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The gens Julia was one of the most prominent patrician families of ancient Rome. From the early decades of the Republic, members of this gens served in the highest offices of the Roman state, beginning with Gaius Julius Iulus, consul in 489 BC. However, the Julii are perhaps best known for Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator and adoptive father of the emperor Augustus, through whom the name was passed to the Julio-Claudian dynasty of the first century AD. The nomen Julius became very common in imperial times, as the descendants of persons enrolled as citizens under the early emperors began to make their mark in history.[1]
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.[2][1][3] 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.[4][5]
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.[6][7][8] 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.[9]
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.[10][11]
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.[1][12] 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.[13] The late Roman grammarian Servius went to some effort to prove the identity of Ascanius and Iulus through etymology.[14][1]
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.[15] 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.[16][1][17]
The Julii were amongst the most conservative patrician families in terms of praenomina. With only rare exceptions, they limited themselves to just three names: Lucius, Gaius, and Sextus, all of which were common throughout Roman history.[15] The consular fasti supply two others, evidently used among the early Julii: Vopiscus was borne by the consul of 473 BC, and he in turn had a son, Spurius.[18][19][20] Vopiscus was evidently an old praenomen that had fallen out of use, and is otherwise found only as a surname.[21] Spurius was common enough during the early Republic, but was scarce in later periods, preserved chiefly by a few families in which it was traditional. Livy also gives Gnaeus as the praenomen of Gaius Julius Mento, consul in 431 BC.[22][23][24]
Proculus, borne by the legendary figure who reportedly witnessed the apotheosis of Romulus, was another old praenomen that, though uncommon, was still in general use during the early Republic. Like Vopiscus, in later times it occurs as a cognomen.[25] It is also possible that Iulus or Iullus, the name from which the Julii derived their gentilicium, was originally a praenomen.[26] Perhaps with this reason in mind, Mark Antony, the friend and colleague of Caesar, and who was descended from the Julii, named one of his sons Iullus.
Various praenomina occur in imperial times, particularly in the imperial family, which made a habit of exchanging ordinary praenomina for titles and surnames. Other Julii are found with praenomina such as Gnaeus, Marcus, and Tiberius, but many of these were not descended from the patrician Julii of the Republic, but belonged to plebeian families, descended from freedmen or newly-enrolled citizens, who typically assumed the nomina of their patrons.[27]
The only cognomina of the Julii under the Republic were Iulus or Iullus, Mento, Libo, and Caesar. Of these all but Libo are known to have belonged to patrician members of this gens.[28] The status of Libo is uncertain, but he may have been a descendant of the Julii Iuli, and perhaps an ancestor of the Caesares, in which case he would also have been a patrician.[29] On coins, we find the surnames Caesar and Bursio, of which the latter belonged to a moneyer of the late Republic, not mentioned in Roman writers.[28][27][30] Other surnames occur in imperial times, but it is unknown which if any of these belonged to descendants of the patrician Julii.[28]
Over the course of centuries, the nomen Julius was adopted by countless persons as they obtained Roman citizenship, without any connection to the original Republican gens. Eventually the distinction between praenomen, nomen, and cognomen was lost, and Julius was treated much like a personal name, which it ultimately became. The Latin form is common in many languages, but other familiar forms exist, including Giulio (Italian), Julio (Spanish), Jules (French), Júlio (Portuguese), Iuliu (Romanian) and Юлий (Yuliy, Bulgarian and Russian).
Iullus, also written as Iulus and Jullus, was the surname of the eldest branch of the Julii to appear in Roman history. At least in later times, this name was connected with Iulus, the son of Aeneas,[1] or in some versions, the son of Ascanius and grandson of Aeneas. At least one of the Latin grammarians connected the name with Jupiter, explaining that the Latins called Ascanius a son of Jupiter. In this explanation Iulus perhaps originated as a diminutive of Dius, which seems etymologically possible.[31][32] Chase supposed that it might have been an ancient praenomen.[26] Iullus seems to be the older written form, but Iulus was popularized by Vergil in the Aeneid, and is the form used in the Fasti.[33][34][35]
The Julii Iulli first appear in 489 BC, when Gaius Julius Iullus was consul, and for the next century they filled the highest offices of the Roman state.[36] The last of the Iulli to appear in history, also named Gaius Julius Iullus, was nominated dictator in 352 BC, in an attempt to procure the election of two patrician consuls in violation of the lex Licinia Sextia.[37][36] This would seem to indicate that the Julii Iulli at this period belonged to the hard-line faction of the old aristocracy, and that their decline and disappearance from history was due to the rise of a coalition between the newly-empowered plebeian nobility and those patricians who were willing to work with them.[38]
This surname belonged to Gaius (or Gnaeus) Julius Mento, consul in 431 BC.[24] At this period, no plebeian Julii are known, and all consuls are thought to have been patricians,[i] so the authorities are agreed that Mento was one of the patrician Julii, but there is no evidence of where he fit in the family.[1]
Lucius Julius Libo, consul in 267 BC, is the only member of this gens known to have held high office during the century and a half between the last of the Julii Iuli and the first of the Julii Caesares.[29] Chase translates his surname as "sprinkler", deriving it from libare, and suggests that it might originally have signified the libation pourer at religious ceremonies.[40] His filiation in the fasti indicates that his father and grandfather were both named Lucius, but we do not know whether they bore the surname Libo, or some other. Some scholars have supposed that Libo was descended from the Julii Iuli,[29] and that Lucius, the father of Sextus Julius Caesar, was his son; but the evidence is very slight.[41]
The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology says this of the cognomen Caesar:
It is uncertain which member of the Julia gens first obtained the surname of Caesar, but the first who occurs in history is Sextus Julius Caesar, praetor in BC 208. The origin of the name is equally uncertain. Spartianus, in his life of Aelius Verus, mentions four different opinions respecting its origin:
- That the word signified an elephant in the language of the Moors, and was given as a surname to one of the Julii because he had killed an elephant.
- That it was given to one of the Julii because he had been cut (caesus) out of his mother's womb after her death; or
- Because he had been born with a great quantity of hair (caesaries) on his head; or
- Because he had azure-colored (caesii) eyes of an almost supernatural kind.
Of these opinions, the third, which is also given by Festus, seems to come nearest the truth. Caesar and caesaries are both probably connected with the Sanskrit kêsa, "hair", and it is quite in accordance with the Roman custom for a surname to be given to an individual from some peculiarity in his personal appearance. The second opinion, which seems to have been the most popular one with the ancient writers, arose without doubt from a false etymology. With respect to the first, which was the one adopted, says Spartianus, by the most learned men, it is impossible to disprove it absolutely, as we know next to nothing of the ancient Moorish language; but it has no inherent probability in it; and the statement of Servius is undoubtedly false, that the grandfather of the dictator obtained the surname on account of killing an elephant with his own hand in Africa, as there were several of the Julii with this name before his time.
An inquiry into the etymology of this name is of some interest, as no other name has ever obtained such celebrity—"clarum et duraturum cum aeternitate mundi nomen."[42][43] It was assumed by Augustus as the adopted son of the dictator, and was by Augustus handed down to his adopted son Tiberius. It continued to be used by Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, as members either by adoption or female descent of Caesar's family; but though the family became extinct with Nero, succeeding emperors still retained it as part of their titles, and it was the practice to prefix it to their own name, as for instance, Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus. When Hadrian adopted Aelius Verus, he allowed the latter to take the title of Caesar; and from this time, though the title of Augustus continued to be confined to the reigning prince, that of Caesar was also granted to the second person in the state and the heir presumptive to the throne.[44]
Drumann, citing the same sources, reached a different conclusion, believing that the story of an ancestor of the family having slain an elephant to be the most likely explanation. Drumann admitted that too little was known of the Moorish language to be sure, and that in any case it could not have been the dictator's grandfather, as some claimed, because the surname had already been borne for several generations before this.[45] However, he notes that the elephant became a potent symbol when the Romans first encountered them during the Punic Wars, the period in which the surname first appears. Furthermore, Caesar issued coins bearing the image of an elephant, and included elephants in his processions, though this could also have related to Caesar's military campaigns in Africa.[45] Drumann dismisses the explanations that the name derived from thick hair or blue eyes, and notes that the popular story of Caesar having given his name to the Caesarean section was false, since—besides having several generations of Caesars before him—his mother, Aurelia, was still alive when he first held public office.[45]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William (1870). "Julia Gens". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 2. pp. 642, 643.
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