Julia as Diana

Sale: CNG 82, Lot: 971. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2009.  Sold For $1950. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus, with Julia. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (3.91 g, 8h). Rome mint. C. Marius C.f. Tro(mentina tribu), moneyer. Struck 13 BC. Bare head of Augustus right; behind, lituus to left / Diademed and draped bust of Julia (as Diana) right; quiver over shoulder. RIC I 403; RSC 1 (Julia and Augustus). Good VF, toned, light scratches under tone, area of flat strike on head of Julia. Very rare.

Julia, the only child of Augustus, was born to him by his second wife, Scribonia. While still an infant, Julia was betrothed to Mark Antony’s son Antyllus, whom Augustus (still as Octavian) had executed in 30 BC. She was married in 25 BC to Marcellus, the son of Augustus’s sister, Octavia, but when Marcellus died in 21 BC, Julia was then married to Agrippa, Augustus’s second-in-command and the victor of Actium. By Agrippa Julia had five children; her oldest sons, Caius and Lucius, were groomed to succeed Augustus upon his death. Julia’s third marriage, following Agrippa’s death in 12 BC, was to Tiberius, Augustus’s stepson, who then had been taking over some of Augustus’s military duties. This third marriage proved to be an unhappy one for Julia, who began to engage in various extramarital affairs, and for Tiberius, who, having been forced to give up his previous (and happy) marriage in order to marry Julia, became increasingly unhappy by Julia’s actions and withdrew to Rhodes in 4 BC. Augustus’s banishment of Julia in 2 BC, as well as the deaths of Caius in AD 4 and Lucius in AD 2 necessitated a rapproachment between Tiberius and Augustus, with Tiberius’s recall from Rhodes and appointment as heir in AD 4.