Roman Fathers List

Augustus (Octavian) had one biological child, a daughter named Julia, by his second wife, Scribonia. Julia was happily married to Augustus' advisor Agrippa, but after his death, Augustus forced his daughter to marry Tiberius, who was at the time happily married. The marriage between Julia and Tiberius was miserable which probably helps explain why Julia engaged in adultery. Her father, who endorsed legislation on morals, had his own daughter exiled to a tiny island called Pandateria for five years.

The Roman emperor Claudius had a son named Britannicus, but when the emperor married his niece and fourth wife, Agrippina the Younger, she persuaded him to adopt her own son, the future emperor Nero, giving him preference over his own biological heir.

Mark Antony was famous as a Roman general, as a supporter of Julius Caesar and for his debauchery. There were many women in his life and a few children. Noteworthy among them, through his marriage to Augustus' sister Octavia, were his daughters Antonia major and minor, the ancestors of the Julio-Claudian emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero. His daughter by the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, Cleopatra Selene II, married King Juba of Numidia, and is said to be an ancestor of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra.

Hadrian is not known for his womanizing. He is more familiar for his wall and lamenting the death of his lover, Antinous. In the period of the five good emperors, of which Hadrian was the third, succession was not by biological heir. Hadrian adopted as his heir the man later known as Antoninus Pius, but he did so on condition that Antoninus adopt Marcus Aurelius as his heir.

Septimius Severus was a soldier and emperor from Africa who married a Syrian woman, Julia Domna, by whom he had two sons, Lucius Septimius Bassianus (Caracalla) and Publius Septimius Geta. The two boys suffered from a severe case of sibling rivalry, which Severus could see and tried to mend. This didn't keep him from promoting both to equal status, which led to greater conflict and, after Severus died, fratricide.

Brutus was one of the men who put an end to the monarchy in early Rome. He was patriotic and an embodiment of Roman virtue, no more so than when he had his own sons executed for treason.

Julius Caesar was a great military leader and the last real leader of the Roman Republic. He was also a doting father of a daughter Julia, whom he used to cement relations with his rival Pompey via a marital alliance. When she died, he unusually honored the event with funeral games. It is remotely possible that Caesar was the father of one of his assassins, Marcus Brutus, about whom Shakespeare has Caesar utter the famous last words, "Et tu, Brute [Brutus]?"

• Which Brutus Could Have Been Caesar's Son?

The orator and statesman Cicero was unhappily married to Terentia for 30 years, but he doted on his daughter Tullia. His grief is known through his correspondence. Cicero also had a son named Marcus who preferred the military life and joined up with Pompey, then the assassins of Caesar, before joining the side of Octavian (Augustus).