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Julia gens

Ancient Roman family

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  • 4 chapters
Portrait of Gauis Iulius Caesar (Vatican Museum).
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain

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Origin

According to Roman tradition, the Julii were among the Alban families brought to Rome when their city was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius, the third Roman king, who enrolled them among the patricians and accorded them seats in the Roman Senate. Diodorus Siculus reported that the Julii had held the position of Rex Sacrorum at Alba Longa, the result of a compromise with the Silvii, who held the kingship. Some scholars have pointed to this as evidence of dual kingship in the earliest period of various cities of Latium, including Rome and Lanuvium, which also had the post of Rex Sacrorum.

A seemingly contradictory tradition places the Julii at Rome even earlier, following the death of Romulus. A certain Proculus Julius is reported to have witnessed Romulus descending from the heavens, bidding the Romans not weep for his loss, but to take up his worship as the god Quirinus. However, as this story concerns a miraculous event, and might have been influenced by the fame of the Julii in later times, it cannot be regarded as evidence of the period that the family first settled at Rome.

The Julii were also connected to Bovillae from an early period, some of them possibly having settled there after the fall of Alba Longa. An altar inscription in the theatre of Bovillae, dating from around the beginning of the first century BC, speaks of the Julii carrying out sacrifices according to the Alban rites. In imperial times the emperor Tiberius dedicated a sacrarium, or chapel, to the Julii at Bovillae, alongside a statue of Augustus.

In the later Republic, it was fashionable for aristocratic families to claim descent from the gods and heroes of Greek and Roman myth. The Julii claimed descent from Iulus, said to be the same person as Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, and founder of Alba Longa. In Greek myth, Aeneas was the son of Venus and the Trojan prince Anchises. The traditions upon which these claims were based were not always clear; the historian Livy was unsure whether to regard Iulus and Ascanius as the same person, or perhaps two brothers—one the son of Creüsa, Aeneas' first wife, lost in the sack of Troy—and the other the son of Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, whom Aeneas married after landing in Italy. The late Roman grammarian Servius went to some effort to prove the identity of Ascanius and Iulus through etymology.

The importance attached to their mythic ancestry may have served a further purpose: after their initial prominence under the early Republic, the Julii sank into obscurity, and they are hardly mentioned for a century and a half beginning in the mid-fourth century BC. When at last they emerged and once again began to assume positions of importance, emphasizing their ostensible connections with Rome's foundation myths might have helped to restore their prestige. As he rose to prominence in the Roman state, Caesar regularly alluded to these myths, notably doing so when speaking at the funeral of his aunt Julia, and using Venus Genetrix as the watchword for his soldiers at Pharsalus and Munda. Coins of the Julii bear the likeness of Venus, and Roman writers willingly readily furthered a myth that served to glorify the emperors.

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