{{Short description|Roman Republican praetor}} {{no footnotes|date=June 2016}} {{Infobox person | name = Marcus Atius Balbus | image = | caption = | spouse = Julia Minor | children = Atia Balba "Prima" (possibly)<br>Marcus Atius Balbus (possibly)<br />Atia Balba "Secunda"<br />Atia Balba "Tertia" | father = Marcus Atius Balbus | mother = Pompeia | birth_date = 105 BC | birth_place = Aricia, Italy, Roman Republic | death_date = 51 BC }} '''Marcus Atius Balbus''' (105 – 51 BC) was a 1st-century BC Roman who served as a praetor in 62 BC; he was a cousin of the general Pompey on his mother's side and a brother-in-law of the Dictator Julius Caesar through his marriage to Caesar's sister Julia Minor. Through his daughter, Atia, he became the maternal grandfather of Augustus the first Roman Emperor.
==Early life== Balbus was born and raised in Aricia into a political family and was the son and heir of the elder Marcus Atius Balbus (148 – 87 BC). His mother was Pompeia, the sister to consul Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey Magnus, a member of the First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus.
The family of the elder Balbus came from a Roman senatorial family of plebs status from Aricia (modern Ariccia, Italy). "Balbus" in Latin means ''stammer''.
==Career== During the consulship of Julius Caesar in 59 BC, Balbus was appointed along with Pompey to a board of commissioners under a Julian Law to divide estates in Campania among the commoners. Cicero stated that Pompey would say as a joke about Balbus, that he was not a person of any importance.
==Personal life== He married Julia Minor, the younger of the two elder sisters of the dictator Julius Caesar. Julia bore him two or more daughters and possibly a son named Marcus Atius Balbus.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ten Studies in Tacitus|last=Syme|first=Ronald|publisher=Clarendon P.|year=1970|isbn=9780198143581|pages=63}}</ref> One of the daughters married Gaius Octavius and became the mother of Octavia Minor (fourth wife of triumvir Mark Antony) and of the first Roman emperor Augustus. A younger daughter married Lucius Marcius Philippus and became the mother of Marcia.<ref>{{Cite book|title=All Things Julius Caesar: An Encyclopedia of Caesar's World and Legacy|last=Lovano|first=Michael|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2014|isbn=9781440804212|pages=72}}</ref>
Another Atia, who was married to a Gaius Junius Silanus, has been speculated to have existed by Madvig and Syme.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G4QXAQAAIAAJ&q=%22appia%22+%22claudia%22+silanus|title = Roman Female Praenomina: Studies in the Nomenclature of Roman Women|isbn = 9789519690216|last1 = Kajava|first1 = Mika|year = 1995 | publisher=Institutum Romanum Finlandiae }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VEbCDwAAQBAJ&q=silanus+%22Claudia%22+daughter+%22pulcher%22&pg=PT81|title = The Imperial Families of Ancient Rome|last1 = Craven|first1 = Maxwell|date = 8 December 2019}}</ref> This Atia may have been a granddaughter of Balbus and Julia through their son and his marriage to a Claudia.<ref name=RonaldSyme>{{cite book | last1 = Syme | first1 = Ronald | author-link1 = Ronald Syme | title = The Augustan Aristocracy | publisher = Oxford Clarendon Press | year = 1989 | location = Oxford | page = 194 | isbn = 978-0-19-814731-2 | quote = A third Atia can now be conjured up.}} (Limited Previes: [https://books.google.com/books?id=fj8oQ4lzteIC&q=Atia&pg=PA194 "Atia, wife of Marcius Philippus (suff. 38 BC)"] and [https://books.google.com/books?id=fj8oQ4lzteIC&q=Atia&pg=PA194 "A daughter (Atia) would supply a wife for C. Silanus"] of this page in Google Books)</ref>
==Death== Balbus died in 51 BC.
==See also== * Atia gens * Julio-Claudian family tree
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Sources == * Suetonius, ''The Lives of the Twelve Caesars'', Augustus * https://web.archive.org/web/20060511155339/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0464.html
==External links== * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060511155339/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0464.html Coinage of Balbus (or possibly his son)]}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atius, Marcus}} Category:Roman Republican praetors Category:1st-century BC Romans Category:105 BC births Category:51 BC deaths Balbus, Marcus Category:Family of Augustus