In John William’s novel Augustus, Julia represents the conflict between public duty and private desire that was common to Romans in her time and that was directly related to the practice of traditional Roman values.  This is best displayed by Julia’s initial adherence to the values of group oriented self-sacrifice, strict self discipline, and respect for hierarchy, and her later contempt for them.  Julia realizes she does not have to abide by these values while travelling in the East with her husband Agrippa, but does not completely abandon them until her exile on Pandateria.
    At a young age, Julia learns she must sacrifice herself for the good of Rome.  Julia first practices self-sacrifice when her father returns from his victories in Actium, Egypt and Dalmatia.  She has not seen her father for over a year, and yet does not get a chance to talk to him before the parade.  Noticing a difference in his demeanor during the parade, she remarks, “my father beside me. . . was a stranger” (164).  It is not until the three-day ceremony is finally over that Julia and her father can actually talk.  In a more striking example of Julia’s respect for this value, she ceases her studies with her tutor Athenodorus in order to marry Marcellus.  Until this marriage, Julia is treated as much like a male as possible in Rome at the time.  Her greatest love at this point in her life is learning, which she is allowed to pursue like the other male children of the household.  Upon her marriage to Marcellus, however, Julia must cease her daily lessons and take up the responsibilities of the household.  In Pandateria, Julia reflects on this time and notes that marriage and the onset of womanhood was “an exile from a world I had just begun to see” (172).  Julia sacrifices one of her greatest pleasures early on in order to marry and preserve the Augustan line.  At the time, however, Julia readily gives up her learning for the well being of the state.
    Closely related to self-sacrifice is the value of discipline, for one must have discipline to practice self-sacrifice.  Julia must have enough self-control to last gracefully through the entire celebration ceremony, even though she cannot be alone with her father.  Furthermore, without discipline, Julia might not have been able to relinquish her studies for marriage to Marcellus.  Finally, after Marcellus’ death, Julia shows her restraint during a conversation with Livia.  Livia, who is trying to convince Julia to marry her son Tiberius, asks Julia if she plans to marry again.  Julia writes, “I remembered that I was my father’s daughter.  ‘I shall do my duty,’ I said” (187). In the previous example, Julia also adheres to the hierarchy her society values.  When responding to what seems like a very personal question, her first thought is of her duty to her father.  All the previous examples show her obedience to the Roman idea of hierarchy, as well.  In each case Julia practices self-sacrifice and discipline because her father and the state ask it of her.  Observance of hierarchy is unquestionable to Julia when she is young.  Athenodorus, her pre-marriage tutor, has complete  authority over Julia and the other students.  Julia says of him, “Athenodorus’s word in all matters was final. . . [and] there was no recourse beyond him” (171).  She and the other students never question why they must arrive at his house at dawn and practice such a rigid study schedule because they respect his superior position.  Interestingly enough, Julia’s knowledge of hierarchy finally leads her to question the Roman values with which she grew up.
    Julia fully understands her position in the Roman hierarchy after the birth of her first two sons.  She discovers that she is “the most powerful woman in the world” (206).  This sudden understanding of her situation leads Julia to contemplate why she must still obey the traditional Roman values she was taught as a child.  She writes that she realized it was the custom for powerful women “to efface themselves and to assume a docility that in many instances went against their natures.  I knew early that such a course was not possible for me” (206).  Julia now understands her power and how people expect her to handle that power.  Even so, she refuses to act as Rome expects, and demands to accompany her husband outside of Rome.  This journey awakens even more private desires that conflict with her traditional Roman values, which she eventually abandons.
    In her travels with her husband Agrippa, Julia is worshiped as the reincarnation of the goddess Aphrodite.  An astute reader is reminded of Cleopatra, who was worshiped as the goddess Isis.  In fact, this is not the only similarity between the two.  Cleopatra influenced Julia from a young age.  When Julia writes of seeing a statue of Cleopatra as a girl, she says, “it occurred to me for the first time that even a woman might be caught up in the world of events, and be destroyed by that world” (165).  Here Julia realizes that elsewhere it is possible for women to have the power that in Rome was only allowed to men.  Julia comes to be more and more like Cleopatra as she stops adhering to the traditional Roman values of self-sacrifice, discipline and attention to hierarchy for the most non-Roman value: passion.
    The first value Julia abandons in the pursuit of passion is that of attention to hierarchy.  Nicolaus of Damascus writes that the worst aspect of the secret cult Julia joins is that the members “are required to abjure all authority beyond the dictates of their own desires, and have no allegiance to any man, or law, or mortal custom” (214).  Even though this directly opposes the Roman idea of hierarchy, Julia does not immediately drop all aspects of her respect for this power structure.  Upon her father’s request, she returns to Rome.  Julia also continues to obey the law by remaining faithful to her husband Agrippa.  Even so, she does refuse to accompany her father to dying Agrippa’s side.
    As Julia departs from this traditional Roman value, she also leaves behind her desire to practice discipline.  She says of herself after returning to Rome, “I was to spend my days performing a kind of duty in which I no longer could see any meaning” (215).  Julia now resents the duties she enjoyed (or at least tolerated) before her experiences in the East.  When her father tries to persuade her to meet her husband Agrippa on his journey home, Julia refuses.  Instead, she is determined to attend a party for which she is the guest of honor.  When Augustus reminds her, “your duty is to your husband,”  Julia replies, “and to you, and to your cause, and to Rome” (226). Julia’s retort seems flippant and sarcastic, revealing her belief that these are pointless duties and that she will not practice those that interfere with her pleasures.  Even though Julia resents these duties, she continues to retain enough self-discipline to perform those she deems necessary.
    Similarly, Julia practices self-sacrifice, the last value she relinquishes, for a long time after she realizes its pointlessness.  This is seen best when Julia and her father talk of the necessity of a marriage to Tiberius.  She detests this idea, and reminds her father, “my life has been at the service of your policy, of our family, and of Rome. . . Must I go on?  Will you not give me rest?  Must I give my life?” (235).  Julia reminds her father of her past dutifulness and the sacrifices she will have to make in order to marry Tiberius.  Even though she remarks, “I find myself near to disobedience,” she relents and agrees to marry Tiberius (235).  At this point, Julia still adheres to the value of self-sacrifice, even though it is the most difficult sacrifice she has ever made.  This is almost the last time Julia acts according to traditional Roman values.  Her last attempt at fulfilling these values is her effort to produce a child with Tiberius.  After the boy dies, however, she refuses to follow these values any longer if they do not suit her, and does as she pleases with whomever she pleases.  In place of these old values, Julia now practices individualism.
    Even so, it is not until Julia is exiled and reaches Pandateria that she completely renouces these Roman values.  Julia admits that Athenodorus, her old tutor, would not approve of her journal.  This is because she writes “for myself and my own perusal” (152).  In so doing, she completely ignores all three of the Roman values she used to admire.  The reader may recall that as a child, Julia regarded Athenodorus as having complete authority.  Therefore, she never would have done anything of which he would disapprove.  She now goes against that hierarchy, admits it, and, it seems, enjoys it.
The reader may also recall that Julia relinquished her studies for household duties in her marriage to Marcellus.  On Pandateria, however, Julia says, “I have returned to that learning which I abandoned many years ago” (170).  Julia is regaining parts of herself that she sacrificed as a girl, and especially as a Roman girl with Roman values.  Now that she is completely outside this influence, Julia does not feel obligated to attend to Roman heirarchy or practice discipline and self-sacrifice.  Indeed, she writes, “I sometimes can almost believe that the world in seeking to punish me has done me a service it cannot imagine” (170).
In the course of her life, Julia learns the Roman values of self-sacrifice, discipline and respect for hierarchy, practices them, and finally throws them away.  She is in some ways similar to Octavia, who also retires from public life.  While Julia is forced into exile, Octavia retires out of disgust of the world in which she must live.  In a letter to Augustus, Octavia writes:

All my life I have done the duty required of me by my family and my country.  I have performed this duty willingly, even when it went against the inclinations of my person. . . Now my first-born and only son, my Marcellus, is dead. . . and the happiness of his sister. . . is threatened by the necessity of your policy. . . And thus without resentment let me ask that the permission that I must give for this divorce be the last public act that I shall have to commit.  I grant the permission.  Now I wish to remove myself from the household in Rome, and remain with my books here in Velletri for as long as I may (183-184).