Owing to the early marriages of the Romans a family quickly became patriarchal; some of these marriages, it is true, were mere contracts, children being sometimes married to secure dowries or successions, or ratify family alliances, almost before they were out of the nursery. Owing again to divorces and remarriages the various degrees of affinity between the members of a group of families are very difficult to trace; adoption adds complications, which are further increased by the paucity of Roman names, especially as women generally retained the feminine form of their father’s names after marriage, and sisters were often indistinguishable. Five chief families were united in the household of Augustus: the Julian--of this the heads were the Emperor himself and his sister Octavia; the Claudian, represented by Livia and her two sons, Tiberius and Drusus; the Vipsanian, represented by Agrippa; the Claudian Marcellan by Octavia’s three elder children; the Antonian by her two younger children. The heads between whom all matrimonial transactions were arranged were Augustus, Livia, Octavia, and Agrippa. Of these four Agrippa was to the two ladies the unwelcome but inevitable intruder; Livia was disposed to push the Claudians, Octavia the Julians, whom she represented equally with her brother the Emperor. These four high contracting parties were about the same age, Octavia being somewhat the older of the four. If there was to be a dynasty, and if the succession was to follow the strict line of heredity, Julia, the one child of Augustus, was obviously the great matrimonial prize. Matters in her case were somewhat complicated by the existence of her mother, Scribonia, an affectionate but easy-going lady, who seems to have abstained from active interference in her daughter’s affairs till she accompanied her into exile many years later. There was another heiress in the family of the same age as Julia, namely Vipsania, the daughter of the despised but necessary Agrippa. She was the granddaughter of Pomponius Atticus, the very wealthy banker and friend of Cicero. Agrippa had married her mother when his fortunes were still at a low ebb, and when it was desirable to conciliate the Equestrian Order to the advancement of Octavian and his friends. Agrippa owed his position entirely to his great ability, and his single-hearted unselfish devotion to the fortunes of Augustus. Nobody had ever heard of the Vipsanian family till he rose to eminence, and the Claudian and Julian ladies were contemptuous of its degrading associations. We do not know whether Pomponia died or was put away, but in the year B.C. 25 Julia, being of the age of fourteen, was declared marriageable, and a pleasing atmosphere of matrimonial intrigue filled the house on the Palatine. To consolidate the fortunes of Agrippa--a really formidable rival, if he chose to declare himself--with those of Augustus, the right thing to do was to marry Julia to Agrippa, but Livia wanted her for Tiberius. A