Rubellia Bassa

It has been assumed by Ronald Syme, [1] among others,[2] that her mother was Julia Livia (daughter of Drusus Julius Caesar and Livilla), which would make Bassa the great-granddaughter of Tiberius and the great-great-niece of Augustus through his sister Octavia the Younger. However, this lineage is uncertain because her father, Gaius Rubellius Blandus married Julia when he was around 55, which makes an earlier marriage likely (possibly to a Laecania Bassa), and Rubellia Bassa may have been the daughter of Blandus by this theorized wife. It has been argued that the motivation for Blandus and Julia's marriage was because Tiberius wanted a mature husband for his granddaughter who had little political ambition, and thus posed no threat to the position of his designated heir, Tiberius Gemellus.[1]

Bassa had at least one full sibling or half-sibling, a brother named Gaius Rubellius Plautus who was one of the nearest heirs of the blood of Tiberius, being the grandson of Drusus Julius Caesar. Plautus was forced to kill himself in 62 and his wife Antistia Pollitta and children were executed four years later, perhaps because the children were direct descendants of previous Roman Emperors. Other siblings might have included Gaius Rubellius Blandus and Rubellius Drusus, a child who died before the age of three.[3]

Rubellia Bassa married Gaius Octavius Laenas, a maternal uncle of the future emperor Nerva. Syme notes that Sergius Octavius Laenas Pontianus, consul in 131 under Emperor Hadrian, set up a dedication to his grandmother, "[Rub]elliae / [Bla]ndi f(iliae) Bassae / Octavi Laenatis / Sergius Octavius / Laenas Pontianus / aviae optimae ".[1][4][5] This obscure link is perhaps a continuation of the Julio-Claudian bloodline through the 2nd century.

• List of Roman women