General Notes

SCRIBONIA. The wife of Octavianus, after­wards the emperor Augustus, had been previously married to two men of consular rank, according to Suetonius (Aug. 62). This writer, however, does not mention their names ; and we know the name of only one of them, namely P. Cornelius Scipio, of whose consulship, however, there is no record. [SciPio, No. 31.J By him she had two children, P. Cornelius Scipio, who was consul, b. c. 16, and a daughter, Cornelia, who was married to Paulus Aemilius Lepidus, censor b. c. 22. [lepidus, No. 19.] Scribonia was the sister of L. Scribonius Libo, who was the father-in-law of Sex. Pompey, the son of Pompey the Great. [Liso, No. 4.] After the Perusinian war, b. c. 40, Octavian feared that Sex. Porapey would form an alliance with Antony to crush him ; and, accordingly, on the advice of Maecenas, he married Scribonia, in order to gain the favour of Pompey, and of his father-in-law Libo. Scribonia was much older than Octavian, and he never had any affection for her ; and, accordingly, he did not hesitate to divorce her in the following year, b.c. 3.9, on the very day in which she had borne him a daughter, Julia, in order to marry Livia, more especially as he was now on good terms with Antony, and hoped to drive Pompey out of Sicily. Octavian said that he divorced her on account of her loose morals; but Antony maintained that it was because she had taken offence at her husband's intercourse with Livia : the real reason, however, was undoubtedly his love of Livia. Scribonia long survived her separation from Octavian, for in a. d. 2 she ac­companied, of her own accord, her daughter Julia into exile, to the island of Pandateria. (Suet. Aug. 62, 69 ; Appian, B. C. v. 53 ; Dion Cass. xlviii. 34, Iv. 10 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 100 ; Tac. Ann. ii. 27.) [Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography III:757-758]