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Scribonia (Around 70 BC-AD 16 ?) was the daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo and Cornelia, the granddaughter of Pompey the Great and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Her brother of the same name was consul and died in 34 BC.
No one knows what Scribonia was really like as her image as a shrew was likely to have been the end product of propaganda to divert the potentially scandalous circumstances of her divorce from Augustus. Seneca describes her as a gravis femina; gravis meaning “dignified” and “severe”. Modern scholars are divided on her character, while some describe her as "tiresome" and "morose". Others view her as a good example of Roman matrons of her time when she grew older, as she clearly had the "composure" and "calmness" to look after depressed and suicidal characters such as her daughter and nephew.
According to Suetonius, her first two marriages were to former consuls. Her first husband is unknown, though it had been suggested that he was Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus (consul 56 BC), as there is an inscription refers to freedmen (post 39 BC) of Scribonia and her son Cornelius Marcellinus (CIL 6.26033: Libertorum et familiae Scribonae Caes. et Corneli Marcell. f. eius), indicating that she had a son from her previous marriage and that he was living with her after she divorced her third husband. He may have died young and ignored by historians. Her second husband was Publius Cornelius Scipio Salvito. They had a daughter Cornelia Scipio who married Lucius Aemilius Paullus who served as a censor. Salvito committed suicide in 46 BC, after Caesar won the Civil War. He was a supporter of Pompey the Great.
In 40 BC Octavian, who was younger than her by ten years, divorced Clodia (his first wife) and married her to cement a political alliance with her uncle Sextus Pompeius. Their daughter Julia the Elder was born in 39 BC, probably in October, and on that very same day Octavian divorced her (Dio Cassius 48.34.3). Their marriage had not been a happy one; Octavian felt she nagged him too much and disliked that she used him to threaten others. She never remarried. When her youngest child, Julia, was sent into exile for adultery and treason, she requested that she be allowed to accompany her (Dio and Velleius), feeling guilty that she had not been a sufficient role model for Julia to follow. When Tiberius came into power, he separated Scribonia from her daughter, and allegedly starved Julia to death. When Scribonia died is unknown. It is mainly placed two years after Julia and Augustus. In Seneca, she is mentioned as being alive as late as the end of 16 AD when she tried to convince her nephew Drusus Libo not to commit suicide.
Scribonia in Drama/Literature
Little is known about Scribonia, but she is mentioned in various dramas and novels, each having a different opinion on what she was like.
Literature
- Scribonia is mentioned in Robert Graves's novel I, Claudius when he recalls Julia's birth and later when Julia is exiled. He describes her as a good, moderate and generally kind Roman matron. She is forbidden to see Julia and is only allowed to be with her once she is exiled. Livia convinces Augustus that Scribonia has been unfaithful to him causing him to divorce her faster then he cared to. Scribonia was innocent. Evidently Augustus believed she was innocent, as he kept Julia. Graves places Scribonia's death at least two years prior to when it historically occurred.
- Scribonia gets several mentions in the novel Augustus by Allan Massie. She is ugly, gap-toothed and fat. Rather than being ten years older then Augustus, she is twenty years older. Augustus divorces her after Julia's birth to legitimise her. Scribonia writes to Augustus, begging him to let her see Julia, but he always says no. Allan Massie appears to suggest that Julia got her personality from Scribonia rather than Augustus as historians tend to claim.
- Scribonia plays a major role in the novel Caesar's Daughter trying to aid Julia in her lifestyle and her education. She is a very politically aware woman, with detailed information gathering and she plays patroness to many poets such as Horace and Ovid.
Drama
- Scribonia, is mentioned on and off during Augustus. She is only a few years older than Augustus, and he marries her for her money to pay his armies. Maecenas describes her as being "lovely", "charming", "boring" and a "noblewoman of the Flavian family". Julia has loyalty to her and blames Augustus for his bad treatment of people, including her mother, saying that he just used her to get a baby off her. However, Augustus claims he loved Scribonia in his own way, because she gave him Julia.
"Scribonia"