Julia Minor (before 100 BC – 51 BC) was the second of two daughters 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 ...

and

Aurelia Aurelia may refer to: People * Version of feminine given name Aurélie * Aurelia (mother of Caesar) * Aurelia gens, a Roman family * Aurelia Browder, American civil rights activist * Astrud Aurelia, American drag queen Science * ''Aurelia'' (c ...

. She was an elder sister of the dictator

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 the maternal grandmother of Rome's first emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

Biography

Bona Dea scandal

It is not known if it was the elder or the younger of the dictator's sisters who gave evidence against

Publius Clodius Pulcher Publius Clodius Pulcher (93–52 BC) was a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the time of the First Triumvirate. One of the most colourful personalities of his era, Clodius was descended from the aristocratic Claudia gens, one ...

when he was impeached for impiety in 61 BC. Julia and her mother gave the legal courts a detailed account of the affair he had with Pompeia, Julius Caesar's wife. Caesar divorced Pompeia over the scandal.

Marriage and offspring

Julia married

Marcus Atius Balbus Marcus Atius Balbus (105 – 51 BC) was a 1st-century BC Roman who served as a praetor in 62 BC, he was a cousin of the general Pompey on his mother's side and a brother-in-law of the Dictator Julius Caesar through his marriage to Caesar's sister ...

, a praetor and commissioner who came from a senatorial family of

plebeian 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 ...

status. Julia bore him three (or two, according to other sources) daughters and possibly a son named

. The second daughter was the mother of

Octavia Minor Octavia the Younger ( la, Octavia Minor; c. 66 BC – 11 BC) was the elder sister of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus (known also as Octavian), the half-sister of Octavia the Elder, and the fourth wife of Mark Antony. She was also the great-gra ...

(fourth wife of triumvir

Mark Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autoc ...

) and of Romes first Emperor

. Her

youngest daughter The youngest son is a stock character in fairy tales, where he features as the hero. He is usually the third son, but sometimes there are more brothers, and sometimes he has only one; usually, they have no sisters. In a family of many daught ...

was the wife of Lucius Marcius Philippus, and they had a daughter named Marcia. Another Atia, who may have been her granddaughter through her son (probably from a marriage to a Claudia) may have been married to Gaius Junius Silanus. This Atia was the mother of

Gaius Junius Silanus Gaius Junius Silanus was a Roman Senator active during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. He acceded to the rank of Roman consul in 10 AD as the colleague of Publius Cornelius Dolabella. For the term 20/21 the sortition selected him to be proco ...

who became consul in AD 10. Sons of the consul in 10 were

Appius Junius Silanus __NOTOC__ Appius Junius Silanus (died AD 43), whom Cassius Dio calls Gaius Appius Silanus, was consul in AD 28, with Publius Silius Nerva as his colleague. He was accused of '' majestas'', or treason, in AD 32 along with a number of senators, but ...

(consul in 28), Decimus Junius Silanus (who was involved in the disgrace of Julia the Younger) and Marcus Junius Silanus (''consul suffectus'' in 15). (Limited Previes
"Atia, wife of Marcius Philippus (suff. 38 BC)"
an
"A daughter (Atia) would supply a wife for C. Silanus"
of this page in

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

) Balbus died in 52 BC and Julia died a year later. At age 12 Octavius, her youngest grandson, the future Emperor Augustus, delivered her funeral oration.

References

Sources

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 - Caesar and Augustus.
Julia
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology {{Julius Caesar, state=collapsed 100s BC births 51 BC deaths 2nd-century BC Roman women 1st-century BC Roman women 1st-century BC Romans Family of Augustus Family of Julius Caesar Julii Caesares