Agrippa Postumus sibling Julia the Younger
Early life and family
Agrippa Postumus was born in Rome in 12 BC, approximately three months after his father, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, died in the summer. He was born into the equestrian gens Vipsania, as the son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, one of Augustus' leading generals, and Julia the Elder, the daughter of Augustus and his second wife Scribonia. Postumus was the third son and last child of Agrippa and Julia; his older siblings were Gaius Caesar, Julia the Younger, Lucius Caesar, and Agrippina the Elder. His brothers, Gaius and Lucius, were both adopted by Augustus following the birth of Lucius in 17 BC.Before his brother Gaius left Rome for Asia, Gaius and Lucius were given the authority to consecrate the Temple of Mars Ultor (1 August 2 BC), and they managed the games held to celebrate the Temple's dedication. Postumus was still a student, and participated in the Lusus Troiae ("Trojan Games") with the rest of the equestrian youth. At these games, according to Cassius Dio, 260 lions were slaughtered in the Circus Maximus, there was gladiatorial combat and a naval battle between the "Persians" and the "Athenians", and 36 crocodiles were slaughtered in the Circus Flaminius.Exile
In AD 6, an uprising began in the Roman province of Illyricum. Augustus sent Tiberius to crush the revolt with his army, and after a year of delayed results, he sent Germanicus in his capacity as quaestor to assist in bringing the war to a swift end. The reason, Dio says, that Germanicus was chosen over Postumus is because Postumus was of an "illiberal nature".Postumus was known for being brutish, insolent, stubborn, and potentially violent. He possessed great physical strength and reportedly showed little interest in anything other than fishing. He resisted all efforts to improve his behavior, forcing Augustus to "abdicate" him from the Julii in AD 6 and banish him to a villa at Surrentum, near Pompeii. As an abdicated adoptee (adoptatus abdicatus) he lost the Julian name and returned to the gens Vipsania. The ancient historian Velleius Paterculus had this to say of the banishment:
The following year, in 7 AD, Augustus had the Senate make Postumus' banishment permanent and had him moved to Planasia (modern Pianosa, Italy), a small island between Italy and Corsica. Augustus bolstered the natural inaccessibility of the rocky island by having an armed guard installed there. The Senate was ordered to never allow his release.No consensus has emerged as to why Augustus banished Postumus. Tacitus suggests that Augustus' wife Livia had always disliked and shunned Postumus, as he stood in the way of her son Tiberius succeeding to power after Augustus, given that Postumus was a direct biological descendant of Augustus and Tiberius was not. Some modern historians theorise that Postumus may have become involved in a conspiracy against Augustus. Postumus was held under intense security.Postumus' sister Julia the Younger was banished around the same time (AD 8) and her husband Lucius Aemilius Paullus was executed for allegedly plotting a conspiracy against Augustus. There was later a conspiracy to rescue Julia and Postumus by Lucius Audasius and Asinius Epicadus. Audasius was an accused forger of advanced age and Asinius was half-Illyrian. According to Suetonius, Audasius and Epicadus had planned to take Julia and Postumus by force to the armies. It is unclear what their exact plan was, or even which armies Suetonius was referring to, because the conspiracy was discovered early in its planning, possibly before they had even left Rome.
brother or sister kin