Identifier: grandeurthatwasr00stobrich (find matches)
Title: The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Stobart, J. C. (John Clarke), 1878-1933
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd
Contributing Library: Internet Archive
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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in a very difficult position when it came tosetting an example. The principal evils which his social codewas designed to remedy were the prevalence of adultery, thefrequency of divorce, voluntary celibacy and formal marriagescontracted without intention of producing offspring, and finally,as a consequence of celibacy, the prevalence of a regular pro-fession of fortune-hunting. There was scarcely one of thesenecessary reforms to which Caesar himself came with cleanhands. He had begun his matrimonial career by repudiatinghis young betrothed; he had then married an immature virgin,and divorced her for political reasons before the marriage wasconsummated; in the third place he had married Scribonia,who had already had two husbands, and whose son was alreadya man at the time of her marriage to Augustus. She was manyyears older than he, and the marriage was intended to securea reconciliation with Sextus Pompeius. This third matrimonialventure was terminated in a manner which shocked even226
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AUGUSTAN ROME Roman society. On the very day when Scribonia became amother by him, Augustus put her away charging her withimmorality, though he kept her infant Julia as his own andonly child. He had been fascinated, it seems, by the fair faceand brilliant abilities of Livia Drusilla. Livia was of thehighest ancestry in Rome, a descendant of Appius Claudius,and attached by adoption to another very noble family, theLivii. Also she had married another scion of the illustriousClaudian house, the proudest in Rome, and at the age of fifteenhad become the mother of Tiberius. Her father had chosenthe losing side at Philippi, and committed suicide after thebattle. Her husband, Claudius Nero, had taken arms againstAugustus—or Octavian, as he then was—in the PerusineWar, and his life was forfeited. His beautiful wife sued theconqueror for mercy, and mercy was granted upon conditions.Nero was compelled not only to divorce his wife, but to act thepart of a father and give her away in marriage

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