Julia Flavia

Julia Flavia hairstyle, Terracotta made in Smyrna, c. 90 - Louvre

Julia Flavia (8 September 64 – 91) was the daughter and only child to Roman Emperor Titus from his second marriage to the well-connected Marcia Furnilla.

Julia was born in Rome. Her parents divorced when Julia was an infant, due to her mother's family's connections to the opponents of Emperor Nero. In 65, after the failure of the Pisonian conspiracy, the family of Marcia Furnilla was disfavored by Nero. Julia's father, Titus concluded that he did not want to be connected with any potential plotters and ended his marriage to Marcia Furnilla. Julia was raised by her father. Titus conquered Jerusalem on Julia's sixth birthday.

When growing up, Titus offered her in marriage to his brother Domitian, but he refused because of his infatuation with Domitia Longina. Later she married her second paternal cousin Titus Flavius Sabinus, brother to consul Titus Flavius Clemens, who married her first cousin Flavia Domitilla. By then Domitian had seduced her.

When her father and husband died, in the words of Dio, Domitian:

"lived with [her] as husband with wife, making little effort at concealment. Then upon the demands of the people he became reconciled with Domitia, but continued his relations with Julia nonetheless."

Juvenal condemns this liaison as follows:

"Such a man was that adulterer [i.e. Domitian] who, after lately defiling himself by a union of the tragic style, revived the stern laws that were to be a terror to all men – ay, even to Mars and Venus – just as Julia was relieving her fertile womb and giving birth to abortions that displayed the likeness of her uncle."

Becoming pregnant, Julia died of what was rumoured to be a forced abortion. Julia was deified and her ashes were later mixed and burned with Domitian's by Domitian's former nurse secretly in the Temple of the Flavians.

• Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars – Titus & Domitian 17, 22.
• Dio Cassius, lxvii. 3.
• Pliny, Ep. iv. 11. § 6.
• Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. Tyan. vii. 3.

Media related to Julia Titi at Wikimedia Commons