Julia
1. A daughter of C. Julius Caesar [Caesar, No. 14] and Marcia, and aunt of Caesar the dictator. She married C. Marius the elder, by whom she had one son, C. Marius, slain at Praeneste in B. C. 82. Julia died B. C. 68, and her nephew, C. Julius Caesar, pronounced her funeral oration, in which he traced her descent through the Marcii to Ancus, the fourth king of Rome, and through the Julii to Anchises and Venus. At the funeral of Julia were exhibited, for the first time since Sulla's dictatorship in B. C. 81, the statues and inscriptive titles of the elder Marius. (Plut. Mar. 6, Caes. 1, 5; Suet. Jul. 6.)
2. A daughter of L. Julius Caesar [Caesar, No. 9] and Fulvia. She married M. Antonius Creticus [Antonius, No. 9], and, after his death, P. Lentulus Sura. who was executed B. C. 63, as an accomplice of Catiline. By Antonius she had three sons, Marcus, afterwards the triumvir, Caius, and Lucius. Plutarch (Plut. Ant. 2) represents Julia as an exemplary matron, and Cicero (in Cat. 4.6) styles her "femina lectissima." But neither in her husbands nor her children was Julia fortunate. Antonius lived a prodigal, and died inglorious; and Lentulus, by his bad example, corrupted his step-sons. Her sons, especially Marcus, who was not her favourite (Cic. Phil. 2.24), involved her in the troubles of the civil wars. While he was besieging Dec. Brutus in Mutina, B. C. 43, Julia exerted her own and her family's influence in Rome to prevent his being outlawed by the senate (App. BC 3.51), and after the triumvirate was formed, she rescued her brother, L. Julius Caesar [Caesar, No. 11], from her son, and interceded with him for many rich and high-born women whose wealth exposed them to proscription. (App. BC 3.32.) In the Perusine war, B. C. 41, Julia fled from Rome, although Augustus had uniformly treated her with kindness, and now upbraided her distrust of him, to Sext. Pompey in Sicily, by whom she was sent with a distinguished escort and convoy of triremes to M. Antony in Greece. (App. BC 5.52, 63.) At Athens Julia forwarded a reconciliation of the triumvirs, and returned with her son to Italy in B. C. 39, and was probably present at their meeting with Sext. Pompey at Misenum. (Plut. Ant. 19 ; D. C. 47.8, 48.16; Cic. Phil. 2.6, 8; Schol. Bob. in Vat. p. 321, Orelli.)
3. The elder of the two sisters of Caesar the dictator, married, but in what order is uncertain, L. Pinarius, of a very ancient patrician family (Liv. 1.7), and Q. Pedius, by each of whom she had at least one son. (App. BC 3.22, 23; Suet. Jul. 83.) It is doubtful whether it was the elder or the younger of the dictator's sisters who gave her evidence against P. Clodius [CLODIUS, No. 40], when impeached for impiety in B. C. 61. (Suet. Jul. 74; Schol. Bob. in Clod. p. 337, Orelli.)
4. The younger sister of Caesar the dictator, was the wife of M. Atius Balbus [BALBUS ATIUS], by whom she had Atia, the mother of Augustus [Atia]. Julia died in B. C. 52-51, when her grandson, Augustus, was in his twelfth year (Suet. Aug. 8; Quint. 12.6), and he pronounced her funeral oration. Nicolaüs of Damascus (100.3), indeed, places her decease three years earlier, in her grandson's ninth year, and, as a contemporary, his evidence might be preferable, were there not apparent in his narrative a wish to exalt the genius of Augustus by abating from his age at the time he pronounced the oration. (See Weichert, de Imp. Caes. Aug. Script. i. p. 11, Grimae, 1835.)
5. Daughter of Caesar the dictator, by Cornelia [Cornelia, 2], and his only child in marriage (Tac. Ann. 3.6). She was born B. C. 83-82, and was betrothed to Servilius Caepio [Caepio, No. 14], but married Cn. Pompey, B. C. 59. This family-alliance of its two great chiefs was regarded as the firmest bond of the so-called first triumvirate, and was accordingly viewed with much alarm by the oligarchal party in Rome, especially by Cicero and Cato (Cic. Att. 2.17, 8.3; Plut. Caes. 14, Pomp. 48, Cat. Min. 31; App. BC 2.14; Suet. Jul. 50; D. C. 38.9; Gel. 4.10.5; comp. August. Civ. Dei. 3.13). The personal charms of Julia were remarkable; her talents and virtues equalled her beauty; and although policy prompted her union, and she was twentythree years younger than her husband, she possessed in Pompey a devoted husband, to whom she was, in return, devotedly attached. (Plut. Pomp. 48, 53.) It was not the least fortunate circumstance in Julia's life that she died before a breach between her husband and father had become inevitable. (Vell. 2.44, 47; Flor. 4.2.13; Plut. Pomp. 53; Lucan, 1.113.) At the election of aediles in B. C. 55, Pompey was surrounded by a tumultuous mob, and his gown was sprinkled with blood of the rioters. The slave who carried to his house on the Carinae the stained toga was seen by Julia, who, imagining that her husband was slain, fell into premature labour (V. Max. 4.6.4; Plut. Pomp. 53), and her constitution received an irreparable shock. In the September of the next year, B. C. 54, she died in childbed, and her infant--a son, according to some writers (Vell. 2.47; Suet. Jul. 26; comp. Lucan. 5.474, 9.1049), a daughter, according to others (Plut. Pomp. 53; D. C. 39.64),-- survived her only a few days (Id. 40.44). Pompey wished her ashes to repose in his favourite Alban villa, but the Roman people, who loved Julia, determined they should rest in the field of Mars. For permission a special decree of the senate was necessary, and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus [Ahenobarbus, No. 7], one of the consuls of B. C. 54, impelled by his hatred to Pompey and Caesar, procured an interdict from the tribunes. But the popular will prevailed, and, after listening to a funeral oration in the forum, the people placed her urn in the Campus Martius. (D. C. 39.64; comp. 48.53.) It was remarked, as a singular omen, that on the day Augustus entered the city as Caesar's adoptive son, the monument of Julia was struck by lightning (Suet. Octav. 95; comp. Caes. 84). Caesar was in Britain, according to Seneca (Cons. ad Marc. 14), when he received the tidings of Julia's death. (Comp. Cic. ad Quint. fr 3.1, ad Att. 4.17.) He vowed games to her manes, which he exhibited in B. C. 46. (D. C. 43.22; Suet. Jul. 26; PIut. Caes. 55.)
6. Daughter of Augustus by Scribonia [Scribonia], and his only child. She was born in B. C. 39, and was but a few days old when her mother was divorced. (D. C. 48.34.) Julia was educated with great strictness. The manners of the imperial court were extremely simple, and the accomplishments of her rank and station were diversified by the labours of the loom and the needle. (Suet. Aug. 73.) A daily register was kept of her studies and occupations; her words, actions, and associates were jealously watched ; and her father gravely reproached L. Vinicius, a youth of unexceptionable birth and character, for addressing Julia at Baiae (Suet. Aug. 63, 64). She married, B. C. 25, M. Marcellus, her first cousin, the son of Octavia (D. C. 53.27), and, after his death, B. C. 23, without issue, M. Vipsanius Agrippa [Agrippa, M. Vipsanius] (D. C. 53.30, 54.6; Plut. Ant. 87; Suet. Aug. 63), by whom she had three sons, C. and L. Caesar, and Agrippa Postumus, and two daughters, Julia and Agrippina. She accompanied Agrippa to Asia Minor in B. C. 17, and narrowly escaped drowning in the Scamander. (Nic. Dam. p. 225, ed. Coray.; J. AJ 16.2.2.) After Agrippa's death in B. C. 12, Augustus meditated taking a husband for his daughter from the equestrian order, and C. Proculeius was at the time thought likely to have been preferred by him. (Tac. Ann. 4.39, 40; Suet. Aug. 63; Plin. Nat. 7.45; D. C. 54.3; Hor. Carm. 2.2, 5.) According, indeed, to one account (Suet. l.c.; D. C. 48.54, 51.15; Suet. l. c.), he had actually betrothed her to a son of M. Antony, and to Cotiso, a king of the Getae [Cotiso]; but his choice at length fell on Tiberius Nero, who was afterwards Caesar. (Vell. 2.96; Suet. Tib. 7; D. C. 54.31.) Their union, however, was neither happy nor lasting. After the death of their infant son at Aquileia, Tiberius, partly in disgust at Julia's levities (Suet. Tib. 8), went, in B. C. 6, into voluntary exile, and before he returned to Italy, Augustus had somewhat tardily discovered the misconduct of his daughter. With some allowance for the malignity of her step-mother Livia, for the corruptions of the age and the court, and for the prejudices of writers either favourable to Tiberius, or who wrote after her disgrace, the vices of Julia admit of little doubt, and her indiscretion probably exceeded her vices. Her frank and lively temperament broke through the politic decorum of the palace, her ready wit disdained prudence, and created enemies; the forum and the rostra were the scenes of her nocturnal orgies and, if we may judge by their names, her companions were taken indifferently from the highest and the lowest orders in Rome. (Vell. 1.100 ; D. C. 55.10; Suet. Aug 19, 64; Macr. 1.11, 6.5.) Her father's indignation on discovering what all Rome knew, was unbounded ; he threatened her with death, he condemned her to exile, and imprudently revealed to the senate the full extent of his domestic shame. To all solicitations for her recal--which towards the end of his reign were frequent, for the people loved Julia, and dreaded Livia and Tiberius--he replied with the hope that the petitioners themselves might have similar daughtes and wives. He called her a disease in his flesh; repeatedly wished himself childless; and when Phoebe, one of Julia's freedwomen, slew herself to avoid the puniishment liberally inflicted on the partners of her mistress's revels, he exclaimed, " Would I had been Phoebe's father ! " (D. C. 4.10 ; Suet. Aug. 65.) If, however, Pliny's assertion is credible, that Julia had engaged in a conspiracy against her father's life, his anger is intelligible (Plin. Nat. 7.45), and, at a later period of his reign, she seems to have been an object of interest to the disaffected. (Suet. Aug. 19.) Julia was first banished to Pandataria, an island on the coast of Campania. Her mother Scribonia shared her exile, but this was the only alleviation of her sufferings: wine, all the delicacies, and most of the comforts of life, were denied her, and no one, of whatever condition, was permitted to approach her place of seclusion without special licence from Augustus himself. At the end of five years she was removed to Rhegium, where her privations were somewhat relaxed, but she was never suffered to quit the bounds of the city. Even the testament of Augustus showed the inflexibility of his anger. He bequeathed her no legacy, and forbade her ashes to repose in his mausoleum. On the accession of Tiberius her exile was enforced with new rigour. Her former allowance was diminished and often withheld; her just claims on her father's personal estate were disregarded; she was kept in close and solitary confinement in one house; and in A. D. 14, consumption, hastened if not caused by grief and want of necessaries, terminated, in the 54th year of her age, the life of the guilty, but equally unfortunate, daughter of the master of the Roman world. (Suet. Tib. 50; Tac. Ann. 1.53.) Macrobius (Macr. 6.5) has preserved several specimens of Julia's conversational wit, and has sketched her intellectual character with less prejudice than usually marks the accounts of her.
There are only Greek coins of Julia extant, with the exception of denarii, struck by the moneyers of Augustus, bearing on the obverse a bare head of Augustus, and on the reverse a garlanded at head of Julia, having the heads of C. and L. Caesar on either side. The annexed is a Greek coin, having on the obverse the head of Julia, and on the reverse that of Pallas.
7. Daughter of the preceding, and wife of L. Aemilius Paullus, by whom she had M. Aemilius Lepidus (D. C. 59.11; Suet. Calig. 24) and Aemilia, first wife of the emperor Claudius. (Suet. Cl. 26.) Less celebrated than her mother, Julia inherited her vices and misfortunes. For adulterous intercourse with D. Silanus (Tac. Ann. 3.24), she was banished by her grandfather Augustus to the little island Tremerus, on the coast of Apulia, A. D. 9, where she survived twenty years, dependent on the ostentatious bounty of the empress Livia. A child, born after her disgrace, was, by order of Augustus, exposed as spurious. Julia died in A. D. 28, and was buried in her place of exile, since, like her mother's, her ashes were interdicted the mausoleum of Augustus. (Tac. Ann. 4.71; Suet. Aug. 64, 65, 101; Schol. in Juv. Satt. 6.158.) It was probably this Julia whom Ovid celebrated as Corinna in his elegies and other erotic poems.
8. The youngest child of Germanicus and Agrippina, was born in A. D. 18. (Tac. Ann. 2.54.) She married M. Vinicius in 33. (Id. 16, 6.15; D. C. 58.21.) Her brother Caligutla, who was believed to have had an incestuous intercourse with her, banished her in A. D. 37. (D. C. 59.3; Suet. Suet. Cal. 24, 29.) She was recalled by Claudius. (D. C. 9.4; Suet. Cal. 59.) He afterwards put her to death at Messalina's instigation, who envied the beauty, dreaded the influence, and resented the haughtiness of Julia. (D. C. 60.8; Suet. Cl. 29; Zonar. 11.8; Sen. de Mort. Claud.) The charge brought against her was adultery. and Seneca, the philosopher, was banished to Corsica as the partner of her guilt (Dio Cass. l.c.). She is sometimes called Lnvilla, and Livia (Suet. Cal. 7, Oudendorp's note ad loc.). Josephus (J. AJ 19.4.3) makes Julia to have married M. Minucianus.
9. Daughter of Drusus [DRUSUS CAESAR, No. 16] and Livia, the sister of Germanicus. She married, A. D. 20, her first cousin, Nero, son of Germanicus and Agrippina (Tac.. Ann. 3.29; Dio Cass. Iviii. 21), and was one of the many spies with whom her mother and Sejanus surrounded that unhappy prince. (Tac. Ann. 4.60.) After Nero's death Julia married Rubellius Blandus, by whom she had a son, Rubellius Plautus. (rac. Ann. 6.27, 45, 16.10; Juv. Sat. 8.40.) [Blandus.] As Blandus was merely the grandson of a Roman eques of Tibur, the marriage was considered degrading to Julia. She too, like the preceding, incurred the hatred of Messalina, and, her instigation, was put to death by Claudius, A. D. 59. (Tac. Ann. 13.43; D. C. 60.18; Suet. Cl. 29; Sen. de Mort. Claud.)
10. A daughter of Titus, the son of Vespasian, by Furnilla. She married Flavius Sabinus, a nephew of the emperor Verpasian. Julia died of abortion, caused by her uncle Domitian, with whom she lived in criminal intercourse. She was interred in the temple of the Flavian Gens, and Domitian's ashes were subsequently placed with hers by wheir common nurse, Phyllis. (Suet. Dom. 17, 22 ; D. C. 67.3; Plin. Ep. 4.11.6; Juv. Sat. 2.32; Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. 7.3)
Several coins of JUlia are extant; she is represented on the obverse of the one annexed with the legend IVLIA AVGVSTA TITI AVGVSTI F.; the reverse represents Venus leaning on a column, with the legend VENVS AVGVST. [W.B.D]
[DOMNA JULIA].
[Drusilla, No. 3].
[PROCILLA JULIA].
One of the most ancient patrician gentes at Rome, the members of which attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the republic. It was without doubt of Alban origin, and it is mentioned as one of the leading Alban houses, which Tullus Hostilius removed to Rome upon the destruction of Alba Longa, and enrolled among the Roman patres. (Dionys. A. R. 3.29; Tac. Ann. 11.24; in Liv. 1.30, the reading should probably be Tullios, and not Julios.) The Julii also existed at an early period at Bovillae, as we learn from a very ancient inscription on an altar in the theatre of that town, which speaks of their offering sacrifices according to Alban rites --lege Albana (Niebuhr, Rom. Hist. vol. i. note 1240, vol. ii. note 421), and their connection with Bovillae is also implied by the chapel (sacrarium) which the emperor Tiberius dedicated to the Gens Julia in the town, and in which he placed the statue of Augustus. (Tac. Ann. 2.41.) It is not impossible that some of the Julii may have settled at Bovillae after the fall of Alba.
As it became the fashion in the later times of the republic to claim a divine origin for the most distinguished of the Roman gentes, it was contended that lulus, the mythical ancestor of the race, was the same as Ascanius, the son of Venus and Anchises, and that he was the founder of Alba Longa. In order to prove the identity of Ascanius and Iulus, recourse was had to etymology, some specimens of which the render curious in such matters will find in Servius (ad Virg. Aen. 1.267; comp. Liv. 1.3). The dictator Caesar frequently alluded to the divine origin of his race, as, for instance, in the funeral oration which he pronounced when quaestor over his aunt Julia (Suet. Jul. 6), and in giving " Venus Genetrix" as the word to his soldiers at the battles of Pharsalus and Munda, and subsequent writers and poets were ready enough to fall in with a belief which flattered the pride and exalted the origin of the imperial family.
Though it would seem that the Julii first came to Rome in the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the name occurs in Roman legend as early as the time of Romulus. It was Proculus Julius who was said to have informed the sorrowing Roman people, after the strange departure of Romulus from the world, that their king had descended from heaven and appeared to him, bidding him tell the people to honour him in future as a god, under the name of Quirinus. (Liv. 1.6; Ov. Fast. 2.499, &c.) Sonic modern critics have inferred from this, that a few of the Julii might have settled in Rome in the reign of the first king; but considering the entirely fabulous nature of the tale, and the circumstance that the celebrity of the Julia Gens in later times would easily lead to its connection with the earliest times of Roman story, no historical argument can be drawn from the mere name occurring in this legend.
The family names of this gens in the time of the republic are Caesar, Iulus, Mento, and LIBO, of which the first three were undoubtedly patrician; but the only two families which obtained any celebrity are those of Iulus and Caesar, the former in the first and the latter in the last century of the republic. On coins the only names which we find are Caesar and Bursio, the latter of which does not occur in ancient writers.
In the times of the empire we find an immense number of persons of the name of Julius; but it must not be supposed that they were connected by descent in any way with the Julia Gens; for, in consequence of the imperial family belonging to this gens, it became the name of their numerous freedmen, and may have been assumed by many other persons out of vanity and ostentation. An alphabetical list of the principal persons of the name, with their cognomens, is given below. [Julius.] (On the Julia Gens in general, see Klausen Aeneas und die Penaten, vol. ii. p. 1059, &c.; Drumann's Rom, vol. iii. p. 114, &c.)