ake him her tool. In contrast to Livia, who was so
docile and placid in her respect for the older traditions of the
aristocracy, so firm and strong in her observance of the duties, not
infrequently grievous and difficult, which this tradition imposed,
Julia represented the woman of that new generation which had grown up
in the times of peace--a type more rebellious against tradition, less
resigned to the serious duties and difficult renunciations of rank;
much more inclined to enjoy its prerogatives than disposed to bear that
heavy burden of obligations and sacrifices with which the previous
generations had balanced privilege. Beautiful and intelligent, even in
the early years of her first marriage she showed a great passion for
studies, and a fine artistic and literary taste, and with these a
lively inclination toward luxury and display which hardly suited with
the spirit or the letter of the _Lex sumptuaria_ which her father had
carried through in that year. But fraught with greater danger than all
this was her ardent and passionate temperament, which both in the
family and in politics was altogether too frequently to drive her to
desire and to carry through that which, rightly or wrongly, was
forbidden to a woman by law, custom, and public opinion.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that a young woman endowed with
so fiery and ambitious a nature did not become in the hands of Augustus
as docile a political instrument as Livia. Julia wished to live for
herself and for her pleasure, not for the political greatness of her
father; and indeed, Augustus, who had a fine knowledge of men, was so
impressed by this first unhappy experiment that when Marcellus, still a
very young man, died in 23 B.C., he hesitated a long time before
remarrying the youthful widow. For a moment, indeed, he did think of
bestowing her not upon a senator but upon a knight, that is, a person
outside of the political aristocracy, evidently with the intention of
stifling her too eager ambitions by taking from her all means and hope
of satisfying them. Then he decided upon the opposite expedient, that
of quieting those ambitions by entirely satisfying them, and so gave
Julia, in 21 B.C., to Agrippa, who had been the cause of the earlier
difficulties. Agrippa was twenty-four years older than she and could
have been her father, but he was in truth the second person of the
empire in glory, riches, and power. Soon after, in 18 B.C., he was to