Claudia Octavia
| Claudia Octavia | |||||
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Portrait head of Claudia Octavia, National Museum of Rome
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| Empress consort of the Roman Empire | |||||
| Tenure | 13 October AD 54 – 8 June AD 62 | ||||
| Born | late AD 39/early AD 40 Rome |
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| Died | 8 June AD 62 (age c. 22) Pandateria |
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| Spouse | Nero | ||||
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| House | Julio-Claudian Dynasty | ||||
| Father | Claudius | ||||
| Mother | Valeria Messalina | ||||
| Full name | |
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| Claudia Octavia |
| Roman imperial dynasties | |||
| Julio-Claudian dynasty | |||
| Chronology | |||
| Augustus | 27 BC – 14 AD | ||
| Tiberius | 14–37 AD | ||
| Caligula | 37–41 AD | ||
| Claudius | 41–54 AD | ||
| Nero | 54–68 AD | ||
| Family | |||
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Gens Julia Gens Claudia Julio-Claudian family tree Category:Julio-Claudian dynasty |
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| Succession | |||
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Preceded by Roman Republic |
Followed by Year of the Four Emperors |
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Claudia Octavia (Classical Latin: CLAVDIA•OCTAVIA) (late AD 39 or early AD 40 – 8 June AD 62) was an Empress of Rome. She was a great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal first cousin of the Emperor Caligula, daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and stepsister and first wife of the Emperor Nero.
Octavia was the only daughter of the Emperor Claudius by his third marriage to his second cousin Valeria Messalina. She was named for her great-grandmother Octavia the Younger, the second eldest and full-blooded sister of the Emperor Augustus. Her elder half-sister was Claudia Antonia, Claudius's daughter through his second marriage to Aelia Paetina, and her full sibling was Britannicus, Claudius's son with Messalina.
She was born in Rome. As a young girl, her father betrothed her to future praetor Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus, who was a descendant of Augustus.
Octavia's mother was executed in 48, for conspiring to murder her father, the emperor Claudius, who subsequently married his niece (and Octavia's first cousin) Agrippina the Younger. Agrippina's son, from her first marriage, was Nero (birth name Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus).
Agrippina, through her plotting and manipulating, ended the engagement between Octavia and Lucius Silanus and persuaded Claudius to adopt Nero as his son and heir, and arranged for Octavia and Nero to marry on 9 June 53.
Claudius died on 13 October 54 and Nero acceded to the throne, possibly poisoning Octavia's full brother Britannicus in early 55 to do so. Tacitus states that from this moment Octavia became very unhappy, but learned to hide her affections and feelings around her husband/stepbrother. Octavia was caught up in the power struggles between Nero and his mother, which concluded when Nero murdered his mother in March 59.
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