Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 16 BC)

For others of this family, see Ahenobarbus.

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (fl. 1st century BC & 1st century) was the son and only child of consul Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Aemilia Lepida. His mother was a paternal relative of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. His paternal grandmother was Porcia Catonis (sister to Cato the Younger).[1]

As a young man Lucius was a renowned and devoted charioteer, perhaps to the point of obsession.[2] He was betrothed in 36 BC, at the meeting of Octavianus and Mark Antony at Tarentum, to Antonia Major, the daughter of the latter by Octavia. He was aedile in 22 BC, and consul in 16 BC. After his consulship, and probably as the successor of Tiberius, he commanded the Roman army in Germany, crossed the Elbe, where he set up an altar to Augustus, and penetrated further into the country than any of his predecessors had done. He also built a walkway, called the pontes longi, over the marshes between the Rhine River and the Ems River. For these achievements he received the insignia of a triumph. He died in 25. He was the paternal grandfather of the Emperor Nero and the maternal grandfather of Valeria Messalina, third wife of the Emperor Claudius.

Suetonius described him as "arrogant, cruel, notorious and extravagant,"[3] and records numerous instances of his disrespect, to censor Lucius Munatius Plancus, to a proconsul of Africa, to a legate of Illyricum, &c.[2] In his praetorship and consulship he brought Roman equites and married women on the stage to perform in pantomimes, which rankled because in Rome acting was considered to be low-class. He exhibited shows of wild beasts in every quarter of the city, and his gladiatorial combats were conducted with such excessive bloodshed that even Augustus was obliged to put some restraint upon them.[4][5][6]

He had three children with Antonia Major: Domitia (aunt of Nero), consul Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was first husband of future Empress Agrippina the Younger and biological father of the Emperor Nero, and Domitia Lepida, who was mother of the Empress Valeria Messalina and Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix.

References

  1. ^ Smith, William (1867), "Ahenobarbus (9), Lucius Domitius", in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 86, http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0095.html 
  2. ^ a b Syme, Ronald (1996), "Domitus Ahenobarbus, Lucius (2)", in Hornblower, Simon, Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press 
  3. ^ Suetonius, Nero 4
  4. ^ Tacitus, Annales iv. 44
  5. ^ Cassius Dio, liv. 59
  6. ^ Marcus Velleius Paterculus, ii. 72
Political offices
Preceded by
Gaius Furnius and Gaius Iunius Silanus		 Consul of the Roman Empire
16 BC		 Succeeded by
Marcus Livius Drusus Libo and Lucius Calpurnius Piso