Domitia (aunt of Messalina)
Domitia | |
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Antonia Major (mother) |
Roman imperial dynasties | ||
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Julio-Claudian dynasty | ||
Chronology | ||
27 BC – AD 14 |
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AD 14–37 |
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AD 37–41 |
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AD 41–54 |
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AD 54–68 |
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Domitia (c. 8 BC-June 59) was the oldest child of
History
Early life
She had two younger siblings:
Marriages
Domitia was likely married to a cousin of
Alternatively, Christian Settipani had suggested that Domitia wasn't actually married to Blaesus - it was her daughter from marriage to Sallustius Crispus who become a wife of Blaesus's son. According to his hypothesis, the marriage between Domitia and Crispus took place earlier, c. 20-25.[2]
Later life
During the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Domitia was an influential rival to Agrippina. In June 59, she died while confined to a bed with severe constipation. Nero was visiting her at the time, and she commented that when he shaved his beard (a Roman symbolic act, usually performed during a ceremony at the age of twenty-one), she would gladly die peacefully. Nero turned to those with him and joked, "I'll take it off at once." According to a rumor, he then ordered the doctors to administer a fatal dose of laxative to his aunt and seized her property while she was dying. Modern scholars such as Miriam T. Griffin distrust the claim that Nero poisoned her.
References
- ISBN 9780198147312.
- ^ Settipani, Christian. Continuité gentilice et continuité sénatoriale dans les familles sénatoriales romaines à l'époque impériale (2000), vol. 2, Addenda et Corrigenda, p. 74
- E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen - e.a. (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III, Berlin, 1933 - . (PIR²)