Gaius Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a name used by men of the gens Julia in ancient Rome. It was the full name (tria nomina) of the famous Julius Caesar, and was the name of several prominent men, including his father, during the Roman Republic. Gaius was one of the three most common praenomina (first names) for the Julii Caesares, the other two being Lucius and Sextus.

Gaius Julius Caesar I

Livy mentions Gaius Julius, a senator, who around 143 BC would have written a Roman history in Greek. Others have conjectured this may have been a son of Sextus Julius Caesar, the military tribune, and a brother of the Sextus Julius Caesar who was consul in 157 BC. He may have been the father of the Gaius Julius Caesar that married Marcia.^[1]

Gaius Julius Caesar II

Gaius Julius Caesar was the father of Gaius Julius Caesar the Elder who was the father of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator. Nothing is known of the career of Gaius Julius Caesar II, except that he can possibly be identified with a praetor who died suddenly at Rome,^[1] although Lucius Julius, a praetor urbanus in 166 BC is another likely candidate for that fact mentioned by Pliny.^[2]

Gaius Julius Caesar II married a woman from the patrician Marcii Reges, a union his father would have arranged. He in turn arranged a marriage for his son Gaius to Aurelia Cotta, a daughter from the Cotta branch of the gens Aurelia. The Aurelii Cottae had been plebeian nobles from the mid-3rd century BC, when two ancestors attained the consulship. His daughter Julia was married to a former plebeian tribune from an obscure family. This man was Gaius Marius, the novus homo and seven-time consul.^[3]

Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus

Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus (c. 130–87 BC), son of a Lucius Julius Caesar and Poppilia.

Gaius Julius Caesar III

Gaius Julius Caesar, a.k.a. Gaius Julius Caesar the Elder was the father of Julius Caesar the Roman dictator. He was married to Aurelia Cotta, and they had three children, the eldest two being daughters known as Julia Caesaris. Gaius Julius Caesar III maintained his connections with brother-in-law Marius. In 103 or 100 BC, he served on a commission for land distribution, mainly to veterans who had served under Marius. He was praetor around 92 BC, and proconsul of Asia for two years or longer, but seems to have departed his province before the Mithridatic War broke out. He chose not to seek the consulship and to lead a quiet life outside Rome, dying in 85 BC at Pisa.^[4]

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC), usually referred to as Julius Caesar, the Roman general, consul, dictator and author whose career and assassination on the Ides of March, 44 BC, brought about the demise of the Roman Republic and creation of the Roman Empire.

Augustus

Gaius Julius Caesar, born Gaius Octavius Thurinus (63 BC–AD 14), first emperor (27 BC–AD 14), better known as Octavian or Augustus. As Julius Caesar's adopted heir, Octavian, later known as Augustus, emphasized his connection to the assassinated dictator through his name, a practice continued his by successors or potential successors in the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Gaius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar, born Gaius Vipsanius Agrippa (20 BC–AD 4), son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder (daughter of Augustus), later adopted by Augustus as his heir.

Caligula

Gaius Julius Caesar, later called Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known as Caligula (AD 12–41), son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder (granddaughter of Augustus), third emperor (AD 37–41).

See also

• Julii Caesares
• Julius Caesar (disambiguation)
• Julio-Claudian family tree
• Gaius Iulius Caesar (name), about the name itself
• Gaius Iulius Iullus, the same combination of praenomen and gens name, with the older cognomen Iullus

References

1. William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 1870. Volume 1 p. 536 ff.
2. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.181; Broughton, MRR¹, p. 437.
3. Badian 2009, p. 15
4. Badian 2009, pp. 15–16.

Sources

• Ernst Badian, "From the Iulii to Caesar," in A Companion to Julius Caesar (edited by Miriam Griffin), p. 13 ff. Blackwell/John Wiley & Sons, 2009. ISBN 1444308459 ISBN 9781444308457

External links

• Works by or about Gaius Julius Caesar at Internet Archive
• Works by Gaius Julius Caesar at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)