Julia (sister of Caesar)

Iulia , also called Iulia Maior in modern research to distinguish it from her younger sister of the same name , was the older sister of the Roman dictator Gaius Iulius Caesar .

Life

Julia is not mentioned by name in any ancient source. Their existence can only be inferred from a passage in Suetonius , in which three men, whom Caesar appoints as his heirs, are referred to as his sororum nepotes (literally: "grandsons of the sisters"). One of them was Augustus , who later became Caesar's great-nephew to his (younger) sister, who was married to Marcus Atius Balbus, and her daughter Atia . The plural sororum shows that the other two named people, Lucius Pinarius and Quintus Pedius , were descended from a second sister of Caesar. If, like Augustus, they were actually grand-nephews of the dictator, no conclusions about Julia's marriages can be drawn from this, since, analogous to Augustus, they could also be descended from Juliet's daughters.

However, for chronological reasons, namely the well-known career of Quintus Pedius, research has considered it possible that Pedius (and probably also Pinarius), contrary to the wording in Suetonius, were not Caesar's great-nephews, but rather nephews. According to this reconstruction, Iulia would have entered into two marriages, the order of which is unknown: with a Pinarius from an old patrician family and with a Marcus or Quintus Pedius. She bore at least one son to each of her husbands, namely the son mentioned in Suetonius.

literature

• Friedrich Münzer : Julia 545 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume X, 1, Stuttgart 1918, Col. 893 f.

Remarks

1. ^ Suetonius, Divus Iulius 83, 2 .
2. ^ Friedrich Münzer : From the circle of relatives of Caesar and Octavian . In: Hermes . tape 71 , 1936, pp. 222–230, especially pp. 227–230 (indicates Pedius' career and the age of his presumed son, who was quaestor in 41 BC).