Julia the Elder  

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Julia the Elder (30 October 39 BC - AD 14), known to her contemporaries as Julia Caesaris filia or Julia Augusti filia (Classical Latin: IVLIA•CAESARIS•FILIA or IVLIA•AVGVSTI•FILIA) was the daughter and only natural child of Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire. Augustus subsequently adopted several male members of his close family as sons. Julia resulted from Augustus' second marriage with Scribonia, her birth occurring on the same day as Scribonia's divorce from Augustus, who wished to marry Livia Drusilla.

She was the daughter of the Emperor Augustus, stepsister and second wife of the Emperor Tiberius, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and the Empress Agrippina the Younger, mother-in-law of the Emperor Claudius, and maternal great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.

Julia in popular culture

Literature

• In I, Claudius, a novel by Robert Graves, the description of Julia's life and personality is generally accurate. She is a sympathetic person who never intended any harm to others. Julia is described as a child who was instantly snatched away from her mother and taken by her father's new wife, Livia. As a child, her stepmother enforced strict discipline and an austere life of labor. She was not allowed to have any friends, and if she was caught talking to people not approved by Livia, she was punished. (Graves describes an occasion, which is probably fiction, when a commoner introduces himself to Julia, and Julia has her hair cut off by Livia as punishment.) Livia's cruelty is due to her desire for her line to rule (Tiberius and his descendants), not Julia's, as Julia was from Augustus's previous marriage. Julia's behaviour resulted from Livia's and her son (Julia's 3rd husband) Tiberius' mistreatment of her. Tiberius not being sexually attracted because of her womanly curves (preferring nymph-like women), Livia has Julia take Spanish Fly to try and seduce Tiberius, which leads to her sexual appetite. In the end, Livia manages to turn even Augustus against Julia and, as historical fact proves, she was sent into exile. Augustus initially allows Livia to select the island, and Julia was sent to tiny Pandataria. He later relents and asks where she is; upon discovering that she is stuck on that desolate, tiny isle, he selects the pleasant town of Reggio off the strait of Messina instead.
• In Caesar's Daughter, a novel by Edward Burton, Julia is a three-dimensional character. Julia is described as a rebellious little girl who is willful and passionate but with a gentleness and compassion for the people of Rome. She is dearly beloved by nearly everyone she meets except her stepmother, Livia. Loyal to her father, but not afraid to criticize his decisions she is (after Livia) his favourite consort. Julia grows up among intrigue and ultimately becomes its victim. Despite her tragic fate, Julia remains very cheerful and kind nonetheless.
• In Augustus a novel by Allan Massie, Julia is a beautiful, desirable and happy-go-lucky character who is spoilt by her father. They still both love each other deeply. She is jealous of her father's relationship with her first husband Marcellus, disgusted with her marriage to Agrippa (who is thrilled with his younger and beautiful wife) and furious at her marriage to Tiberius. Her adulteries are justified by Augustus' bad treatment of her and she decides finally to rebel, which he denies as true though he is distraught by her banishment.
• Julia is the heroine of I Loved Tiberius by Elisabeth Dored.
• Julia is portrayed in the novel Cleopatra's Daughter, by Michelle Moran. In the novel she is a young teenager who befriends Queen Cleopatra VII's daughter Selene and is in love with her soon-to-be first husband Marcellus. It shown how her stepmother, Livia, did not give her much freedom, and how she was surrounded by all of the plots and people in Rome while she was growing up. She is described as beautiful, generous and kind-hearted, but also spoilt by privilege.
• Julia appears in The Poetaster, a play by Ben Jonson about the poet Ovid.
  • The character of Corinna in Ovid's poems have widely been thought to be Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus.
• William Auld wrote a short poem called Julia on Pandataria which takes a brief look on Julia's tragedies.
• Julia is mentioned in Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough. She is described as very pretty from a young age and intelligent. Augustus is not discouraged by the fact she is a girl and demands that she be educated in the manner of a man rather than a woman, describing her as a queen in waiting.
• Julia appears in Taylor Caldwell's novel Dear and Glorious Physician, as the unhappy wife of Tiberius and a seductress of Lucanus, the young evangelist St. Luke.

Julia is one of the narrators in Augustus, by John Williams. There are a number of contributions in her name, written as part of a diary she wrote while in exile in Pandateria. She narrates events from her point of view, including her feelings about her father, her marriages, the restrictions on her as a prominent Roman matron, her relationships with her lovers and members of her family.

Film/Television

• In the BBC Television adaptation of I, Claudius (1976), Julia was portrayed by Frances White as the overly optimistic, witty and beloved daughter of Augustus. Julia is one of the few major female characters who does not plot to kill or actually murder someone.
• In the Italian mini series, Imperium: Augustus, Julia was portrayed by Vittoria Belvedere as a very tragic character, a victim of domestic abuse and rape. For a majority of the story, Julia and her father, Augustus, are at the centre of the story as Augustus recalls his life to her just before she is about to marry Tiberius. The character in question has lost her husband and both of her two boys (inaccurately) to illness. She is at first innocent, loving, and beloved deeply by her father, but she gets mixed up in an affair with her father's enemy as the result of depression brought on by Tiberius' cruelty towards her. The series took a more modern view of her affairs, that among her lovers, she had only one true love: Iullus Antonius.
• In the film, The Robe, she is played by Rosalind Ivan, making an inaccurate appearance as Tiberius' wife.