ABSTRACT
If Julia’s father and stepmother followed the initial scandal of their precipitate marriage with an exemplary life and a strict parental model for their assorted children, they were probably exceptional. We cannot judge high society by the exaggerated gossip that circulates, as anyone will know if they read accounts in the newspapers of the supposed behaviour of their own acquaintances. But if we cannot know what Julia saw of high society in the years just before and during her first marriage (or until the birth of her first child in 20 BCE), we do know what she is likely to have read about the lives of her peers. One major source of personal poetry was the household and circle of friends of the conservative aristocrat M. Valerius Messala Corvinus (64 BCE-8 CE) who fought for Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, then transferred his allegiance to Octavian. He seems to have been appointed as Praetor in mid-year 40 after the treaty of Brundisium, and served Octavian as Agrippa’s deputy in the campaign of Naulochus in 36. He was made Consul Suffect in 31 BCE in Mark Antony’s place when Octavian declared against his fellow triumvir and deprived him of his expected magistracy. One of Octavian’s leading generals and most respected supporters at Rome, Messala was associated with the old republic, and would be the symbolic spokesman who offered the Princeps the title of pater patriae on behalf of the Senate in 2 BCE.
