Iulia Maior şi transmiterea puterii imperiale
Iulia Maior and the Transmission of the Imperial Power

Summary/Abstract: The influence exerted by Octavia upon Augustus and their collaboration proved to have a decisive role in the apparition of the dynasty line. Unfortunately, we can not precisely know when the concept of the dynasty took shape; nevertheless, we feel entitled to take as a reference point the year 25 BC, when Julia Maior married Caius Marcellus, the son of Octavia, born out of her first marriage. The concept of their dynasty seems to have taken a more definite shape in 21 BC, at the moment when Julia Maior, widowed, married Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, at Octavia’s will. Although the regime of Augustus did not have a hereditary character, the adoption of his nephews, Gaius and Lucius, in the year 17 BC, meant the public statement of his intentions. The death of M. Vipsanius Agrippa, followed by Octavia’s, allowed Livia Drusilla, Augustus’s wife, to enact the third marriage of Julia Maior, with Tiberius. Although Augustus’s daughter fall into disgrace severely damaged the idealized image of the imperial house, until the year 4 AD, when, through adoption, Tiberius joined gens Julia, the succeeding line established 21 years before had not been affected. Ancient historians suggested that the exile of Julia Maior had been caused by the plots of Livia Drusilla which, through these actions, started her struggle to impose Tiberius as the successor at the imperial throne.

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