in 18, the match was considered a disaster; Tacitus includes the event in a list of "the many sorrows which saddened Rome", which otherwise consisted of deaths of different influential people. They had at least one child, Rubellius Plautus, Juvenal, in Satire VIII.39, suggests another son, also named Gaius Rubellius Blandus and an inscription implies Julia was probably the mother of Rubellius Drusus, a child who died before the age of three. Julia also had a step-daughter Rubellia Bassa who married a maternal uncle of the future Roman Emperor Nerva. Around 43, an agent of the Roman Emperor Claudius' wife, Empress Valeria Messalina, had falsely charged Julia with incest and immorality. Messalina considered her and her son a threat to the throne. The Emperor, her uncle Claudius, without securing any defence for his niece, had her executed 'by the sword' (Octavia 944-6: "ferro... caesa est"). She may have anticipated execution by taking her own life. Her distant relative Pomponia Graecina remained in mourning for 40 years in open defiance of the Emperor, yet was unpunished. Julia was executed around the same time as her first cousin Julia Livilla, the daughter of Germanicus and sister of the former Emperor Caligula. Cultural depictions In Robert Graves' novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God Julia was known as "Helen the Glutton". Graves did this as comic relief in the novels, but in reality she did not have a reputation for gluttony. In the 1976 television adaptation she was played by Karin Foley. It unhistorically has her mother attempting to poison her to prevent Sejanus from marrying her, but it is not explicit about whether she died as a result, so glossing over her fate under Claudius. Ancestry References Citations Biography (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani, 3 vol., Berlin, 1897–1898. (PIR1) (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III, Berlin, 1933 - . (PIR2) Raepsaet-Charlier M.-Th., Prosopographie des femmes de l'ordre sénatorial (Ier-IIe siècles), 2 vol., Louvain, 1987, 360 ff; 633 ff. Lightman, Marjorie & Lightman, Benjamin. Biographical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Women. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2000. Levick, Barbara, Claudius. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990. Barrett, Anthony A., Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996. Jucker, Hans & Willers, Dietrich (Hrsg.), Gesichter. Griechische und römische Bildnisse aus Schweizer Besitz, Bern 1982, 92–93. AD 7 births 43 deaths Julio-Claudian dynasty 1st-century