Antonia Major - Progeny

Progeny

Around 22 BC (she was 16 or so), Antonia married Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 16 BC). Their children were lateborn by Roman standards:

• Domitia Lepida the Elder - Ancient sources refer to her as Domitia (not Domitia Lepida). She married the consul Decimus Haterius Agrippa and bore him a son Quintus Haterius Antoninus. Domitia married Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus, consul suffect in 27, proconsul of Asia and consul in 44.
• Domitia Lepida the Younger (PIR2 D 180) - She first married her cousin, the consul Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus to whom she bore a daughter, the Roman Empress Valeria Messalina, third wife of the Emperor Claudius. After the death of her first husband, she married Faustus Cornelius Sulla, cos. suff. in 31 and gave him a son, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (who would become consul in 52). At the beginning of Claudius' reign, she married Gaius Appius Junius Silanus, cos. in 28, who was put to death in 42. She outlived her daughter Messallina.
• Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (PIR2 D 127) - Consul in 32, he married his cousin Germanicus' daughter Agrippina the Younger in AD 28. Agrippina and Domitius were the parents of the Emperor Nero. He was accused by Tiberius, but saved by that emperor's death (Suet. Nero 5) and lived a few years longer under Caligula's reign until he died in AD 40. It is likely that Gnaeus was the youngest of the three children, born ca 1 BC.

Many scholars think the Ara Pacis (an altar from the Augustan Era), displays Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and his elder sister Domitia. The woman behind Domitia and Domitius is allegedly their mother Antonia Major and the man next to Antonia Major is her husband Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.

Gaius Stern and Sir Ronald Syme both dispute this claim, whose chief argument in its favor is that "it was written in German 100 years ago." First of all, the young Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was born after the monument was completed. He can not possibly be on the Ara Pacis. His father was governor of Africa in 13 and was not in Rome for the Ara Pacis ceremony. Additional arguments against can be found in Stern, "Nero's Father and Other Romantic Figures on the Ara Pacis Augustae, CAMWS 2003; Syme, "Neglected Children on the Ara Pacis," AJA 88 (1984), The Augustan Aristocracy (1985) 142, 155, 166-67.

An image can be seen at .

Some think Antonia died before 25, but Syme observes Sen. Rh. Controv. 9.4.18, which indicates that Antonia was alive after AD 33.