Person Page 157

Questionable parentage - possible Claudius but no historical proof.

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (14 January 38 BC – 14 September 9 BC), born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a fully patrician Claudian on his father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family. He was the stepson of the Emperor Augustus, brother of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandfather of the Emperor Caligula, father of the Emperor Claudius, and maternal great-grandfather of the Emperor Nero.

Octavia the Younger (69 BC – 11 BC), also known as Octavia Minor or simply Octavia, was the sister of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus (known also as Octavian), half-sister of Octavia the Elder, and fourth wife of Mark Antony. She was also the mother-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal great-grandmother and maternal great-great grandmother of the Emperor Nero.

One of the most prominent women in Roman history, Octavia was respected and admired by contemporaries for her loyalty, nobility and humanity, and for maintaining traditional Roman feminine virtues.
ChildhoodFull sister to Augustus, Octavia was the only daughter born of Gaius Octavius' second marriage to Atia Balba Caesonia, niece of Julius Caesar.[1] Octavia was born in Nola, Italy; her father, a Roman governor and senator, died in 59 BC from natural causes. Her mother later remarried, to the consul Lucius Marcius Philippus. Octavia spent much of her childhood travelling with her parents.

[edit] First marriageBefore 54 BC her stepfather arranged for her to marry Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor. Marcellus was a man of consular rank, a man who was worthy of her and was consul in 50 BC. He was also a member of the influential Claudian family and descended from Marcus Claudius Marcellus, a famous general in the Second Punic War. In 54 BC, her great uncle Caesar is said to have been anxious for her to divorce her husband so that she could marry Pompey who had just lost his wife Julia (Julius Caesar's daughter, and thus Octavia's cousin once removed). However, Pompey declined the proposal[2] and married Cornelia Metella instead. So Octavia's husband continued to oppose Julius Caesar including in the crucial year of his consulship 50 BC.

Marcellus, a friend of Cicero, was an initial opponent of Julius Caesar when Caesar invaded Italy, but did not take up arms against his wife's great uncle at the Battle of Pharsalus, and was eventually pardoned by him. In 47 BC he was able to intercede with Caesar for his cousin and namesake, also a former consul, then living in exile. Presumably, Octavia continued to live with her husband from the time of their marriage (she would have been about 15 when they married) to her husband's death when she was about 29. They had three children: Claudia Marcella Major, Claudia Marcella Minor and Marcus Claudius Marcellus.[3] All three were born in Italy. Marcellus died in May 40 BC.

[edit] Second marriage
Mark Antony and OctaviaBy a Senatorial decree, Octavia married Mark Antony in October 40 BC, as his fourth wife (his third wife Fulvia having died shortly before). This marriage had to be approved by the Senate, as she was pregnant with her first husband's child, and was a politically motivated attempt to cement the uneasy alliance between her brother Octavian and Mark Antony; however, Octavia does appear to have been a loyal and faithful wife to Antony.[4] Between 40 BC–36 BC, she travelled with Antony to various provinces and lived with him in his Athenian mansion.[5] There she raised her children by Marcellus as well as Antony's two sons; the two daughters of her marriage to Antony, Antonia Major and Antonia Minor, were born there.

[edit] BreakdownThe alliance was severely tested by Antony's abandonment of Octavia and their children in favor of his former lover Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt (Antony and Cleopatra had met in 41 BC, an interaction that resulted in twins). After 36 BC, Octavia returned to Rome with the daughters of her second marriage. On several occasions she acted as a political adviser to and negotiator between her husband and brother.[6] Mark Antony divorced Octavia in 32 BC,[7] after she had supplied him with men and troops, in 35 BC, to be used in his eastern campaigns.[8] Following Antony's rejection of her, their divorce, and his eventual suicide in 30 BC, Octavia became sole caretaker of their children[9] as well as guardian of Antony's children from his unions with both Fulvia and Cleopatra:

Iullus Antonius (Fulvia),
Alexander Helios (Cleopatra),
Cleopatra Selene II (Cleopatra),
Ptolemy Philadelphus (Cleopatra)
Octavia did not marry a third time.

[edit] Life after Antony
Virgil reading Aeneid, Book VI, to Augustus and Octavia, by TaillassonAugustus had adopted her son Marcellus as his heir, but Marcellus died of illness in 23 BC. Octavia had opened the Library of Marcellus in his memory, while her brother completed Marcellus's theatre in his honor.

Aelius Donatus, in his Life of Virgil, states that Virgil

recited three whole books [of his Aeneid] for Augustus: the second, fourth, and sixth--this last out of his well-known affection for Octavia, who (being present at the recitation) is said to have fainted at the lines about her son, "…You shall be Marcellus" [Aen. 6.884]. Revived only with difficulty, she ordered ten-thousand sesterces to be granted to Virgil for each of the verses."[10]

She never fully recovered from the death of her son and retired from public life, spending her final years dressing in mourning.

[edit] Death
Today's appearance of the Porticus Octaviae.Octavia died between 11 and 9 BC. Her funeral was a public one, with her sons-in-law carrying her to the grave. She was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus. Augustus delivered the funeral oration and gave her the highest posthumous honors (e.g. building the Gate of Octavia and Porticus Octaviae in her memory). Augustus declined some other honors decreed to her by the senate, for reasons unknown.[11] She was one of the first Roman women to have coins minted in her image; probably only Antony's previous wife Fulvia pre-empted her.

[edit] IssueChildren with Marcellus
Octavia and her first husband had one son and two daughters born late in their marriage:

1.Marcellus
2.Claudia Marcella Major
3.Claudia Marcella Minor
Children with Mark Antony
Octavia and Mark Antony had two daughters by their marriage (her second, his fourth), and both were the ancestors of later Roman Emperors.

1.Antonia Major: grandmother to Emperor Nero.
2.Antonia Minor: mother to Emperor Claudius, grandmother to Emperor Caligula, and great-grandmother to Emperor Nero.

Divorced in 32 B.C.

Atia Balba Caesonia (85 BC – 43 BC), sometimes referred to as Atia Balba Secunda to differentiate her from her two sisters, was a Roman noblewoman. She was the daughter of Julius Caesar's sister Julia Caesaris, mother of the Emperor Augustus, step-grandmother of the Emperor Tiberius, great-great grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, great-grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and great-great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero. The name Atia Balba was also borne by the other two daughters of Julia Caesaris and her husband praetor Marcus Atius Balbus. They were Atia’s older sister Atia Balba Prima, and her younger sister was Atia Balba Tertia.
Atia married Gaius Octavius, the Roman governor of Macedonia. Their children were Octavia Minor and Gaius Octavius Thurinus (later known as Augustus). In 59 BC, Atia's husband Gaius Octavius died on his way to Rome to stand for the consulship and Atia married Lucius Marcius Philippus, a consul of 56 BC and a supporter of Julius Caesar. He raised Atia's children alongside his own son and daughter from a previous marriage and arranged Octavia's first marriage, to the consul and senator Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor. Atia and Philippus carefully tutored and educated their children.

In his Dialogus de oratoribus, Tacitus notes her to be exceptionally religious and moral, and one of the most admired matrons in the history of the Republic:

In her presence no base word could be uttered without grave offence, and no wrong deed done. Religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but also their recreations and their games.

Suetonius' account of Augustus mentions the divine omens she experienced before and after his birth:

When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from Atia's womb.

The day he was born the conspiracy of Catiline was before the House, and Octavius came late because of his wife's confinement; then Publius Nigidius, as everyone knows, learning the reason for his tardiness and being informed also of the hour of the birth, declared that the ruler of the world had been born.

Atia was so fearful for her son's safety that she and Philippus urged him to renounce his rights as Caesar's heir. She died during her son's first consulship, in August or September 43 BC. Octavian honored her memory with a public funeral. Philippus later married one of her sisters.