Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [169]
It may be no coincidence that in this year the people are reported to have pressed for some (unspecified) reforms. They sent the tribunes to talk with Augustus, who attended an assembly of the people and discussed their demands in person with them. Perhaps the agitation had something to do with his decision to restrict the number of citizens who could receive free grain (Rome’s only concession to state-funded social welfare); and he distributed a possibly conciliatory grant of 240 sesterces to each citizen.
All this is speculation. However, Pliny, writing about Augustus in the middle of the following century, remarks (in passing, as of a fact which everyone knows) on “his daughter’s adultery and the revelation of her plots against her father’s life.” This implies a common opinion that there was more to Julia’s downfall than sexual promiscuity.
If there was an assassination plot, it is difficult to see what Julia and her supporters were hoping to achieve. We can reasonably assume that she loved her sons; killing Augustus at this time would have damaged rather than advanced their interests. Gaius and Lucius were much too young to succeed the princeps, and Tiberius, well liked by the legions, could be counted on to fill the power gap.
There is only one explanation that is psychologically and politically plausible. This is that Julia believed her sons’ position would be weak in the event of her father’s death in the coming five years or so, before they were mature enough to assert their rights and defend themselves. She would have found it useful to attract the support of an experienced male political figure. If she could marry her lover, Iullus Antonius, she would not only be satisfying her appetites, but Gaius and Lucius would have a high-profile protector during an awkward and dangerous interregnum. It is possible that the letter she sent to her father complaining about Tiberius was part of a campaign to engineer a divorce, for which she would need Augustus’ permission. In a word, a conspiracy to control events after the princeps was dead has been misinterpreted as a conspiracy to see the princeps dead.
This line of thought suggests a fairly benign scheme, with whose aims Augustus would have had some sympathy. He would have been irritated by Julia’s interference in his dynastic business, but surely not furious as we know him to have been. It follows that at least some of the tales about his daughter’s rackety private life must have been true, or at least that he believed them.
Here, then, to summarize, is a best guess at the real story behind Julia’s downfall. She headed a political faction, dedicated to promoting her sons’ interests as eventual successors to Augustus. The boys, encouraged by him, were very popular with the people, and Julia as their mother spoke up for the concerns and grievances of Rome’s citizenry. Her role was that of a loyal opposition within the regime. Her father found this a useful safety device for the release of political pressure, but she risked overstepping the line of acceptable lobbying.
When the scandal broke, a number of factors came together at the same time. With Tiberius’ withdrawal to Rhodes, Julia was pursuing an innocuous plot to get permission to divorce him and marry Iullus Antonius, her purpose being to strengthen her position and her sons’ in the event of the princeps’ early death; she was associating herself (Marsyas) with growing popular discontent in Rome; and she and her private life discredited her father’s conservative social policies.