Sextus Julius Caesar was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

praetor Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vario ...

in 208 BC, during the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

. He is thought to be the ancestor of all of 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 ...

who appear in history, such as

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 ...

and

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

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 ...

''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. I, p. 537.

Family

Sextus is the earliest member of the Julii Caesares whose name is found in historical sources. From the filiation of his son,

Sextus Sextus is an ancient Roman '' praenomen'' or "first name". Its standard abbreviation is Sex., and the feminine form would be Sexta. It is one of the numeral ''praenomina'', like Quintus ("fifth") and Decimus ("tenth"), and means "sixth". Althoug ...

, we know that his father's name was ''Lucius'', but it is not known whether his father bore the surname of ''Caesar''.Broughton, vol. I, p. 446. At least some scholars have proposed that this Lucius was the son of

Lucius Julius Libo Lucius Julius Libo ( 267–266 BC) was a Roman senator and military commander. He was Roman consul, consul in 267 BC, together with Marcus Atilius Regulus (consul 267 BC), Marcus Atilius Regulus. During their term of office, the two men carried on ...

, consul in 267 BC. Sextus appears to have had at least two children:

Lucius Lucius ( el, Λούκιος ''Loukios''; ett, Luvcie) is a male given name derived from ''Lucius'' (abbreviated ''L.''), one of the small group of common Latin forenames (''praenomina'') found in the culture of ancient Rome. Lucius derives from L ...

, who was praetor in 183 BC, and Sextus, who served as

military tribune A military tribune (Latin ''tribunus militum'', "tribune of the soldiers") was an officer of the Roman army who ranked below the legate and above the centurion. Young men of Equestrian rank often served as military tribune as a stepping stone to ...

in 181, and attained the

consulship A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politic ...

in 157. In his reconstruction of the Julii Caesares, classical scholar

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 ...

assumed that the consul was the son of the military tribune, rather than the same man, and therefore inserted an otherwise unknown Lucius between Sextus the praetor and his two sons; but since the tribune and the consul are identical, the consul's grandfather Lucius must have been the father of Sextus, praetor in 208.Drumann, p. 113. It is likely that the praetor had a third son, Gaius, who was a

senator 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 ...

, and is said to have written a Roman history in Greek about 143 BC. This Gaius was probably the great-grandfather 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 dictator, whose father and grandfather were also named ''Gaius''.

Career

Elected praetor in 208 BC, Sextus was assigned the province of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, and given the command of the '' legiones Cannenses'', legions formed from the survivors of the

Battle of Cannae The Battle of Cannae () was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and their allies, led by ...

.Broughton, vol. I, p. 290. A great calamity befell the Roman forces when the consuls

Marcus Claudius Marcellus Marcus Claudius Marcellus (; 270 – 208 BC), five times elected as consul of the Roman Republic, was an important Roman military leader during the Gallic War of 225 BC and the Second Punic War. Marcellus gained the most prestigious award a Roma ...

and

Titus Quinctius Crispinus Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death. Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...

, who were scouting Hannibal's position, fell into a trap, and Marcellus was slain. Gravely wounded, Crispinus was unable to return to Rome in order to hold the elections for the following year, and accordingly the senate dispatched Sextus Julius Caesar and two other envoys to meet with him, and urge the consul to appoint a

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times ...

for the purpose of holding the elections. Crispinus nominated Titus Manlius Torquatus, who oversaw the election of new magistrates, but Crispinus himself died from his wounds before the end of the year.Livy, xxvii. 29, 34.

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 ...

'' (The History of Rome from the Founding of the City). * Wilhelm Drumann, ''Geschichte Roms in seinem Übergang von der republikanischen zur monarchischen Verfassung, oder: Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen'', Königsberg (1834–1844).
"Sex. Julius Caesar" (no. 1)
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 ...

'', 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 Caesar, Sextus 3rd-century BC Romans Roman Republican praetors Roman governors of Sicily

Family

Career

See also

References

Bibliography