A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

a freedwoman of Julia, the daughter of Augustus, having been privy to the adulteries of her mistress, hung herself when the crimes of the latter were detected; whereupon Augustus declared that he would rather have been the father of Phoebe than of his own daughter. (Suet. Aug. 65 ; Dio Cass. lv. 10.)