thumb|Atia from [[Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum|Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum]]

Atia (also Atia Balba) ( 85 – 43 BC) was the niece of Julius Caesar (through his sister Julia Minor), and mother of Gaius Octavius, who became the Emperor Augustus. Through her daughter Octavia, she was also the great-grandmother of Germanicus and his brother, Emperor Claudius.

Biography

Early life

Atia was the daughter of Julia Minor and her husband praetor Marcus Atius Balbus. Atia had at least one younger sister, and possibly an older one. Due to this, she is sometimes called Atia Secunda or Atia Balba Secunda. She may also have had a brother.

First marriage

Her first marriage was with Gaius Octavius, the praetor in 61 BC and then Macedonian governor. Her family lived close to Velitrae, ancestral home of the Octavii. They had two children: Octavia Minor, born 66 BC, and Gaius Octavius (Augustus), born in 63 BC.

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:

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

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

<blockquote>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. (Suetonius:94:4)</blockquote>

Octavius died in 59 BC, when their son Gaius Octavius (future Roman emperor Augustus) was four years old.

Second marriage

The same year as her first husband died, Atia remarried to Lucius Marcius Philippus, consul in 56 BC. Philippus already had three children at the time; the already adult Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul suffectus in 38 BC who ended up marrying Atia's younger sister), Marcia (the wife of Cato the Younger) and Quintus Marcius Philippus (proconsul of Cilicia in 47 BC). It's possible that she and Philippus had children.

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 around 43 BC. Octavian honored her memory with a public funeral.

Cultural depictions

A fictionalised Atia of the Julii is portrayed by Polly Walker in the BBC-HBO-RAI television series Rome. There, she is portrayed as ambitious, shrewd, manipulative, sexually uninhibited, and morally bankrupt; the programme also shows her as involved in a long-term romantic relationship with Marc Antony. Jonathan Stamp, the historical consultant for Rome, stated that in addition to the historical Atia, the character version of Atia draws significant influences from other Roman women from the same time period, such as the infamous Clodia, and Marc Antony’s wife, Fulvia. Unlike her direct historic counterpart, the show's Atia lives to see her son become emperor.

See also

  • Atia gens

Footnotes

References

Sources

Further reading

  • Peace bringers, serpents and providence: exemplifying the Apollonian propaganda of Peace in Ancient Rome of the Augustan Age (ca. 27 BC – AD 14)
  • A portrait bust of Atia, from the Getty Museum
  • portraits of her family and children