impressed by this first unhappy experiment that when Marcellus, still a
very young man, died in 23 B.C., he hesitated a long time before
remarrying the youthful widow. For a moment, indeed, he did think of
bestowing her not upon a senator but upon a knight, that is, a person
outside of the political aristocracy, evidently with the intention of
stifling her too eager ambitions by taking from her all means and hope
of satisfying them. Then he decided upon the opposite expedient, that
of quieting those ambitions by entirely satisfying them, and so gave
Julia, in 21 B.C., to Agrippa, who had been the cause of the earlier
difficulties. Agrippa was twenty-four years older than she and could
have been her father, but he was in truth the second person of the
empire in glory, riches, and power. Soon after, in 18 B.C., he was to
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