WIVES OF THE C.ESAUS. 145 



add the names of Virgil, Horace, Macer, Ovid, Propertius, Variu 

 Tibullus, Cornelius Gallus, Pollio and Quintilius, it would be useless 

 to expatiate on the taste and learning that were interwoven with the 

 politic and martial glories of the Palatine. The female portion of 

 the court was equally transcendent ; every woman was herself the 

 nucleus of some important history, which to modern times might well 

 supply the subject of romance. There were the politic, aspiring, 

 cruel Livia ; Octavia, the sister of Augustus, in a wicked age the 

 pattern of humanity and virtue ; the two Marcellae ; the two Anto- 

 niae, the daughters of the Triumvir, one of them the wife of j^Enobar- 

 bus, and by him the mother of the execrable Nero ; the other the 

 wife of Drusus, and whose widowhood was spent in sorrow and re- 

 tirement, while reputably occupied in the instruction of her children ; 

 Servilia, Clodia, Scribonia, the innocent, yet repudiated wives of 

 Caesar ; Terentia, Caesar's mistress and the consort of Mecaenas ; 

 Vipsania ; Mutilia Prisca and Urgulania, the intimates and instru- 

 ments of Livia; Hortensia, who inherited her father's eloquence; 

 besides a number of less celebrated females, who were, notwithstand- 

 ing, strikingly conspicious for their wit, their beauty, elegance, and 

 spirit of intrigue. And no individual of this superb society, dis- 

 tinguished as it was by personal and intellectual brilliance, approached 

 the united fascinations of the young and lovely Julia. As she was 

 universally regarded in the capital as the source from which the 

 heirs to Caesar's empire would proceed, the homage of the higher 

 classes was addressed to her ; some were actuated in their devotion, 

 by the design of flattering Augustus; others acted from the stimulant 

 of interest, and others from the tender sentiment which Julia's 

 charms infallibly inspired. 



Augustus, since the demise of Marcellae, had meditated on the choice 

 a befitting person, who by marriage with his daughter, might fulfil 

 his anxious wish, the lineal continuation of his family. It eventually 

 fell upon Agrippa, an election in which Caesar was confirmed by the 

 approval of Mecaenas.* But in this arrangement which so closely 

 influenced Julia's happiness, her wishes had been neither studied nor 

 enquired. Agrippa, eminent in counsel and in the field, adorned 

 with all the honours of politics and war, might justly have aspired to 

 an alliance planned by his imperial master ; but Julia's love was not 

 accorded to these high pretensions. Agrippa was already wedded to 

 Marcella, the sister of Marcellus, to whose vacant place the emperor 

 designed him to succeed. Thus Octavia, who had lost her son, was 

 won by the entreaties of Augustus, to acquiesce in the bereavement 

 of a virtuous wife, the mother of a family,-)- and doomed to witness 

 the repudiation of an unoffending daughter. 



When Julia was united with Marcellus, he had barely reached the 



* Mecsenas, when consulted on the subject by Augustus, said ; " you have 

 raised Agriprae to such dangerous pre-eminence, that you must either take his 

 life, or bind him to you by his marriage with your daughter." Plutarch in vit. 

 Anton. 



t " Deinde * * M. Agrippae (Juliam) nuptum dedit ; exorata sorore ut sibi 

 genero cederet. Nam tune Agrippa alteram Marcellarum habebat, et ex ea 

 leros" Sueton. in August. 



M.M. No. 2. U 



