I finally acquired my first
Julia Titi!
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-135039I've been collecting
Flavian coins for nearly 14 years, I don't know why it took so long!
A quick biographical note about
Julia. She was the daughter of
Titus and was granted the title
Augusta sometime in 80 or 81. Coins were issued in her name bearing the new title. After
Titus' death she lived with her uncle
Domitian at the imperial residence. The ancient sources are quick to malign her reputation in the name of smearing
Domitian. It is said she
had an ongoing affair with
Domitian and became pregnant. She then was forced by
Domitian to abort the baby and died during the attempted abortion sometime in 90 or 91. The
Flavian historian Brian
Jones has called the supposed affair between
Domitian and
his niece
Julia (some ten or eleven years
his junior) and the subsequent forced abortion which killed her as "implausible" and "nonsense".
Further he wrote "Scholars seem not to have stressed one of the most significant factors in assessing the rumour's accuracy - Martial's epigram 6.3, written not long after
Julia's death and deification. In it, he expresses the
hope that
Domitian will produce a son, implies that the baby's name will be Julius (6.3.1) and states that (the now deified)
Julia will be able to watch over him (6.3.5). Martial was neither a hero or a fool.
Had there been the slightest hint of an affair between emperor and niece, he would hardly have written those lines;
had Julia's recent death been caused by an abortion forced on her by
Domitian, would Martial have so far neglected the bounds of 'safe criticism' and common sense as to humiliate
Domitia publicly, urging her to become pregnant, to give the child a name reminiscent of her husband's mistress and finally to remember that same mistress, now dead and deified (thanks to her husband), would be able to protect the child?"