become the colleague of Augustus in the presidency of the republic and
consequently his equal in every way.

Thus Julia suddenly saw her ambitions gratified. She became at
twenty-one the next lady of the empire after Livia, and perhaps even
the first in company with and beside her. Young, beautiful,
intelligent, cultured, and loving luxury, she represented at Livia's
side and in opposition to her, the trend of the new generation in which
was growing the determination to free itself from tradition. She
lavished money generously, and there soon formed about her a sort of
court, a party, a coterie, in which figured the fairest names of the
Roman aristocracy. Her name and her person became popular even among
the common people of Rome, to whom the name of the Julii was more
sympathetic than that of the Claudii, which was borne by the sons of
Livia. The combined popularity of Augustus and of Agrippa was
reflected in her. It may be said, therefore, that toward 18 B.C., the
younger, more brilliant, and more "modern" Julia began to obscure Livia
in the popular imagination, except in that little group of old
conservative nobility which gathered about the wife of Augustus. So
true is this that about this time, Augustus, wishing to place himself
into conformity with his law _de maritandis ordinibus_, reached a
significant decision. Since that law fixed at three the number of
children which every citizen should have, if he wished to discharge his
whole duty toward the state, and since Augustus had but a single
daughter, he decided to adopt Caius and Lucius, the first two sons that
Julia had borne to Agrippa. This was a great triumph for her, in so
far as her sons would henceforth bear the very popular name of Caesar.

But the difficulties which the first marriage with Marcellus had
occasioned and which Augustus had hoped to remove by this second
marriage soon reappeared in another but still more dangerous form, for
they had their roots in that passionate, imperious, bold, and imprudent
temperament of Julia. This temperament the Roman education had not
succeeded in taming; it was strengthened by the undisciplined spirit of
the times. And with it Julia soon began to abuse the fortune, the
popularity, the prestige, and the power which came to her from being
the daughter of Augustus and the wife of Agrippa. Little by little she
became possessed by the mania of being in Rome the antithesis of Livia,
of conducting herself in