#Deborahharkness full

She has published two works of historical non-fiction, John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy and the End of Nature (1999) and The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (2007). Harkness is a professor of history and teaches European history and the history of science at the University of Southern California. She is a well-regarded historian of science and medicine, as well as having studied alchemy, magic and the occult.

Harkness also studied abroad at Oxford University. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College (B.A., 1986), Northwestern University (M.A., 1990), and the University of California, Davis (Ph.D., 1994). Her latest book is Time's Convert: A Novel, both an origin story of the trilogy's Marcus Whitmore character, set in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, and a sequel to the All Souls Trilogy.īorn in 1965, Harkness grew up near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of an American-born father and a British-born mother. 'Science and the Supernatural in the 17th Century', Deborah Harkness & Jim Voelkel, Science History Instituteĭeborah Harkness (born 1965) is an American scholar and novelist, best known as an historian and as the author of the All Souls Trilogy, which consists of The New York Times best-selling novel A Discovery of Witches and its sequels Shadow of Night and The Book of Life. Mount Holyoke College, Northwestern University, University of California at Davis Sextus Propertius praises her motherhood referring to her as 'sweet mother Scribonia' in Cornelia Scipio's funeral elegy in 16 BC.Harkness at the 2018 U.S. Modern scholars are divided on her character while some describe her as 'tiresome' and 'morose' most others view her as an ideal example of a Roman matron as she clearly had the 'composure' and 'calmness' to look after depressed and suicidal characters such as her daughter and nephew. Seneca describes her as a gravis femina gravis meaning “dignified” and “severe”. Scribonia's image as a shrew is probably the product of propaganda to divert the potentially scandalous circumstances of her divorce from Augustus.

#Deborahharkness full

In Seneca, she is mentioned as being alive and in full possession of her wits as late as the end of 16 when she tried to convince her nephew Marcus Scribonius Libo not to commit suicide and face his punishment. It is mainly placed two years after Julia and Augustus. When Emperor Tiberius came into power, he separated Scribonia from her daughter, and allegedly starved Julia to death.

Cassius Dio and Marcus Velleius Paterculus says that when her youngest child, Julia, was sent into exile for adultery and treason, she requested that she be allowed to accompany her. Their marriage had not been a happy one Octavian felt she nagged him too much. Their daughter Julia the Elder was born in 39 BC, probably in October, and on that very same day Octavian divorced her. Octavian in turn divorced his wife Clodia Pulchra, marrying Scribonia to cement a political alliance with her niece Scribonia's husband Sextus Pompey. In 40 BC Scribonia was forced to divorce her husband and marry Octavian, who was younger than she was by several years. Scribonia may have also been the mother to Publius Cornelius Scipio, consul in 16 BC. They had a daughter Cornelia Scipio who married the censor Lucius Aemilius Paullus. Her second husband perhaps was Publius Cornelius Scipio Salvito, a supporter of Pompey. He may have died young and ignored by historians. Her first husband is unknown, although it had been suggested that he was Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus (consul 56 BC), as there is an inscription that refers to freedmen (post 39 BC) of Scribonia and her son Cornelius Marcellinus, indicating that she had a son from her previous marriage and that he was living with her after she divorced her third husband. According to Suetonius, Scribonia's first two marriages were to former consuls. Her brother of the same name was consul and died in 34 BC. Scribonia was the daughter of a Lucius Scribonius Libo, probably the praetor of that name of 80 BC. She was the mother-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, grandmother-in-law of the Emperor Claudius, and great-great grandmother of the Emperor Nero. Scribonia (68 BC - AD 16) was the second wife of the Roman Emperor Augustus and the mother of his only natural child, Julia the Elder.