the daughter of M. Atius Balbus of Aricia, and of Julia, the sister of C. Julius Caesar. She was married to C. Octavius, and became by him the mother of Augustus Caesar. (Suet. Oct. 4; Vell. 2.59.) She pretended that Augustus
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was the son of Apollo, who had intercourse with her in the form of a dragon, while she was sleeping on one occasion in the temple of the god. (D. C. 45.1; Suet. Oct. 94.) She carefully attended to the education of her son, and is on this account classed by the author of the Dialogue on Orators (100.29) along with Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, and Aurelia, the mother of C. Julius Caesar. Her husband died in B. C. 59, when her son was only four years of age, and she afterwards married L. Marcius Philippus, who was consul in B. C. 56. On the death of Julius Caesar, she and her husband tried to dissuade her son from accepting the inheritance which his great-uncle had left him. (Plut. Cic. 44; Suet. Oct. 8; Vell. 2.60 ; Appian, App. BC 3.10.) She died in the first consulship of her son, B. C. 43, and was honoured with a public funeral. (Suet. Oct. 61; Dion. Cass. 47.17.)