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Augustus's Daughter


Octavia

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He didn't. He wasn't allowed to. Augustus was heckled in the streets by people calling on him to bring her home. It was a rough judgement and many citizens in Rome felt it too harsh. In fact, Augustus did bring her back quietly five years later, letting her live comfortably in seclusion away from Rome.

 

Julia was one of two things. Either a spiteful daughter who gave away her fathers plans for status and attention, or a complete idiot who did the same thing to remain popular amongst her senatorial friends. She was either a mischief maker or was being used by clever men seeking to make capital at Augustus's expense. Her story seems to paint her as something of a dutiful daughter who endured political marriages to please Augustus.

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I find it enlightening and useful that one of the few failures of the Augustan regime (the other being the massacre of the legions in Germany) was his legislation on what we might call Family Values. He couldn't even keep his own family under control.

 

But even if legislating morality was a bad idea, I think it speaks well of Augustus that he was willing to punish his own daughter.

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I find it enlightening and useful that one of the few failures of the Augustan regime (the other being the massacre of the legions in Germany) was his legislation on what we might call Family Values. He couldn't even keep his own family under control.

 

But even if legislating morality was a bad idea, I think it speaks well of Augustus that he was willing to punish his own daughter.

Salve, guys!

 

It would have spoken well of Augustus if he had punished himself for his own morality.

 

Methinks we would have to be extremely naive to believe we are really talking of morality here. Julia was in the eye of the storm of a political turmoil.

 

The case of her daughter Julia the younger was even worse and more illustrative, as Augustus not only punished his own granddaughter and her "lovers", but also her husband L Aemilius Paulus, put to dead on a charge of conspiracy (since that of adultery was clearly inappropriate).

 

Cheers and good luck!

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