Marcus Atius Balbus

Marcus Atius Balbus (105 – 51 BC) was a 1st-century BC Roman who served as a praetor in 62 BC and became governor of Sardinia. He was the maternal grandfather of Augustus the first Roman Emperor, and a cousin of Pompey.

Early life

Balbus was born and raised in Aricia into a political family and was the son and heir of the elder Marcus Atius Balbus (148 – 87 BC). His mother was Pompeia the sister to consul Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey Magnus, a member of the First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus.

The family of the elder Balbus came from a Roman senatorial family of plebs status from Aricia (modern Ariccia, Italy). "Balbus" in Latin means stammer.

Career

During the consulship of Julius Caesar in 59 BC, Balbus was appointed along with Pompey to a board of commissioners under a Julian Law to divide estates in Campania among the commoners. Cicero stated that Pompey would say as a joke about Balbus, that he was not a person of any importance.

Personal life

He married Julia Minor, the younger of the two sisters of the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar. Julia bore him three (or two) daughters and they were:

• Atia Balba Prima
• Atia Balba Secunda (or: Atia Major) married first, Gaius Octavius and later, Lucius Marcius Philippus; and became the mother of Octavia Minor, who was the fourth wife of triumvir Mark Antony, and of the first Emperor Augustus.
• Atia Balba Tertia married the younger Lucius Marcius Philippus, the stepson of her sister through her second marriage, and became the mother of Marcia, who later married Paullus Fabius Maximus.

Death

The younger Balbus died in 51 BC.

Sources

• Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Augustus
• https://web.archive.org/web/20060511155339/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0464.html