Scribonia of Rome

70 BC – 16 · Generation II

Scribonia (70 BC – AD 16). Married Augustus around 40 BC; the marriage was dissolved in 38 BC. One of their children is recorded in this archive. Divorced by Octavian on the very day their daughter Julia was born. Her mother was Sentia; her father, a Lucius Scribonius Libo, is usually taken to be the praetor of 80 BC, which would make the consul of 34 BC her brother. Suetonius says she had three husbands, the first two of consular rank; from an earlier marriage came a son, Cornelius Marcellinus, and a daughter, Cornelia, whose death in 18 BC Propertius mourned in verse. In 40 BC she was made to leave her husband and marry Octavian, sealing his alliance with Sextus Pompey, who had wed her niece or sister. She never remarried and was apparently still known as Caesar’s wife. When Julia was banished to Pandateria in 2 BC, Scribonia chose to share her exile, later moving with her to Rhegium. Around AD 16, aged about eighty-five, she urged her great-nephew Libo Drusus, accused of plotting against Tiberius, to face trial rather than take his own life.

Place in the family

The archive records 5 of her descendants, across 4 generations.

Partners

Married Augustus Caesar (63 BC – 14) in 40 BC; the marriage was dissolved in 38 BC — one child together

Children

Julia the Elder (39 BC – 14)

Life

70 BC — Born
40 BC — Married Augustus
38 BC — Parted from Augustus
16 — Died