Julia Livilla

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Julia Livilla, daughter of Germanicus

Julia Livilla or Julia Germanici filia (Lesbos, early 18 AD-Pandateria (?) late 41 or early 42 AD) was the youngest child of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder and one of Caligula's sisters. She was mainly raised by her mother, the Emperor Tiberius, his mother Livia Drusilla (also her great grandmother), and her grandmother Antonia Minor. She was born on the Greek island of Lesbos (leading Robert Graves to refer to her as "Lesbia" in his I, Claudius and Claudius the God). In most ancient litterary sources, on inscriptions and on coins, she's simply called Julia. It is possible that she dropped the use of her cognomen after the damnatio memoriae of her aunt Livilla, after which she was named.

In 33, she married Marcus Vinicius. Vinicius' family came from a small town outside of Rome. He descended from a family of knights and his father and grandfather were consuls. Her husband was mild in character and was an elaborate orator. Vinicius was appointed by Tiberius as a commissioner in early 37.

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Caligulan coin of Julia Livilla, from the city of Mytilene, capital city of Lesbos

Little is known of Julia Livilla. During the first years of Caligula's reign, she, along with her elder sisters Agrippina and Drusilla, received considerable honours and striking privileges, such as the rights of the Vestal Virgins (like the freedom to view public games from the upper seats in the stadium), the inclusion of her name in the oath of loyalty to the emperor and her depiction on coins. She seemed to have enjoyed a rather wild life at the court of Caligula and according to Suetonius (Suet. Caligula, 24), she, along with Agrippina, allowed herself to be prostituted by her brother to his catamites. Ancient writers even report gossip of incestuous relations between Caligula and his sisters, including Julia Livilla.

In 39, she was involved in an unsuccessful conspiracy (led perhaps by the ambitious Agrippina) to overthrow Caligula and to replace him by his brother-in-law Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (Drusilla's widower, but also lover of Agrippina and Julia Livilla). She and her sister Agrippina were banished to the Pontian Islands (they were perhaps separated in their exile and each one sent to a different island). After Caligula's murder, she returned from exile. Later in 41, she fell out of favour with Messalina and was charged by her uncle Claudius with adultery with the philosopher Seneca. Both were exiled. She was probably sent to Pandateria. Political considerations may have played a role in Julia Livilla's fate, more than just moral or domestic preoccupations as inferred in the ancient sources. In late 41 or early 42, her uncle ordered her execution, apparently by starvation, without a defence and on unsupported charges. Her remains may have been brought to Rome when her sister Agrippina became empress; they were laid to rest in the mausoleum of Augustus.

A series of portrait heads, usually known as the Leptis-Malta type, has been identified with Julia Livilla.

See also

• Julio-Claudian Family Tree

References

Biography

• Levick, Barbara, Claudius. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990.
• Anthony A. Barrett, Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996.

Portraiture

• Rose, Charles Brian, Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period. Cambridge, 1997.
• Wood, Susan, Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 99, No. 3. (Jul., 1995), pp. 457-482.

Ancient

• Tacitus
• Suetonius
• Dio Cassius