#julio-claudian dynasty

[cesareeborgia]

↳ family trees + Julio-Claudian dynasty (limited to the main figures)

requested by anonymous

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Corrupting the youth with ancient Roman trading cards: Julio-Claudian edition!

Artist attributions and historical notes under the cut.

Murder of Caesar by Karl Theodor von Piloty

Virgil Reading the Aeneid by Jean-Baptiste Wicar

Tiberius exiles by Félix Joseph Barrias

Caligula by Antonio Tempesta

Claudius proclaimed emperor by Charles Lebayle

Talma as Nero in Britannicus by Eugène Delacroix

Other graphics come from frescoes at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Dictators get red backgrounds and emperors get purple.

Historical notes:

Some facts come from ancient sources, which may be biased or wrong. But I've chosen to use them here since these cards are just for fun. For a fuller, more accurate view of these guys, check out my recommended books!

Source for nine times Augustus nearly died on a boat: I counted them!

Sexual orientation wasn't a concept in ancient Rome, but Claudius is the only Julio-Claudian emperor explicitly described as not attracted to men; all others have at least one story of involvement with a man. See Roman Homosexuality by Craig Williams for details.

[venicepearl]

Julia Drusilla (16 September AD 16 – 10 June AD 38) was a member of the Roman imperial family, the second daughter and fifth child of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder to survive infancy. She was the favorite sister of Emperor Caligula, who, after her death, had her deified under the name Diva Drusilla Panthea, and named his daughter Julia Drusilla after her.

[uncleclaudius]

The portrait identified as Antonia Minor, the younger daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, mother of the emperor Claudius

[didoofcarthage]

Cameo portrait of Emperor Claudius, in modern mount, perhaps cut after his triumph over Britain in A.D. 44

Roman, Imperial Period, A.D. 43-45

sardonyx with glass backing

Royal Collection Trust (acquired by King Charles I when Prince of Wales)

[wolframpant]

Historical Male Characters in Domina (2021)

[fierce-little-miana]

Actually it was really sexy of Mark Antony to marry and have children with Cleopatra VII and Octavia.

Yes King, link two of the most fucked-up family trees I have ever seen together. Make Caligula and Cleopatra’s grandson (Ptolemy of Mauretania) first cousins once removed.

[luckys-last-brain-cell]

Just curious

[lightdancer1]

Wrapped up the biography of Nero:

Between this and the biography of Domitian I've just started and the biography of Caligula, the great tyrants of the Empire were all in the specific set of Emperors with biographies. Each of them embodied different facets of autocracy in their own ways, and each of them ultimately came to a bad end precisely because of it. Bootsie was murdered, as was Domitian. Nero committed suicide when the war that became the Year of the Four Emperors broke out. One of the realities behind their careers was both the abstract and the practical limits of autocracy, both the glories and the dangers.

The autocrats wanted a world where power was reliant purely on their whim sanctioned by force. So it proved to be, and so each of them was murdered or forced to self-destruction. One point that further applied here was that the autocrats' very successes meant they were libeled after their deaths by the Senators that wrote the histories, because as it turns out people subject to the terror of what people with absolute power are prone to do with it resent the everloving shit out of it and if the victims rather than the beneficiaries write the histories that doesn't bode well for the people who exercised that power.

So it's proven with Nero, who was every bit the natural-born despot, who ruled as one, who gleefully ordered murders and executions on a grand scale, and thus wound up alienating all the elites he had to rely on to rule and then the Legions started to do the 'I should be Augustus instead of the Augustus' and so fell the Julio-Claudians and ultimately rose the Flavians.

Interestingly there is one parallel with classical Rome and Chinese historiography. The last Emperor of a dynasty is almost always the 'Bad Last Emperor' and the most reliable target for demonization by the new one.

9/10.

[mostspirited]

You can tell which Julio-Claudians are directly related to Livia bc they all have a teenie tiny mouth like her

[behindfairytales]

DOMINA (s2) + historical references

[girlcatilina]

opening my roman history book sighing: whose turn is it to perpetuate the cycle of violence today?

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

What is your opinion on the marriage of Julia the elder and Tiberius?

I think it's understandable why Augustus insisted on it, but it's also understandable why Julia and Tiberius would both hate it, and be horribly unsuited for each other.

Many people would try to identify a "bad guy": Augustus, for overruling the wishes of his daughter and stepson. Julia, for having extramarital affairs that embarrassed her family, and possibly getting involved in a conspiracy against her father. Tiberius, for neglecting Julia after Augustus died, which may have (intentionally or accidentally) caused her death. It's natural to want someone to blame.

I'm not very good at blaming people, though. I can sympathize with Augustus for fearing another civil war after he died, and resorting to extreme measures to try to keep his country and grandchildren safe. I grieve for Julia, who wanted to be treated with trust, respect, and the autonomy normally granted to Roman mothers. And I feel for Tiberius, whose divorce from the woman he loved was traumatic, and which likely contributed to his isolation and mental health issues later in life.

If I'm gonna blame anything, I'm gonna blame autocracy itself. Augustus might have succeeded in collecting Rome's power for himself, but it forced his family into marriages and divorces for political expediency, regardless of their own happiness. He treated Octavia, Scribonia, Julia, Tiberius and even Agrippa very callously at times - because he thought he had to, both for them and for their country.

Monarchies aren't just bad for their subjects. They come at an immense cost to the people in power and their loved ones, too.

[uncleclaudius]

Portrait of Antonia Minor carved out of white chalcedony. 1st century AD.

[duxfemina]

A brief summary of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty

Octavian/Augustus - he has a reputation associated with peace but you will get a little ill once you look at all the collateral damage around him and that reputation ie. It's easy to institute a regime of peace when you've murdered everyone who might oppose you

Tiberius - when a chronic people pleaser finally get into a position of power and still no one thinks they're good enough and they finally reach burnout and fuck off to their vacation home indefinitely

Caligula - the first emperor in the long litany of reasons why people whose brain has not fully developed should NOT be given access to unlimited power. Little Boots is either insane or the absolute champion at taking the piss out of the elite and there isn't really a third option

Claudius - an icon for overcoming disability and bullying and knowing how to delegate administration appropriately. Also this man gave his wives a lot of mobility (for the time) so we stan in spite of the sources trying to smear him for that very thing. Also this man was SUCH a nerd and I wish they hadn't destroyed his history of the Civil Wars but that's the Augustan propaganda machine for ya even near kin isn't safe from censorship

Nero - take one traumatic childhood add a flare for the dramatic and then give them unlimited power before their brain is fully developed and now it's like Caligula but with more pizzazz. Nero is literally what happens when that obnoxious rich kid who's into theater gets absolutely unlimited money and power and nothing to curtail his flare for a spectacle.

[wolframpant]

Domina and the children of the next Julio-Claudian generation