Julians and Claudians (1 Viewer)

[DeepDarkRose]

which ones were julians and which ones were claudians? i know julians are decendants of augustus and claudians are decendants of livia from her previous marriage, but they intermarried and i'm getting confused, was claudius the only claudian emperor? i was trying to figure out who is who and i found that there are very few only claudian people, is that true? or did i get it wrong?
~ fanx

 

[Caratacus]

Tiberius and Claudius are Claudians, though Claudius's maternal grandmother (Antonia's mother) was Octavia, Augustus's sister. Gaius (Caligula) has Julian blood (eg from his mother Agrippina the Elder, Julia's daughter, Augustus's grand daughter) and Claudian blood (from his dad Germanicus, son of Drusus who was son of Livia). Nero was a good mix of both bloodlines through various ancestors. Really, the only "pure" Claudian would be Tiberius, with Claudius coming second.

 

[astro]

I thought Nero was from Agrippina the younger's first marriage and that he wasn't blood related to the royal house...but then again most of the family was inbred...although i'm not 100% sure the Julians would have to include Augustus (first emperor).....

 

[charmed_cuties]

do we have to make such a distinction between the two??? don't they interrelate and isn't that why it is known as the Julio Claudians??

 

[Caratacus]

Nero's original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and his father was Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. The Domitii Ahenobarbi were a distinguished plebeian family with at least seven consulships to their credit (according to Suetonius' Life of Nero), promoted to patrician rank by Octavian around 30 BC.

Cnaeus was the son of another Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Antonia the Elder (sister of Antonia Minor - Claudius, Germanicus and Livilla's mother). Both Antonias were the daughters of Marcus Antonius and Octavia, Octavian's (ie Augustus's) sister, from that period during the Second Triumvirate when Antonius was married to Octavia (from 40 BC until after 37 BC when Antonius went back to Cleopatra).

So Nero's father was related by blood to Augustus, being descended from Augustus's sister. Hence Nero can be said to have had Julian blood. And three emperors (ironically perhaps) were descended from Augustus's rival Marcus Antonius - Gaius, Claudius and Nero.

Interestingly, of Cnaeus's (Nero's father) sisters, one was the mother of Messalina (Claudius's wife), and another was married to Passienus Crispus who divorced her to become Agrippina's second husband.

 

[Paroissien]

do we have to make such a distinction between the two??? don't they interrelate and isn't that why it is known as the Julio Claudians??

Yeah, thats right, but I assume the original question was asked for interest sake. You won't need to make any distinction in the exam.

 

[Caratacus]

>>>You won't need to make any distinction in the exam.

Doesn't that depend on the question? If the question was on the Julio-Claudian succession, for example, detail such as this could lift your mark. It could be useful also in the Agrippina/Personality question too if that was on family background.

 

[DeepDarkRose]

yea i asked mostly for interest's sake, i was just reading something about agrippina and how some scholar said she started to favour julians over claudians and i got confused as to who they were referring to... didn't make much sense to me anyway, cause agrippina wasn't the personality we studied, so i dont know that much about her... thanx anyway everyone!

 

[Paroissien]

Doesn't that depend on the question? If the question was on the Julio-Claudian succession, for example, detail such as this could lift your mark. It could be useful also in the Agrippina/Personality question too if that was on family background.[/QUOTE]

My teacher made this same point today in relation to Agrippina, so obviously it could be useful. I know the basics of the family tree so I should be able to manage it.

 

[SimpaticO]

It's useful to know the distinction between the two but it isn't absolutely essential. Just make sure that if the the HSC question asks you to write about one of the Julio Claudian emperors that you don't write about Augustus because the "Julio Claudian" line of emperors are those to Nero who came after him.

You're only to write about Augustus if the question directs you to. I remember our assessment on this in which one of my class mates wrote about Augustus for a question which asked you to write about "a Julio Claudian emperor".

He wrote a good essay but our teacher had to give him zero because technically he hadn't answered the question by writing about Augustus.

 

[randhi]

But thats just so unfair, i mean we all write some crap sometimes and some of us don't even link back to the question but we still answer the question regardless and get marks for what ever we do write thats related... thats just really odd to me.