Claudia Marcella was the name of several women of ancient Rome of the
Marcelli branch of the
Claudia gens. By the late
Republican period girls from this branch were often called "
Clodia".[1]
A number of Marcellae are believed to have been the daughters of the consul
Gaius Claudius Marcellus
Claudia Marcella, a proposed daughter by an unknown woman, this Marcella might have been the mother of
Publius Quinctilius Varus[2][3]
Claudia Marcella Ignota Prima, (? - ?) a daughter by
Octavia Minor who died in childhood[4]
Claudia Marcella Ignota Secunda, (? - ?) a daughter by Octavia Minor who died in childhood[4]
The two surviving daughters of Octavia (the sister of
Roman emperorAugustus) by Marcellus[5] became important in Augustus imperial plans. According to
the Roman Historian Suetonius, they were known as "the Marcellae sisters" or "the two Marcellae".[6] The sisters were born in
Rome and lived with their mother and their stepfather Triumvir
Mark Antony in
Athens,
Greece. After 36 BC they accompanied their mother when she returned to Rome with their brother and half-sisters. They were raised and educated by their mother, their maternal uncle and their maternal aunt-in-marriage Roman Empress
Livia Drusilla.[5] They and their siblings provided a critical link between the past of the
Roman Republic and the new
Roman Empire.[7] The marriages of the sisters and the children born to their unions assured republican family lines into the next generation.[8]
A number of other women could have been Marcellae:
^Settipani, Christian (2000). Oxford University (ed.). Continuité gentilice et Continuité familiale dans les familles sénatoriales romaines à l'époque impériale [Kinship Continuity and Family Continuity in Roman Senatorial Families in the Imperial Period]. Prosopographica & Genealogica (in French). Linacre College. p. 597.
ISBN1-900934-02-7.
^Tansey, Patrick. (2016) "A selective prosopographical study of marriage in the Roman elite in the Second and First Centuries B.C.: Revisiting the evidence". p, 9. Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University