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1 - Giulia. The Bad Daughter

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Giulia. La figlia cattiva.
Closing her underworld declaration, the deceased Cornelia, grateful to Augustus for his mourning, repeated his words “.....Sobbing he said that in me his daughter had a worthy sister.....” Unluckily it was not so: the two girls could not have been more different the one from the other. Both daughters of Scribonia, but one become a good and sweet family’s mother, and the other just a devil.
Was it because of their education? I don’t think so. The upbringing of Giulia could never have been more strict. Augustus kept the girl under close control and accustomed her to spin the wool and loom it to make his togas and tunics. For Augustus all his garments had to be done at home. Besides she didn’t have much freedom and few friends for company. A good education this, but something didn’t work and nothing could have wind up worst.
Maybe at the basis of Giulia’s life and sins was the fact to have been the only lawful child of the most powerful man in the world. She was always circled by the usual crowd of flatterers who always stand around the powerful people. Giulia adored this kind of courtiers. She was not spoiled by her father, but the ones who always stood around her telling her how beautiful, desirable and powerful she was, sure did it. They affirmed that she could obtain anything from the Young Caesar and surely they also believed it. Of course Giulia as Augustus’s only lawful descendant was very important and she couldn’t ignore it, as she didn’t ignore that her father simply adored her. Augustus doted about this daughter also if, cold and shrewd as he was, he used her to contract useful alliances on the political plan and promised his daughter in marriage to all kind of people who could just help his designs.
These clever tactics began very early and Giulia was still a two year old baby when to reinforce the ties with Antonius, Augustus betrothed her to Antillo - the son of his colleague and Fulvia - a boy who being only five year old was not what we could define mature. However not one of the parents took the promise as very sound and the children, who nothing understood, couldn’t have cared less. The betrothal was quickly dissolved. This, however, did not stop the practice and Giulia was engaged with many other people of any standing, even only knights, but knights who could be useful to Augustus.
Time passed and, when the girl was 14 years old, Augustus who loved his daughter very deeply and would never have allowed her to do a bad marriage, betrothed her to a 15 years young cousin, Marcellus, son of Augustus’s sister Octavia, a boy who was promptly adopted by Augustus. The two young people were married but their marriage didn’t last long: two years later Marcellus, who was a frail and ailing youngster, died breaking his mother’s heart. Certainly not his bride’s one.
Immediately after this Augustus decide to marry Giulia again and this time as the future husband he picked his great friend Agrippa, a man of his same age. Really Agrippa was already happily married with Marcella, another Octavia’s daughter, but this didn’t stop Augustus, who ordered his friend to divorce her, giving thus to Octavia, already desperate for her son death, the pain to see her daughter’s broken marriage. Marcella, however did not lose much because she was immediately remarried with Iullus Antonius, the very handsome and pleasant second son of Antonius, a young man who probably quickly consoled her. Contemporarily Augustus married Giulia with Agrippa. As a husband Agrippa was not even ugly. From his statues and coin we see a mature, handsome man, and an young bride as Marcella had been perfectly happy with him. The fact that Agrippa was 23 years older than Giulia, didn’t mean anything. Many young Roman girls married men much older than them and often their marriage was very happy as it happened for instance to Caesar’s daughter, who married the mature Pompeius Magnus, and until her death the two not only were a well assorted couple but they adored each other.
Yes. Like her also Giulia was much younger than Agrippa’s but, also if probably she didn’t adore him, she was quite happy. The life with him revealed itself very pleasant. She enjoyed more freedom, could satisfy all her desires and bask in the luxury. Beside with Agrippa she went to the Middle East and here she discovered an unknown world, very ancient and very refined, where, during their triumphal voyage, she, daughter of a god, was treated as a goddess, and this must have gone to her head. In Rome she was adored but nobody ever dreamed to consider her as a divinity.
After this marriage Giulia for many years was occupied by her pregnancies. Is it also true that for Macrobius she already had a very lively love life and badly cuckolded her husband. At this point also Augustus had begun to note something strange in her behavior, but every time that he looked Agrippa’s sons so similar to his old friend he felt reassured. He was not the only one that was struck by this likeness and not only him studied Agrippa’s children’s miens: also the intimate friends of Giulia did it and, as they knew the long list of Giulia’s lovers, they couldn’t understand how the boys could be so similar to their lawful father. At the end she explained the mystery with a quite vulgar declaration “They look so much like Agrippa, because I never take anyone aboard before I haven’t filled my cargo” Not exactly a goddess language. And the cargo was filled many times as she had 5 children, and of them three boys one of whom was an insane idiot.
The oter two Agrippa’s sons, Caius and Lucius, seemed to be very nice. Augustus adopted both of them and from this moment he firmly took in hand the education of all his grandchildren, males and females. As he had done for Giulia he set the girls to spin the wool, work at the loom and make togas and tunics for the family’s males. To the boys he taught to read and write and particularly considered very important that they could imitate his signature. Why he so much wanted them to became little counterfeiters is something I never understood.
In the meantime Giulia, with his husband away and Augustus taking care of the children was completely free and became more and more lose. She assuredly did not want to spend her time at the spindle and loom and she began to search more amusing occupations, nor was it a difficult task for her: she immediately began to amuse herself with her group of gilded youth, people whom Augustus didn’t tolerate. He tried to scold her about them pointing how Livia friends were mature and serious, but Giulia told him that to anyone his age, and that with the passing of the years her friends would became as mature and serious as the ones of Livia’s group. Unluckily Augustus believed her, and this was the beginning of the disaster.

Bibliography
Scientific divulgation
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, L'amore a Roma in Archeo, VII, 10 (92) October 1992, pp. 54-99

Books
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - Amori ed amanti tra la repubblica ed il principato, Editore. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 1992