Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/655

Rh JULIA. Bprinkled with blood of the riotors. The slave who carried to his house on the Carinae the stained toga was seen by Julia, who, imagining that her husband was slain, fell into premature labour (Val. Max. iv. 6. § 4 ; Plut. Pomp. 53), and her con- stitution received an irreparable shock. In the September of the next year, b. c. 54, she died in childbed, and her infant — a son, according to some writers (Veil, ii, 47 ; Suet, Caes. 26 ; comp. Lu- can. V. 474, ix. 1049), a daughter, according to others (Plut. Pomp. 53 ; Dion Cass, xxxix, 64), — survived her only a few days (Id. xl. 44), Poni- pey wished her ashes to repose in his favourite Alban villa, but the Roman people, who loved Julia, determined they should rest in the field of Mars. For permission a special decree of the senate was necessary, and L. Domitius Ahenobar- bus [Ahenobarbus, No. 7], one of the consuls of B. c. 54, impelled by his hatred to Pompey and Caesar, procured an interdict from the tribunes. But the popular will prevailed, and, after listening to a funeral oration in the forum, the people placed her urn in the Campus Martins. (Dion Cass, xxxix. 64 ; comp. xlviii. 53.) It was remarked, as a singular omen, that on the day Augustus entered the city as Caesar's adoptive son, the monument of Julia was struck by lightning (Suet. Octuv. 95 ; comp. Caes. 84). Caesar was in Britain, according to Seneca {Cons, ad Marc. 14), when he received the tidings of Julia's death. (Comp. Cic. ad Quint. fr. iii. 1, ad Atl, iv. 17.) He vowed games to her manes, which he exhibited in B, c. 46. (Dion Cass, xliii. "22 ; Suet, Caes. 26 ; Plut. Caes. 55.) 6. Daughter of Augustus by Scribonia [ScRi- bonia], and his only child. She was born in B. c. 39, and was but a few days old when her mother was divorced. (Dion Cass, xlviii. 34.) Julia was educated with great strictness. The manners of the imperial court were extremely simple, and the accomplishments of her rank and station were di- versified by the labours of the loom and the needle. (Suet. Aug. 73.) A daily register was kept of her studies and occupations ; her words, actions, and associates were jealously watched ; and her father gravely reproached L. Vinicius, a youth of unexceptionable birth and character, for addressing Julia at Baiae (Suet. Aug. 63, 64). She married, b. c. 25, M. Marcellus, her first cousin, the son of Octavia (Dicyi Cass. liii. 27), and, after his death, b. c. 23, without issue, M. Vipsanius Agrippa ["Agrippa, M. Vipsanius] (Dion Cass, liii. 30, liv. 6 ; Plut. Ant. 87 ; Suet. Aug. 63), by whom she had three sons, C. and L. Caesar, and Agrippa Postumus, and two daughters, Julia and Agrippina. She accompanied Agrippa to Asia Minor in b. c. 17, and narrowly escaped drowning in the Scamander. (Nic. Dam. p. 225, ed. Coray. ; Joseph. Antiq. xvi, 2. § 2.) After Agrippa's death in B.C. 12, Augustus meditated taking a husband for his daughter from the equestrian order, and C. Proculeius was at the time thought likely to have been preferred by him. (Tac. Ann. iv. 39, 40 ; Suet. Aug. 63 ; Plin. N. H. vii. 45 ; Dion Cass. liv. 3 ; Hor. Carm. ii. 2, 5.) Accord- ing, indeed, to one account (Suet. l c. ; Dion Cass, xlviii. 54, Ii. 15 ; Suet. I. c), he had actually be- trothed her to a son of M. Antony, and to Cotiso, a king of the Getae [Cotiso] ; but his choice at length fell on Tiberius Nero, who was afterwards Caesar. (Veil. ii. m ; Suet. Tib. 7 ; Dion Cass. liv. 31.) Their union, however, was neither VOL. II. JULIA. (541 happy nor lasting. After the death of their infant son at Aquileia, Tiberius, partly in disgust at Julia's levities (Suet. Tib. 8), went, in B.C. 6, into voluntary exile, and before he returned to Italy, Augustus had somewhat tardily discovered the misconduct of his daughter. With some allow- ance for the malignity of her step-mother Livia, for the corruptions of the age and the court, and for the prejudices of writers either favourable to Tiberius, or who wrote after her disgrace, the vices of Julia admit of little doubt, and her indis- cretion probably exceeded her vices. Her frank and lively temperament broke through the politic decorum of the palace, her ready wit disdained prudence, and created enemies ; the forum and the rostra were the scenes of her nocturnal orgies ; and, if we may judge by their names, her com- panions were taken indifferently from the highest and the lowest orders in Rome. (Veil. i. 100 ; Dion Cass. Iv. 10 ; Suet. A'ug. 19, 64 ; Macrob. Sat. i. 1 1, vi. 5.) Her father's indignation on dis- covering what all Rome knew, was unbounded ; he threatened her with death, he condemned her to exile, and imprudently revealed to the senate the full extent of his domestic shame. To all solicitations for her recal — which towards the end of his reign were frequent, for the people loved Julia, and dreaded Livia and Tiberius — he replied with the hope that the petitioners themselves might have similar daughters and wives. He called her a disease in his flesh ; repeatedly wished himself childless ; and when Phoebe, one of Julia's freedwomen, slew herself to avoid the punish- ment liberally inflicted on the partners of her mistress's revels, he exclaimed, " Would I had been Phoebe's father!" (Dion Cass. Iv. 10; Suet. Aug. Q5.) If, however, Pliny's assertion is credible, that Julia had engaged in a conspiracy against her father's life, his anger is intelligible (Plin. //. N. vii. 45), and, at a later period of his reign, she seems to have been an object of interest to the disaffected. (Suet. Aug. 19.) Julia was first banished to Pandataria, an island on the coast of Campania. Her mother Scribonia shared her exile, but this was the only alleviation of her suf- ferings : wine, all the delicacies, and most of the comforts of life, were denied her, and no one, of whatever condition, was permitted to approach her place of seclusion without special licence from Au- gustus himself. At the end of five years she was removed to Rhegium, where her privations were somewhat relaxed, but she was never sufiered to quit the bounds of the city. Even the testament of Augustus showed the inflexibility of his anger. He bequeathed her no legacy, and forbade her ashes to repose in his mausoleum. On the accession of Tiberius her exile was enforced with new rigour. Her former allowance was diminished and often withheld ; her just claims on her father's personal estate were disregarded ; she was kept in close and solitary confinement in one house ; and in a. d. 1 4, consumption, hastened if not caused by grief and want of necessaries, terminated, in the 54th year of her age, the life of the guilty, but equally unfortunate, daughter of the master of the Roman worid. (Suet. Tib. 50; Tac. Ann. i. 53.) Macro- bius {Sat. vi. 5) has preserved several specimens of Julia's conversational wit, and has sketched her intellectual character with less prejudice than usu- ally marks the accounts of her. There are only Greek coins of Julia extai.t, T T