WI: Postumus Agrippa Succeeded Augustus?

Poor Agrippa Posthumous. I could never fathom how a love of fishing and telling bawdy jokes could be seen as a scandal. The image of the guy pleasantly fishing on the Tiber always struck me as probably the most human description of the "son of Neptune." It seems he was merely a victim of Court Intrigue that went over his head rather than a major player.

That and Augustus describing his grandson as "my little donkey" in his overly saccharine personal letters (I think that was it) would always stand out when I read about the family.
 
There can only be one. Family connections didn't make much difference to the Julio-Claudians. Germanicus as an adult Caesar, famous general, son of the famous general Drusus of late memory, descended from the patrician families of the Julii, Claudii Pulchri and Claudii Nerones, would pose a constant threat to the security of Agrippa Postumus, a man whose father was a complete newcomer, a municipal! Germanicus' blood connection to Mark Antony make him a risk in the East, where many had fond memories and loyalty to the Antony's, and his Julian wife and abundant brood of children would only make him a superior candidacy for the Principate.

A bit exagerated about Agrippa Postumus' ancestry.

His father was the great military hero of his age and had been the first man associated to the supreme power by Augustus. He was consul 3 times : one time was enough to make his children nobles.

And contrarily to Tiberius or Germanicus, Postumus had in his veins the "divine" blood of Augustus. The power of this blood was very strong. It was decisive in Caligula's and Nero's reaching supreme powers instead of other "heirs/candidates" like Tiberius Gemellus and Britannicus.

What would have been for Germanicus is not his ancestry but his marriage to Augustus' grand daughter Agrippina and the fact that they had many children among which 3 sons alive before Augustus' death.
 
A bit exagerated about Agrippa Postumus' ancestry.

His father was the great military hero of his age and had been the first man associated to the supreme power by Augustus. He was consul 3 times : one time was enough to make his children nobles.

And contrarily to Tiberius or Germanicus, Postumus had in his veins the "divine" blood of Augustus. The power of this blood was very strong. It was decisive in Caligula's and Nero's reaching supreme powers instead of other "heirs/candidates" like Tiberius Gemellus and Britannicus.

What would have been for Germanicus is not his ancestry but his marriage to Augustus' grand daughter Agrippina and the fact that they had many children among which 3 sons alive before Augustus' death.

To mimic a Senator of the day: who was Agrippa's father?
 
And you know Cicero's answer to this senator ?

"At least my mother has let me know whi is my father!"

You can more or less compare Agrippa to Marius. Both were new men. Booth were the great military hero of their age. And if both always remained despised by some old noble families, their children were nobles and married into the greatest noble families (Marius the younger was married to a Licinia from the Licinii Crassi).

And you also have to take into account that the nobility had become more open with the rule of Augustus who was himself an upstart, though having been adopted by his patrician relative Julius Caesar. Anthony dubbed Octavian as the son of a rope maker.
 
And you know Cicero's answer to this senator ?

"At least my mother has let me know whi is my father!"

You can more or less compare Agrippa to Marius. Both were new men. Booth were the great military hero of their age. And if both always remained despised by some old noble families, their children were nobles and married into the greatest noble families (Marius the younger was married to a Licinia from the Licinii Crassi).

And you also have to take into account that the nobility had become more open with the rule of Augustus who was himself an upstart, though having been adopted by his patrician relative Julius Caesar. Anthony dubbed Octavian as the son of a rope maker.

Both Agrippa and Marius marry in noble families (Marius's wife, Julia, was Caesar's aunt, Agrippa's first wife was Atticus' daughter, then Octavia's eldest daughter (from her first marriage) and last Julia, the only child of August) and in any case their children, being children of a man who was Counsul were nobles.
Marius the Younger's wife was not a Licina, but Mucia Tertia, daughter of Scaevola Pontifex (but Mucia's mother who was also mother of Metellus Celer and Metellus Nepos was a Licinia). He was the first of her three husband, then she became the third wife of Pompey the Great (who was widowed of Aemilia Scaura, Sulla's stepdaughter) and was the mother of his three children (after divorce her, Pompey marry first Julia daughter of Caesar and after her death Cornelia Metella, daughter of Metellus Scipio) and at last she marry Aemilius Scaurus (Silla's stepson, elder half-brother of her son-in-law and younger brother of Pompey's Aemilia)
 
You have been mistaken by wikipedia which says that Marius the younger's wife was a Mucia. But this is wrong and has long been proven wrong by the best scholars (first of all Munzer).

I also think you are confusing 2 different Mucii Scaevolae from 2 different lines of the same family : the augur (159-88, consul 117 and teacher and mentor of Cicero) and the pontifex (consul 95 and murdered in 82 by extremist marians).

Cicero, in 2 of his letters (Brut 211 and ad Att 12.49.2) speaks of these people whom he knew very well since he was from Arpinum like Marius and was something close to a friend with Marius the younger and since he was also an admirer of the orators Crassus (consul 95 and censor 91) and Scaevola the augur (his teacher and mentor).

The Mucius who interceded for Marius against Sulla in 88 in the Senate and to whose house Marius the the younger fled and hid in 88 was the old Augur, not the Pontifex.

Marius the younger would not have had murdered and did not have the father of his wife murdered 6 years later in 88. His father Marius would also not have allied (by marrying his son) to a line of the Mucii who was allied with the Metelli, since the Metelli were Marius's enemies.

Mucius Scaevola the augur had only 2 daughters. One of them was married to an Acilius Glabrio and the other to Lucius Licinius Crassus, the orator admired by Cicero.
And Cicero explicitly wrote that the youngest Marius (whom Anthony had killed in 44) was the grand son of Crassus the orator.
Licinius Crassus the orator had 2 daughters too, both named Licinia : one married to a Cornelius Scipio (and mother of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio) and the other married to Marius the younger.
Scaevola the augur was the grandfather of Marius the younger's wife.

As far as the great Marius is concerned, he did marry a noble patrician woman, Caesar's aunt. But don't mistake here too. At that time, this line of the Julii Caesares was not important. They were relegated, third rank nobles, though from ancient patrician family. In this mariage, it is not Marius who struck a good deal : it is the Julii Caesares who made the right bet on the new man who was just about to become the great hero of the republic. The mariage took place around 110 (since Marius the younger was born in 109) before Marius was elected consul for the first time.

But you are perfectly right about Mucia Tertia wife of Pompey : she was the daughter of the pontifex murdered in 82.

The same confusions are possible between 2 lines of the Julii Caesares :
- the one which was initially the most powerful and prestigious, with the consul of 157, then his grandsons Lucius (consul 90 who passed the law granting citizenship to the italians during the social war, and was Anthony's grandfather) and Gaius the orator, both murdered in 87, like their ally Marcus Antonius orator (Anthony's grandfather), because they had betrayed and turned against their former ally (and to a certain extent former patron) Marius.
- the one who was most closely allied with Marius and remained faithful to Marius, with the 2 brothers of the Julia married to Marius. These 2 brothers were Sextus Julius Caesar, consul 91 (thanks to the support of Marius) but was unfortunately killed in battle during the social war, and Gaius Julius Caesar the father of the future dictator Caesar. That is this alliance with Marius and the loyalty of the young Gaius Julius Caesar to the cause of the marians and of the populares which was one of the keys of his career, his popularity, and his successes.
 
Last edited:
Not forgetting that Marius the Elder was Julia Caesaris' second husband. The first was Granius, a slave trader of Puteoli, by whom she had a son (Granius, who pops up in history briefly in 88BC). A rather low, obscure match, which corroborates Matteo's description of a family whose fortunes were at a low ebb.

Augustus was something of an upstart, but he had money (even before becoming Caesar), name, and connections. Even though his branch of Octavii escaped the higher magistracies, there were Octavi to be found among the consuls, praetors, tribunes, etc. He had the consular Philippus for step-father, the consular Marcellus Minor for brother-in-law, Pompey the Great for cousin (by blood and marriage), Marius and Caesar for uncles.

Agrippa was not only a new man, he was a municipal nobody. Likewise, Livia's mother was the daughter of some 'lowly' municipal, to the shame of her Imperial descendants. Obtaining the consulate, military glory and rich marriages certainly lightened the blow, but it was still a weak point for their descendants.
 
Augustus had absolutely no known family link with the Octavii who were consuls. There were some Cornelii or Fabii who were neither patrician, nor even noble, and had absolutely no link with the Cornelii Scipiones or the Fabii Maximi, but just shared with them a quite common name.

His father, though very rich and well connected, was from Velitrae.

Caesar's second sister Julia, the grandmother of Octavian/Augustus, made a rather good marriage (with Marcus Atius Balbus) probably thanks to the family alliance with Marius. Atius Balbus was connected to the family of Pompey by collateral links.

Thanks to his fortune and his alliances, Octavian's father succeded in reaching the praetorship in 61 and was then propraetor or proconsul of Macedonia. But hé died prematurely in 59.

As far as Octavian's mother Atia's (Caesar's niece) second marriage with Marcius Philippus and Octavian's sister Octavia's marriage with Gaius Claudius Marcellus are concerned, they were mainly the result of Caesar's power at the time, much more than the result of the respectability of their dead husband and father. In the 50's, Caesar was one of the 2 or 3 most powerful men in Rome and he was of course the family leader. He was the one who decided who his niece and grandniece were going to marry.
 
Every stemma I've seen of the Octavii links Augustus' branch with the consular branch. A situation similar to the well known Claudii Pulchri and Livia's own, lesser known and less successful branch of that family.
 
Yes, but as far as Augustus is concerned, I am not sure at all that these stemma are very reliable. Romans were not the last, but they were experts at inventing false genealogy. And Augustus had a strong need to improve his real origins.

If there was a link, it must have been very distant.
 
As far as the great Marius is concerned, he did marry a noble patrician woman, Caesar's aunt. But don't mistake here too. At that time, this line of the Julii Caesares was not important. They were relegated, third rank nobles, though from ancient patrician family. In this mariage, it is not Marius who struck a good deal : it is the Julii Caesares who made the right bet on the new man who was just about to become the great hero of the republic. The mariage took place around 110 (since Marius the younger was born in 109) before Marius was elected consul for the first time.

But you are perfectly right about Mucia Tertia wife of Pompey : she was the daughter of the pontifex murdered in 82.

The same confusions are possible between 2 lines of the Julii Caesares :
- the one which was initially the most powerful and prestigious, with the consul of 157, then his grandsons Lucius (consul 90 who passed the law granting citizenship to the italians during the social war, and was Anthony's grandfather) and Gaius the orator, both murdered in 87, like their ally Marcus Antonius orator (Anthony's grandfather), because they had betrayed and turned against their former ally (and to a certain extent former patron) Marius.
- the one who was most closely allied with Marius and remained faithful to Marius, with the 2 brothers of the Julia married to Marius. These 2 brothers were Sextus Julius Caesar, consul 91 (thanks to the support of Marius) but was unfortunately killed in battle during the social war, and Gaius Julius Caesar the father of the future dictator Caesar. That is this alliance with Marius and the loyalty of the young Gaius Julius Caesar to the cause of the marians and of the populares which was one of the keys of his career, his popularity, and his successes.

I know who that line of the Juliii Caesaris was not the more powerful and was decadute and not much important and they benefice very much from this marriage but the alliance was useful also for Marius: a patrician wife gave him more respectability and credibility and surely help him to win his first consulate...

Now I do not remind in which book I read about Mucia Tertia as wife of Marius the younger but I remind to have read that somewhere (likely the book was not accurate)
 
Last edited:
Top