The Ancient Library

Scanned text contains errors.

On this page: Julia



instantly surrounded, his attendants cut to pieces, and he himself made prisoner, and delivered in chains to Sulla, by whom he was conveyed directly to the camp of Marius. This occurred early in the year 106. He remained in captivity till the return of Marius to Rome, when, after adorning the triumph of his conqueror (Jan. 1, b. c. 104), he was thrown into a dungeon, and there starved to death. His two sons, who were, together with himself, led in chains before the car of Marius, were afterwards allowed to spend their lives in captivity at Venusia.

There is no doubt that Jugurtha occupies a more prominent place in history than he would other­ wise deserve, in consequence of the war against him having been made the subject, by Sallust, of one of the most beautiful historical works that has been preserved to us from antiquity. From that work the above narrative is almost wholly taken, the other authorities now extant adding scarcely any thing to our information, except the circumstances of the death of Jugurtha, which are given in detail by Plutarch. Of his personal cha­ racter it is unnecessary to say much, the picture of him, preserved by Sallust, though drawn by one of his enemies, has all the appearance of a true por­ trait. It is that of a genuine barbarian chief—bold, reckless, faithless, and sanguinary—daring and fertile of resource in action, but fickle and wavering in policy, and incapable of that steadiness of pur­ pose which can alone command success. The peculiar character of Numidian warfare, and the disasters of the generals first employed against him, appear to have excited in the minds of the Romans themselves an exaggerated idea of the abilities and resources of their adversary, which the subsequent events of the war, as related by Sallust, hardly seem to justify. (Sail. Jugurtha; Liv. Epit. Ixii. Ixiv —Ixvii; Pint. Mar. 7—10, Sutt. 3, 6; Appian, Hisp. 89, Numid. 2—4 ; Diod. Exc. xxxv. pp. 605, 607, 630; Dion Cass. Fragm. 167—169; Veil. Pat. ii. 11, 12 ; Oros. v. 15; Eutrop. iv. 26, 27 ; Flor. iii. 2.) [E. H. B,]

JULIA. 1. A daughter of C. Julius Caesar [caesar, No. 14] and Marcia, and aunt of Caesar the dictator. She married C. Marius the elder, by whom she had one son, C. Marius, slain at Prae-neste in b. c. 82. Julia died b. c. 68, and her nephew, C. Julius Caesar, pronounced her funeral oration, in which he traced her descent through the Marcii to Ancus, the fourth king of Rome, and through the Julii to Anchises and Venus. At the funeral of Julia were exhibited, for the first time since Sulla's dictatorship in b. c. 81, the statues and inscriptive titles of the elder Marius. (Plut. Mar. 6, Goes. 1, 5 ; Suet. Goes. 6.)

2. A daughter of L. Julius Caesar [caesar, No. 9] and Fulvia. She married M. Antonius Cre-ticus [antonius, No. 9], and, after his death, P. Lentulus Sura, who was executed b.c. 63, as an accomplice of Catiline. By Antonius she had three sons, Marcus, afterwards the triumvir, Caius, and Lucius. Plutarch (Ant. 2) represents Julia as an exemplary matron, and Cicero (in Cat, iv. 6) styles her " femina lectissima." But neither in ;her husbands nor her children was Julia fortunate. Antonius lived a prodigal, and died inglorious ; and Lentulus, by his bad example, corrupted his step-sons. Her sons, especially Marcus, who was not her favourite (Cic. Phil. ii. 24), involved her in the troubles of the civil wars. While he was


besieging Dec. Brutus in Mutina, b. c. 43, Julia-exerted her own and her family's influence in Rome to prevent his being outlawed by the senate (App. B. C.. iii. 51), and after the triumvirate was formed, she rescued her brother, L. Julius Caesar [caesar, No. 11], from her son, and interceded with him for many rich and high-born women whose wealth exposed them to proscription. (App. B.C. iii. 32.) In .the Perusine war, b.c. 41, Julia fled from Rome, although Augustus had uni­formly treated her with kindness, and now up­braided her distrust of him, to Sext. Pompey in Sicily, by whom she was sent with a distin­guished escort and convoy of triremes to M. An­tony in Greece, (App. B. C. v. 52, 63.) At Athens Julia forwarded a reconciliation of the triumvirs, and returned with her son to Italy in b. c. 39, and was probably present at their meeting with Sext. Pompey at Misenum. (Plut. Ant. 19 ; Dion Cass, xlvii. 8, xlviii. 16 ; Cic. Phil. ii. 6, 8 ; Schol. Bob. in Vat. p. 321, Orelli.)

3. The elder of the two sisters of Caesar the dic­tator, married, but in what order is uncertain, L. Pi-narius, of a very ancient patrician family (Liv. i. 7), and Q. Pedius, by each of whom she had at least one son. (App. B. C. iii. 22, 23; Suet. Goes. 83.) It is doubtful whether it was the elder or the younger of the dictator's sisters who gave her evidence against P. Clodius [clodius, No. 40], when impeached for impiety in b.c. 61. (Suet. Goes. 74 ; Schol. Bob. in Clod. p. 337, Orelli.)

4. The younger sister of Caesar the dictator, was the wife of M. Atius Balbus [balbus atius], by whom she had Atia, the mother of Augustus [atia]. Julia died in b. c. 52—51, when her grandson, Augustus, was in his twelfth year (Suet. Aug. 8 ; Quint, xii. 6), and he pronounced her funeral oration. Nicolalis of Damascus (c. 3), indeed, places her decease three years earlier, in her grandson's ninth year, and, as a contemporary, his evidence might be preferable, were there not apparent in his narrative a wish to exalt the genius of Augustus by abating from his age at the time he pronounced the oration. (See Weichert, de Imp. Goes. Aug. Script, i. p. 11, Grimae, 1835.)

5. Daughter of Caesar the dictator, by Cornelia [cornelia, 2], and his only child in marriage (Tac. Ann. iii. 6). She was born b. c. 83—82, and was betrothed to Servilius Caepio [caepio, No. 14], but married Cn, Pompey, b. c. 59. This family-alliance of its two great chiefs was regarded as the firmest bond of the so-called first triumvirate, and was accordingly viewed with much alarm by the oligarchal party in Rome, especially by Cicero and Cato (Cic. ad Alt. ii. 17, viii. 3 ; Pint. Goes. 14, Pomp. 48, Cat. Min. 31 ; App. B. C. ii. 14 ; Suet. Caes. 50 ; Dion Cass. xxxviii. 9 ; Gell. iv. 10. § 5 ; comp. August. Civ. Dei. iii. 13). The per­sonal charms of Julia were remarkable ; her ta­lents and virtues equalled her beauty; and although policy prompted her union, and she was twenty-three years younger than her husband, she pos­sessed in Pompey a devoted husband, to whom she was, in return, devotedly attached. (Plut. Pomp. 48, 53.) It was not the least fortunate circumstance in Julia's life that she died before a breach between her husband and father had be­come inevitable. (Veil. Pat. ii. 44, 47 ; Flor. iv. 2.

13 ; Plut. Pomp. 53 ; Lucan, i. 113.) At the election of aediles in b. c. 55, Pompey was sur­rounded by a tumultuous mob, and his gown was

About | First



page #  
Search this site
Ancient Library was developed and hosted by Tim Spalding of