Empresses -- Rome -- Biography; Women -- Rome -- Biography
Julia now cast aside the last traces of restraint. A half-dozen of the
young nobles of Rome are associated with her in the chronicles, and,
gossipy and unreliable as the records are, in this case the issue of
the story disposes us to believe the charges. Round such a repute as
hers legends were bound to grow, and the conscientious biographer must
be reserved in giving details. Dio tells us, for instance, that she
expected her lovers to put crowns, for each success she permitted them
to attain, at the foot of the statue of Marsyas--a public statue, at
the feet of which Roman lawyers were wont to place a crown when they
had won a case. However that may be, it is certain that in the nightly
dissipation of Rome, when plebeian offenders sought the darkness of the
Milvian Bridge, or wantoned in the taverns and brothels of the Subura,
Julia’s party was one of the boldest and most conspicuous. Not content
with the riotous supper, which it was now the fashion to prolong by
lamp-light, in perfumed chambers, until late hours of the night, Julia
and her friends went out into the streets, and caroused in the very
tribunal in the Forum--the Rostra, a platform decorated with the prows
of captured vessels--from which her father made known his Imperial
decisions.[5]
The thunder of the Imperial anger scattered this licentious band some
time in the second year before Christ. In the earlier part of the year
Octavian had entertained Rome with one of the thrilling spectacles
which he often provided. To celebrate the dedication of a new temple of
Mars, which he had built, he had the Flaminian Circus flooded, gave the
people a mock naval battle, and had thirteen crocodiles slain by the
gladiators. Julia had hoodwinked the Emperor so long that she and her
friends seem to have abandoned all restraint, and their adventures came
to the knowledge of the Emperor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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