was the mother of Emperor Nero). Agrippina the Elder publicly accused Tiberius’ regime of murdering Germanicus, and her accusations resulted in her being sentenced in the year 28 to house imprisonment in exile. In 33, she and one of her similarly imprisoned sons, Drusus, both died due to alleged starvation or malnutrition. Following the family trend of misfortune, Caligula was assassinated in the year 41, Agrippina the Younger was executed by her own son, Nero, in the year 59, and Nero went on to take his own life in the year 68. Theirs was a troubled family, indeed.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (A Reclining Figure Amid Ruins, By An Unknown Artist From the Circle of Eustache Le Sueur (1616/17-1655), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum).

Sources:

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

Leave a Reply