Julia (c. 130 BC – 69 BC) was the wife of the Roman consul
Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius (; – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his important refor ...
and a paternal aunt of future
Roman dictator
A Roman dictator was an extraordinary Roman magistrate, magistrate in the Roman Republic endowed with full authority to resolve some specific problem to which he had been assigned. He received the full powers of the state, subordinating the other ...
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
.
Biography
Julia was the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcia (daughter of praetor
Quintus Marcius Rex). She was a sister of
Gaius Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
(the father of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
) and
Sextus Julius Caesar, consul in 91 BC.
At about 110 BC she married
Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius (; – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his important refor ...
. They had a son,
Gaius Marius the Younger
Gaius Marius "the Younger" (c. 110 – 82 BC) was a Roman republican general and politician who became consul in 82 BC with Papirius Carbo. He fought in Sulla's civil war. He committed suicide that same year at Praeneste, after his defeat by S ...
.
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 ...
also mentions that Marius had two step-sons named Quintus Granius and Gnaeus Granius, it is possible that these men were children of Julia by an earlier marriage or step-children of Marius from a marriage to another woman before Julia. If Quintus and Gnaeus were indeed Julia's sons, then her earlier husband was likely a member of the Campanian trading family since Julia was a
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 ...
and would only have married someone from the
Grania gens if they were very rich.
According to
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 ...
, it was by marrying her, a
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 ...
woman, that the upstart Marius got the attention of the snobbish
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
and launched his political career. Julia is remembered as a virtuous woman devoted to her husband and their only child. Her reputation alone permitted her to keep her status, even after
Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force.
Sulla had ...
's persecutions against Marius himself and his allies.
Julia died in 69 BC and received
a devoted funeral eulogy from her nephew
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
.
[Plutarch, ''Parallel Lives'', "(The Life of) (Julius) Caesar", V; Also: ]Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.
His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
, ''The Twelve Caesars
''De vita Caesarum'' (Latin; "About the Life of the Caesars"), commonly known as ''The Twelve Caesars'', is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. The g ...
'', "I. Julius Caesar", VI:When quaestor, he pronounced the customary orations from the rostra in praise of his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, who had both died. And in the eulogy of his aunt he spoke in the following terms of her paternal and maternal ancestry and that of his own father: "The family of my aunt Julia is descended by her mother from the kings, and on her father's side is akin to the immortal Gods; for the Marcii Reges (her mother's family name) go back to Ancus Marcius
Ancus Marcius was the legendary fourth king of Rome, who traditionally reigned 24 years. Upon the death of the previous king, Tullus Hostilius, the Roman Senate appointed an interrex, who in turn called a session of the assembly of the people who ...
, and the Julii, the family of which ours is a branch, to Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
. Our stock therefore has at once the sanctity of kings, whose power is supreme among mortal men, and the claim to reverence which attaches to the Gods, who hold sway over kings themselves."
See also
*
Women of the Julii Caesares Julia (Classical Latin: ''Iulia'') is the nomen of various women of the family Julii Caesares, a branch of the ''gens Julia'', one of the most ancient patrician houses at ancient Rome.
By the time of the later Republic, Roman daughters were seldom ...
*
Julia gens
The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician (ancient Rome), patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Roman Republic, Republic ...
*
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 ...
*
Julio-Claudian family tree
Around the start of the Common Era, the family trees of the gens Julia and the gens Claudia became intertwined into the Julio-Claudian family tree as a result of marriages and adoptions.
Descendancy of the emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
...
References
Sources
*
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 ...
, ''
Parallel Lives
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 ...
'', written approx. 75 CE:
**"(The Life of)
(Gaius) Marius"
**
John Dryden translation at MIT classics**
***
ttps://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Marius*.html Bernadotte Perrin (ed.) translation at LacusCurtius**"(The Life of)
(Julius) Caesar"
*
John Dryden translation at MIT classics*
*
*
Bernadotte Perrin (ed.) translation at Perseus project*
Thomas North (ed.) translation at Perseus project
External links
{{Commons category, Julia (wife of Marius)
130s BC births
69 BC deaths
2nd-century BC Roman women
1st-century BC Roman women
1st-century BC Romans
Julii Caesares