Vipsania Marcella

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Vipsania Marcella Agrippina or Marcellina (born 27 BC) was the only daughter to Roman statesman Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa from his second wife Claudia Marcella Major.[1] She was the first grandchild to Octavia Minor and first great-niece to Roman Emperor Augustus.

About 14 BC, she married the Roman general and politician Publius Quinctilius Varus[2] or Marcus Aemilius Lepidus[3]. If she was married to the latter, then a son of her is known from a dedication inscription in the basilica Aemilia.[3]

Tacitus hints that she did not die in childbirth or of natural causes. He states that Agrippa's children were either killed in battle, starved to death or poisoned.[4] However, this may have just applied to Agrippa's children by Julia the Elder, Augustus' daughter. Tacitus makes no specific comment on Marcellina. The date of her death is uncertain.

In Robert Graves books, I, Claudius and Claudius the God, Roman Empress Livia Drusilla charged her with incest with her late father and she committed suicide.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Suet., Aug. 63.1.
  2. ^ This hypothesis is rebutted in M. Reinhold, Marcus Agrippa's Son-in-Law P Quinctilius Varus, in CPh 67 (1972), pp. 119-121.
  3. ^ a b R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocraty, Oxford, 1986, p. 125.
  4. ^ Tac., Ann. III 19.3.