Atia of The Julii - Personality

Personality

The HBO website provides the following character description:

Niece of Caesar, Atia of the Julii is snobbish, willful, cunning, and sexually voracious. In a culture in which women lack formal power and men leave for years on military campaigns, the wives, daughters, and mothers have built powerful networks and alliances completely independent of the men's worlds. Atia is among the women who serve as the shadow rulers of Rome.

Portrayed as the anti-heroine and femme fatale of the series, Atia is greedy and ambitious, and will do virtually anything to get what she wants. Seduction, humiliation and violence (including murder) are all tools acceptable to her; Atia's occasional hypocrisy is overshadowed by her general acceptance of her own extremely corrupt and unethical nature.

Fiercely protective of her family and their social status, Atia's motives usually involve advancement or self-preservation for the Julii. Her manipulations often extend to her own relatives; feeling that she knows best, Atia will not let even her children thwart her plans. Seeing a more advantageous match, Atia forcibly divorces her daughter Octavia from her first husband (and later has him eliminated).

Atia has a vicious rivalry with the mother of Brutus, Servilia of the Junii, who is having an affair with Atia's uncle, Julius Caesar. Atia's machinations end the affair but incite Servilia to scheme against both Caesar and Atia for vengeance.

Atia occasionally shows moments of weakness and more sympathetic traits. Her romantic feelings for Mark Antony sometimes cloud her judgment and make her vulnerable to his whims, and as much as she seeks to control her children, she will humble herself if necessary to assure their love for her. When Atia's schemes or attempts at seduction fail, she is often unable to maintain her composure and shows genuine distress.

Atia is clever, but not as clever as she thinks. Throughout the series her plans often misfire or meet with mixed success.