Gaius Julius Iullus ( 489 BC) was a Roman politician from the early

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

. He was the first from the ancient

patrician Patrician may refer to: * Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage * Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...

clan of the

Julii The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the c ...

to attain the

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

ship, which he held in 489 BC as the colleague of

Publius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus Publius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus was a Roman senator who held the consulship alongside Gaius Julius Iulus in 489 BC. Family Rufus was the first member of the '' gens Pinaria'' to attain the consulship. The ''Pinarii'' were an ancient patrician ...

.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. II, p. 656, 657. According to Dionysius, it was during their year of office that the

Volsci The Volsci (, , ) were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the ...

an leader

Attius Tullius Attius Tullius was a well-respected and influential political and military leader of the Volsci in the early fifth century BC: according to Plutarch,Plutarch, '' Parallel Lives'', xx. 1-3; xxii. 1 who calls him Tullus Aufidius, his home town was An ...

provoked a confrontation with Rome. With the help of the Roman exile

Coriolanus ''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ye ...

, the Volsci prepared for war and began raiding

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

territory. As planned, the impact of the Volscian operations fell more heavily on the poor, exacerbating the already tense relationship between the patricians and the

plebeians In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words " commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of ...

.Plutarch, "The Life of Coriolanus", 26–28. As the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

was trying to calm the populace, a Volscian force under Coriolanus took control of the city of Circeii, where there was a Roman colony. The consuls were directed to set a watch over the city, call upon Rome's allies for help, and begin raising an army to meet the Volscian threat, but their term of office expired before these tasks could be completed. It fell to their successors to continue preparing for the inevitable confrontation with Coriolanus.

Family

According to legend, the Julii were one of the noble houses that came to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

from

Alba Longa Alba Longa (occasionally written Albalonga in Italian sources) was an ancient Latin city in Central Italy, 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Rome, in the vicinity of Lake Albano in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was d ...

when that city was destroyed by

Tullus Hostilius Tullus Hostilius (r. 672–640 BC) was the legendary third king of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius. Unlike his predecessor, Tullus was known as a warlike king who according to the Roman Historian Livy, believ ...

, the third

king of Rome The king of Rome ( la, rex Romae) was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 ...

, but it was not until the twenty-first year of the

that a member of that family was elected consul. Iullus'

filiation Filiation is the legal term for the recognized legal status of the relationship between family members, or more specifically the legal relationship between parent and child. As described by the Government of Quebec: Filiation is the relationship ...

is not found in the surviving fragments of the ''

Fasti Capitolini The ''Fasti Capitolini'', or Capitoline Fasti, are a list of the chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, extending from the early fifth century BC down to the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Together with similar lists found at Rom ...

''. If he was the father of the same Gaius Julius Iullus who was consul in 482 BC, then his father's name was ''Lucius''. This is the interpretation given in the ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 p ...

'', which generally follows

Wilhelm Drumann Wilhelm Karl August Drumann (11 June 1786, in Danstedt – 29 July 1861, in Königsberg) was a German classical historian. From 1805 he studied theology and philosophy at the University of Halle, receiving his doctorate at Helmstedt in 1810. Fol ...

's scholarship on the Julii. However, in ''The Magistrates of the Roman Republic'', Broughton gives ''Gaius'' as the father of the consul of 489.Broughton, vol. I, p. 18. If Iullus was the father of Gaius, the consul of 482, then he was also the father of

Vopiscus Julius Iullus Vopiscus Julius Iullus ( 473 BC) was a Roman statesman, who held the consulship in 473 BC, a year in which the authority of the Roman magistrates was threatened after the murder of a tribune of the plebs.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography ...

, consul in 473, who shares the same filiation and must have been the younger Gaius' brother. As far as can be determined from their filiations, all of the later Julii Iuli who appear in history were descended from these two brothers. At least some classical scholars believe that the later

Julii Caesares The Julii Caesares were the most illustrious family of the patrician ''gens Julia''. The family first appears in history during the Second Punic War, when Sextus Julius Caesar was praetor in Sicily. His son, Sextus Julius Caesar, obtained th ...

may also be descended from this family.Griffin, p. 13.

References

Bibliography

* Titus Livius (

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditiona ...

), ''

Ab Urbe Condita ''Ab urbe condita'' ( 'from the founding of the City'), or ''anno urbis conditae'' (; 'in the year since the city's founding'), abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an exp ...

'' (History of Rome). *

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, ; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...

, ''Romaike Archaiologia''. *

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...

us, ''

Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', commonly called ''Parallel Lives'' or ''Plutarch's Lives'', is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably writt ...

''. * William Berry, ''Genealogia Antiqua, or Mythological and Classical Tables, Compiled from the Best Authors on Fabulous and Ancient History'', Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, London (1816). * ''

'', William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). * T. Robert S. Broughton, ''The Magistrates of the Roman Republic'', American Philological Association (1952). * Miriam Griffin
''A Companion to Julius Caesar''
John Wiley & Sons (2009), , . * {{DEFAULTSORT:Julius Iullus, Gaius consul 265 5th-century BC Roman consuls Gaius consul 265