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Octavia (gens)

The gens Octavia was a plebeian family at Rome, which was raised to patrician status by Caesar during the 1st century BC The first member of the gens to achieve prominence was Gnaeus Octavius Rufus, quaestor circa 230 BC. Over the following two centuries, the Octavii held many of the highest offices of the state; but the most celebrated of the family was Gaius Octavius, the grand nephew of Caesar and adopted son, who was proclaimed Augustus by the senate in 27 BC. 

The Octavii originally came from the Volscian town of Velitrae, in the Alban Hills. The historian Suetonius writes,
There are many indications that the Octavian family was in days of old a distinguished one at Velitrae; for not only was a street in the most frequented part of town long ago called Octavian, but an altar was shown there besides, consecrated by an Octavius. This man was leader in a war with a neighbouring town, and when news of a sudden onset of the enemy was brought to him just as he chanced to be sacrificing to Mars, he snatched the entrails of the victim from the fire and offered them up half raw; and thus he went forth to battle, and returned victorious. There was, besides, a decree of the people on record, providing that for the future too the entrails should be offered to Mars in the same way, and the rest of the victims be handed over to the Octavii. 
Towards the end of the Republic, it became fashionable for noble families to trace their origin to the gods and heroes of olden time, and accordingly in Suetonius we also read that the Octavii received the franchise from Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth King of Rome, and were enrolled among the patricians by his successor, Servius Tullius. They afterwards passed over to the plebeians, until the patrician rank was again conferred upon them by Caesar. 
This story is not improbable in itself, but since neither Livius nor Dionysius mention the Octavii when they speak of Velitrae, and the Octavii do not appear in history till the latter half of the 3rd century BC, the tradition connecting them with the Roman kings may be safely rejected. 
The nomen Octavius is a patronymic surname, derived from the praenomen Octavius, which was widely spread in Latium. Many other gentes obtained their nomina in this manner, including theQuinctii from Quintus, the Sextii from Sextus, and the Septimii from Septimus. 
The chief praenomina used by the Octavii were GnaeusGaiusMarcus, and Lucius. Examples of Publius and Servius are found under the Empire. 

us Octavius Rufus, who had two sons, Gnaeus and Gaius. The descendants of the younger Gnaeus held many of the highermagistracies, but the descendants of Gaius remained simple equites, who did not rise to any importance. The great-grandfather of Augustus served as a military tribune during the Second Punic War, and survived the Battle of Cannae; however, when Marcus Antonius wished to throw contempt upon Augustus, he called this Gaius Octavius a freedman and a restio, or rope-maker. The first of this family who was enrolled among the senators was Gaius Octavius, the father of Augustus. During the Republic, none of the Octavii of this family bore any cognomen other than Rufus, and even this is rarely mentioned. The surname, which means "red," may have been obtained by one of the Octavii because he had red hair. A few other persons named Octavius were not descended from Gnaeus Octavius Rufus, or whose descent cannot be traced. They bore cognomina such as Balbus, Ligur, Marsus, and Naso.Balbus was a common surname, referring to one who stammers, while Naso is thought to refer to someone with a prominent nose. Ligur refers to one of the Ligures, the aboriginal people ofLiguria, while Marsus refers to one of the Marsi, an ancient people of central Italy, who later allied with the Samnites. 

Octavii Rufi

  • Gnaeus Octavius Rufus, quaestor circa 230 BC. 
  • Gnaeus Octavius Cn. f.praetor in 205 BC, during the Second Punic War; he obtained Sicily as his province, and captured eighty Carthaginian ships of burden. After the Battle of Zama,Scipio directed him to march on Carthage.
  • Gaius Octavius Cn. f., the younger son of Gnaeus Octavius Rufus, he was a simple eques, who never attempted to rise any higher in the state. 
  • Gaius Octavius C. f. Cn. n.tribunus militum in 216 BC, during the Second Punic War. He survived the Battle of Cannae, and in 205 served in Sicily under the praetor Lucius Aemilius Papus.
  • Gnaeus Octavius Cn. f. Cn. n., commanded the Roman fleet during the war against Perseus, over whom he triumphed. He was consul in 165 BC, and erected the Porticus Octavia. He was assassinated at Laodiceia while on an embassy in 162.
  • Gnaeus Octavius Cn. f. Cn. n., consul in 128 BC; according to Cicero, he was accustomed to speaking in the courts of justice. 
  • Marcus Octavius (Cn. f. Cn. n.)tribunus plebis in 133 BC, he opposed the agrarian law of his colleague, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus
  • Gaius Octavius C. f. C. n., the grandfather of Augustus, possessed considerable property, and lived quietly in his villa at Velitrae. He probably augmented his income by money-lending, for both Antonius and Cassius Parmensis called Augustus the grandson of a money-lender. 
  • Gnaeus Octavius Rufus, quaestor in 107 BC; perhaps the same man as the consul of 87. 
  • Gnaeus Octavius Cn. f. Cn. n., consul in 87 BC, he was a supporter of the Optimates, and placed himself in opposition to his colleague, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who was driven from the city. Octavius was slain shortly after Cinna's return with Gaius Marius.
  • Marcus Octavius Cn. f. Cn. n., tribunus plebis in an uncertain year, brought forward a law raising the price at which corn was sold to the people. 
  • Lucius Octavius Cn. f. Cn. n., consul in 75 BC; in the following year he died while proconsul of Cilicia, and was succeeded by Lucius Licinius Lucullus. He is frequently confounded with the jurist Lucius Octavius Balbus. 
  • Gnaeus Octavius M. f. Cn. n., consul in 76 BC, and a minor orator; he suffered such severe gout that he was unable to walk. 
  • Gaius Octavius C. f. C. n. Rufus, the father of Augustus, was praetor in 61 BC. Subsequently proconsul of Macedonia, he defeated several Thracian tribes, and was saluted imperator by his troops. He died suddenly in 58.
  • Octavius (died 53 BC), a legate in the army of Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives during the battle of Carrhae.
  • Marcus Octavius Cn. f. M. n.aedile in 50 BC, he was a partisan of Pompeius during the Civil War and commanded his fleet with considerable success.
  • Marcus Octavius, an admiral who commanded the middle of Marcus Antonius' fleet at the Battle of Actium.
  • Octavia C. f. C. n., the elder daughter of the praetor of 61 BC, and half-sister of Augustus; she married Sextus Appuleius. 
  • Octavia C. f. C. n., the younger daughter of the praetor of 61 BC, and sister of Augustus; she married first Gaius Claudius Marcellus, consul in 50 BC, and second Marcus Antonius.
  • Gaius Octavius C. f. C. n., the first Roman emperor; he was the nephew of Caesar, in whose will he was adopted; in 27 BC the senate proclaimed him Augustus.
  • Octavius Rufus, a friend of the younger Plinius. 
  • Marcus Octavius Ligur, a senator, and tribunus plebis with his brother, Lucius, in 82 BC. Verres compelled him to come to Rome in 74 in order to defend his rights respecting an estate that he had inherited in Sicily, and then charged him the costs of the trial. 
  • Lucius Octavius Ligur, tribunus plebis with his brother, Marcus, in 82 BC, he defended his brother's interests in Sicily from Verres during Marcus' absence. Perhaps the same person mentioned in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus. 

Octavii Laenates

  • Marcus Octavius Laenas Curtianus, one of the distinguished men who supplicated the judges on behalf of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, in 54 BC. 
  • Gaius Octavius Laenas, curator of the aqueducts in Rome from AD 34 to 38, during the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula. 
  • Servius Octavius Laenas Pontianus, consul in AD 131. 

Others

  • Octavius Graecinus, one of the generals of Sertorius in Hispania, he distinguished himself in battle against Pompeius in 76 BC. In 72 BC, he joined the conspiracy of Marcus Perperna, by which Sertorius perished. 
  • Lucius Octavius, a legate of Pompeius during the war against the pirates, in 67 BC; succeeded Quintus Caecilius Metellus in the command of Crete, and received the submission of the Cretan towns. 
  • Lucius Octavius Naso, left his estate to Lucius Flavius, praetor designatus in 59 BC. 
  • Lucius Octavius Balbus, an eminent legal scholar and judex in the time of Cicero; in 42 BC he was proscribed and put to death by the triumvirs. 
  • Lucius Octavius, detected in adultery by Gaius Memmius, and punished by him. 
  • Octavius Marsus, legate of Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who sent him into Syria with one legion in 43 BC. After the town of Laodiceia was betrayed into the hands of Gaius Cassius Longinus, Dolabella and Octavius put an end to their own lives. 
  • Marcus Octavius Herennius, originally a flute player, he became engaged in trade, and built a chapel to Hercules near the Porta Trigemina, at the foot of the Aventine Hill, supposedly in gratitude for having been delivered from pirates. 
  • Gaius Octavius Lampadio, a grammarian, who divided the poem of Naevius on the First Punic War into seven books. 
  • Octavius Fronto, a contemporary of Tiberius, he had been praetor, and in AD 16 spoke in the senate against the great luxury then prevailing. 
  • Publius Octavius, a noted epicurean during the reign of Tiberius. 
  • Octavius Sagitta, tribunus plebis in AD 58, he murdered his mistress, Pontia Postumia, because she refused to marry him after promising to do so. He was condemned and exiled to an island, but returned to Rome following the death of Nero. In AD 70 the senate again condemned him and reinstated his punishment. 
  • Gaius Octavius Vindex, consul suffectus in AD 184. 
  • Octavius Horatianus, a name sometimes assigned to the author of the Rerum Medicarum Libri Quatuor, usually attributed to the physician Theodorus Priscianus, who lived at Constantinopleduring the 4th century.

Caesar's Comet


Caesar's Comet   also known as Comet Caesar and the Great Comet of 44 BC – was perhaps the most famous comet of antiquity. The seven-day visitation was taken by Romans as a sign of the deification of the recently dead dictator, Julius Caesar (100–44 BC). 
Caesar's Comet was one of only five comets known to have had a negative absolute magnitude and was possibly the brightest daylight comet in recorded history.  It was not periodic and may have disintegrated.
Caesar's Comet was known to ancient writers as the Sidus Iulium ("Julian Star") or Caesaris astrum ("Star of Caesar"). The bright, daylight-visible comet appeared suddenly during the festival known as the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris – for which the 44 BC iteration was long considered to have been held in the month of September (a conclusion drawn by Sir Edmund Halley). The dating has recently been revised to a July occurrence in the same year, some four months after the assassination of Julius Caesar, as well as Caesar's own birth month. According to Suetonius, as celebrations were getting underway, "a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour, and was believed to be the soul of Caesar." 
The Comet became a powerful symbol in the political propaganda that launched the career of Caesar's great-nephew (and adoptive son) Augustus. The Temple of Divus Iulius (Temple of the Deified Julius) was built (42 BC) and dedicated (29 BC) by Augustus for purposes of fostering a "cult of the comet". (It was also known as the "Temple of the Comet Star". ) At the back of the temple a huge image of Caesar was erected and, according to Ovid, a flaming comet was affixed to its forehead:
To make that soul a star that burns forever
Above the Forum and the gates of Rome.
 
In 1997, two scholars at the University of Illinois at Chicago – John T. Ramsey (a classicist) and A. Lewis Licht (a physicist) – published a book   comparing astronomical/astrological evidence from both Han China and Rome. Their analysis, based on historical eye-witness accounts, Chinese astronomical records, astrological literature from later antiquity and ice cores from Greenlandglaciers, yielded a range of orbital parameters for the hypothetical object. They settled on a 0.224 A.U. orbit for the object which was apparently visible with a tail from the Chinese capital (in late May) and as a star-like object from Rome (in late July):
  • May 18, 44 BC (China)
  • July 23–25, 44 BC (Rome)
  • Absolute magnitude: −4.0
A few scholars, such as Robert Gurval of UCLA and Brian G. Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, leave the comet's very existence as an open question. Marsden notes in his forward to Ramsey and Licht's book, "Given the circumstance of a single reporter two decades after the event, I should be remiss if I were not to consider this [i.e., the comet's non-existence] as a serious possibility."  
The poet Virgil writes in his ninth eclogue that the star of Caesar has appeared to gladden the fields. Virgil later writes of the period following Julius Caesar’s assassination, “Never did fearsome comets so often blaze.”  Gurval interestingly points out that this passage in no way links a comet to Caesar’s divine status, but rather links comets to his death. 
It is Ovid, however, who makes the final assertion of the comet’s role in Julius Caesar’s deification. Ovid describes the deification of Caesar in Metamorphoses (8 AD):
Then Jupiter, the Father, spoke..."Take up Caesar’s spirit from his murdered corpse, and change it into a star, so that the deified Julius may always look down from his high temple on our Capitol and forum." He had barely finished, when gentle Venus stood in the midst of the Senate, seen by no one, and took up the newly freed spirit of her Caesar from his body, and preventing it from vanishing into the air, carried it towards the glorious stars. As she carried it, she felt it glow and take fire, and loosed it from her breast: it climbed higher than the moon, and drawing behind it a fiery tail, shone as a star. 
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1599), Caesar's wife remarks on the fateful morning of her husband's murder: "When beggars die there are no comets seen. The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
Tracing the coinage from 44 BC through the developing rule of Augustus reveals the changing relationship of Julius Caesar to the Sidus Iulium. Robert Gurval notes that the shifting status of Caesar’s comet in the coinage follows a definite pattern. Representations of the deified Julius Caesar as a star appeared relatively quickly, occurring within several years of his death. However, about twenty years passed before the star completed its transformation into a comet. Starting in 44 BC, a money maker named P. Sepullius Macer created coins with the front displayingJulius Caesar crowned with a wreath and a star behind his head. On the back, Venus, the goddess of the Julian family, holds a starred scepter. Gurval maintains that this coin was minted about the time of Caesar’s assassination and thus probably would not have originally referred to his deification. As it circulated, however, it would have brought that idea to mind because of Caesar’s new cult.  Kenneth Scott’s older work The Sidus Iulium and the Apotheosis of Caesar contests this by assuming that the comet did indeed spark this series because of similarity to other coins he produced. A series of Roman aurei and denarii minted after this cult began show Mark Antony and a star, which most likely represents his position as Caesar’s priest. In later coins likely originating near the end of Octavian’s war with Sextus Pompey, the star supplants Caesar’s name and face entirely, clearly representing his divinity. 
One of the clearest and earliest correlations of Caesar to a comet occurred during the Secular Games of 17 BC when money maker M. Sanquinius fashioned coins whose reverse sports a comet over the head of a wreathed man whom classicists and numismatists speculate is either a youthful Caesar, the Genius of the Secular Games, the Julian family, or Aeneas’ son Iulus. These coins strengthened the link between Julius Caesar and Augustus since Augustus associated himself with the Julians. Another set of Spanish coins displays an eight-rayed comet with the words DIVVS IVLIVS,  meaning Divine Julius.

Julius Caesar


Gaius Julius Caesar  July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman generalstatesmanConsuland notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative elite within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.
These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to lay down his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused, and marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with a legion to march into the city itself. Civil warresulted, from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of Rome.
After assuming control of government, Caesar began a program of social and governmental reforms, including the creation of the Julian calendar. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity". But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus. A new series ofcivil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never restored. Caesar's adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power, and the era of the Roman Empire began.
Much of Caesar's life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources. Caesar is deemed to be one of the greatest military commanders of history.
Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus.  The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarean section (from the Latin verb to cut, caederecaes-).  The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle. 
Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name. Despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia,  while his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesar's childhood. 
Caesar's formative years were a time of turmoil and "savage bloodshed". There were several wars from 91 BC to 82 BC, although from 82 BC to 80 BC, the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla was purging Rome of his political enemies. Domestically, Roman politics was bitterly divided. In 85 BC, Caesar's father died suddenly  so at sixteen Caesar was the head of the family. The following year he was nominated to be the new high priest of Jupiter. 
Since the holder of that position not only had to be a patrician but also be married to a patrician, he broke off his engagement to a plebeian girl he had been betrothed to since boyhood, and married Lucius Cinna's daughter Cornelia. Meanwhile, having brought Mithridates to terms, Sulla returned to Rome and had himself appointed to the revived office of dictator.
Sulla's proscriptions saw hundreds of his political enemies killed or exiled. Caesar, as the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, was targeted. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly, and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar. 
Caesar left Rome and joined the army, where he won the Civic Crown for his part in an important siege. On a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, he spent so long at his court that rumors of an affair with the king arose, which Caesar would vehemently deny for the rest of his life. Ironically, the loss of his priesthood had allowed him to pursue a military career, as the high priest of Jupiter was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army. 
Hearing of Sulla's death in 78 BC, Caesar felt safe enough to return to Rome. Lacking means since his inheritance was confiscated, he acquired a modest house in a lower-class neighborhood of Rome.  Instead, he turned to legal advocacy. He became known for his exceptional oratory, accompanied by impassioned gestures and a high-pitched voice, and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption.
On the way across the Aegean Sea,  Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held prisoner.   He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. When the pirates thought to demand a ransom of twenty talents of silver, he insisted they ask for fifty.  After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them. He had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised while in captivity —a promise the pirates had taken as a joke. As a sign of leniency, he first had their throats cut. He was soon called back into military action in Asia, raising a band of auxiliaries to repel an incursion from the east. 
On his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, a first step in a political career. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC,  and during that year he delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia. His wife, Cornelia, also died that year.  After her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC, Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Spain.  While there he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realized with dissatisfaction he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little. On his return in 67 BC,  he married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla, whom he later divorced. 
In 63 BC, he ran for election to the post of Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of the Roman state religion. He ran against two powerful senators. There were accusations of bribery by all sides. Caesar won comfortably, despite his opponents' greater experience and standing. When Cicero, who was consul that year, exposed Catiline's conspiracy to seize control of the republic, several senators accused Caesar of involvement in the plot. 
After his praetorship, Caesar was appointed to govern Spain, but he was still in considerable debt and needed to satisfy his creditors before he could leave. He turned to Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's richest men. In return for political support in his opposition to the interests of Pompey, Crassus paid some of Caesar's debts and acted as guarantor for others. Even so, to avoid becoming a private citizen and thus be open to prosecution for his debts, Caesar left for his province before his praetorship had ended. In Spain, he conquered two local tribes and was hailed asimperator by his troops, reformed the law regarding debts, and completed his governorship in high esteem. 
As imperator, Caesar was entitled to a triumph. However, he also wanted to stand for consul, the most senior magistracy in the republic. If he were to celebrate a triumph, he would have to remain a soldier and stay outside the city until the ceremony, but to stand for election he would need to lay down his command and enter Rome as a private citizen. He could not do both in the time available. He asked the senate for permission to stand in absentia, but Cato blocked the proposal. Faced with the choice between a triumph and the consulship, Caesar chose the consulship. 
In 60 BC, Caesar sought election as consul for 59 BC, along with two other candidates. The election was sordid – even Cato, with his reputation for incorruptibility, is said to have resorted to bribery in favor of one of Caesar's opponents. Caesar won, along with conservative Marcus Bibulus. 
Caesar was already in Crassus' political debt, but he also made overtures to Pompey. Pompey and Crassus had been at odds for a decade, so Caesar tried to reconcile them. The three of them had enough money and political influence to control public business. This informal alliance, known as the First Triumvirate ("rule of three men"), was cemented by the marriage of Pompey to Caesar's daughter Julia. Caesar also married again, this time Calpurnia, who was the daughter of another powerful senator. 
Caesar proposed a law for the redistribution of public lands to the poor, a proposal supported by Pompey, by force of arms if need be, and by Crassus, making the triumvirate public. Pompey filled the city with soldiers, a move which intimidated the triumvirate's opponents. Bibulus attempted to declare the omens unfavorable and thus void the new law, but was driven from the forum by Caesar's armed supporters. His bodyguards had their ceremonial axes broken, two high magistrates accompanying him were wounded, and he had a bucket of excrement thrown over him. In fear of his life, he retired to his house for the rest of the year, issuing occasional proclamations of bad omens. These attempts to obstruct Caesar's legislation proved ineffective. Roman satirists ever after referred to the year as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar." 
When Caesar was first elected, the aristocracy tried to limit his future power by allotting the woods and pastures of Italy, rather than the governorship of a province, as his military command duty after his year in office was over. With the help of political allies, Caesar later overturned this, and was instead appointed to govern Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Illyricum (southeastern Europe), with Transalpine Gaul (southern France) later added, giving him command of four legions. The term of his governorship, and thus his immunity from prosecution, was set at five years, rather than the usual one.  When his consulship ended, Caesar narrowly avoided prosecution for the irregularities of his year in office, and quickly left for his province. 
Caesar was still deeply in debt, but there was money to be made as a governor, whether by extortion ] or by military adventurism. Caesar had four legions under his command, two of his provinces bordered on unconquered territory, and parts of Gaul were known to be unstable. Some of Rome's Gallic allies had been defeated by their rivals at the Battle of Magetobriga, with the help of a contingent of Germanic tribes. The Romans feared these tribes were preparing to migrate south, closer to Italy, and that they had warlike intent. Caesar raised two new legions and defeated these tribes. 
In response to Caesar's earlier activities, the tribes in the north-east began to arm themselves. Caesar treated this as an aggressive move and, after an inconclusive engagement against the united tribes, he conquered the tribes piecemeal. Meanwhile, one of his legions began the conquest of the tribes in the far north (directly opposite Britain). During the spring of 56 BC, the Triumvirs held a conference, as Rome was in turmoil and Caesar's political alliance was coming undone. The Lucca Conference renewed the First Triumvirate and extended Caesar's governorship for another five years. The conquest of the north was soon completed, while a few pockets of resistance remained.  Caesar now had a secure base from which to launch an invasion of Britain.

In 55 BC, Caesar repelled an incursion into Gaul by two Germanic tribes, and followed it up by building a bridge across the Rhine and making a show of force in Germanic territory, before returning and dismantling the bridge. Late that summer, having subdued two other tribes, he crossed into Britain, claiming that the Britons had aided one of his enemies the previous year possibly theVeneti of Brittany.  His intelligence information was poor, and although he gained a beachhead on the coast, he could not advance further, and returned to Gaul for the winter.  He returned the following year, better prepared and with a larger force, and achieved more. He advanced inland, and established a few alliances. However, poor harvests led to widespread revolt in Gaul, which forced Caesar to leave Britain for the last time. 
While Caesar was in Britain his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, had died in childbirth. Caesar tried to re-secure Pompey's support by offering him his great-niece in marriage, but Pompey declined. In 53 BC Crassus was killed leading a failed invasion of the east. Rome was on the edge of civil war. Pompey was appointed sole consul as an emergency measure, and married the daughter of a political opponent of Caesar. The Triumvirate was dead. 
In 52 BC another, larger revolt erupted in Gaul, led by Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix managed to unite the Gallic tribes and proved an astute commander, defeating Caesar in several engagements, but Caesar's elaborate siege-works at the Battle of Alesiafinally forced his surrender.  Despite scattered outbreaks of warfare the following year, Gaul was effectively conquered. Plutarch claimed that the army had fought against three million men during the Gallic Wars, of whom one million died, and another million were enslaved. The Romans subjugated 300 tribes and destroyed 800 cities.  However, in view of the difficulty in finding accurate counts in the first place, Caesar's propagandistic purposes, and the common exaggeration of numbers in ancient texts, the stated totals of enemy combatants are likely to be too high.
In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as governor had finished. Caesar thought he would be prosecuted if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a magistrate. Pompey accused Caesar of insubordination and treason. In January 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon river (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war. Upon crossing the Rubicon, Caesar, according to Plutarch and Suetonius, is supposed to have quoted the Athenian playwright Menander, in Greek, "the die is cast". 
Erasmus, however, notes that the more accurate translation of the Greek imperative mood would be "alea icta esto" let the die be cast.  Pompey and much of the Senate fled to the south, having little confidence in his newly raised troops. Despite greatly outnumbering Caesar, who only had his Thirteenth Legion with him, Pompey did not intend to fight. Caesar pursued Pompey, hoping to capture him before his legions could escape. 
Pompey managed to escape before Caesar could capture him. Heading for Spain, Caesar left Italy under the control of Mark Antony. After an astonishing 27-day route-march, Caesar defeated Pompey's lieutenants, then returned east, to challenge Pompey in Greece where, in July 48 BC at Dyrrhachium, Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat. In an exceedingly short engagement later that year, he decisively defeated Pompey at Pharsalus. 
In Rome, Caesar was appointed dictator,  with Mark Antony as his Master of the Horse (second in command); Caesar presided over his own election to a second consulship and then, after eleven days, resigned this dictatorship. Caesar then pursued Pompey to Egypt, arriving soon after the murder of the general. There Caesar was presented with Pompey's severed head and seal-ring, receiving these with tears. He then had Pompey's assassins put to death. 
Caesar then became involved with an Egyptian civil war between the child pharaoh and his sister, wife, and co-regent queen, Cleopatra. Perhaps as a result of the pharaoh's role in Pompey's murder, Caesar sided with Cleopatra. He withstood the Siege of Alexandria and later he defeated the pharaoh's forces at the Battle of the Nile in 47 BC and installed Cleopatra as ruler. Caesar and Cleopatra celebrated their victory with a triumphal procession on the Nile in the spring of 47 BC. The royal barge was accompanied by 400 additional ships, and Caesar was introduced to the luxurious lifestyle of the Egyptian pharaohs. 
Caesar and Cleopatra never married, as Roman law recognized marriages only between two Roman citizens. Caesar continued his relationship with Cleopatra throughout his last marriage, which lasted fourteen years – in Roman eyes, this did not constitute adultery – and may have fathered a son called Caesarion. Cleopatra visited Rome on more than one occasion, residing in Caesar's villa just outside Rome across the Tiber. 
Late in 48 BC, Caesar was again appointed Dictator, with a term of one year.  After spending the first months of 47 BC in Egypt, Caesar went to the Middle East, where he annihilated the king of Pontus; his victory was so swift and complete that he mocked Pompey's previous victories over such poor enemies. On his way to Pontus, Caesar visited from 27 to 29 May 47 BC, (25–27 Maygreg.Tarsus, where he met enthusiastic support, but where, according to CiceroCassius was planning to kill him at this point.  Thence, he proceeded to Africa to deal with the remnants of Pompey's senatorial supporters. He quickly gained a significant victory in 46 BC over Cato, who then committed suicide. 
After this victory, he was appointed Dictator for ten years. Pompey's sons escaped to Spain; Caesar gave chase and defeated the last remnants of opposition in the Battle of Munda in March 45 BC. During this time, Caesar was elected to his third and fourth terms as consul in 46 BC and 45 BC (this last time without a colleague).
While he was still campaigning in Spain, the Senate began bestowing honors on Caesar. Caesar had not proscribed his enemies, instead pardoning almost all, and there was no serious public opposition to him. Great games and celebrations were held in April to honor Caesar’s victory at Munda. Plutarch writes that many Romans found the triumph held following Caesar's victory to be in poor taste, as those defeated in the civil war had not been foreigners, but instead fellow Romans.  On Caesar's return to Italy in September 45 BC, he filed his will, naming his grandnephewGaius Octavius (Octavian) as the heir to everything, including his name. Caesar also wrote that if Octavian died before Caesar did, Marcus Junius Brutus would be the next heir in succession.
During his early career, Caesar had seen how chaotic and dysfunctional the Roman Republic had become. The republican machinery had broken down under the weight of imperialism, the central government had become powerless, the provinces had been transformed into independent principalities under the absolute control of their governors, and the army had replaced the constitution as the means of accomplishing political goals. With a weak central government, political corruption had spiraled out of control, and the status quo had been maintained by a corrupt aristocracy, which saw no need to change a system that had made its members rich. 
Between his crossing of the Rubicon River in 49 BC, and his assassination in 44 BC, Caesar established a new constitution, which was intended to accomplish three separate goals. First, he wanted to suppress all armed resistance out in the provinces, and thus bring order back to the empire. Second, he wanted to create a strong central government in Rome. Finally, he wanted to knit together the entire empire into a single cohesive unit. 
The first goal was accomplished when Caesar defeated Pompey and his supporters. To accomplish the other two goals, he needed to ensure that his control over the government was undisputed,  and so he assumed these powers by increasing his own authority, and by decreasing the authority of Rome's other political institutions. Finally, he enacted a series of reforms that were meant to address several long neglected issues, the most important of which was his reform of the calendar. 
When Caesar returned to Rome, the Senate granted him triumphs for his victories, ostensibly over Gaul, Egypt, Pharnaces and Juba, rather than over his Roman opponents. Not everything went Caesar's way. When Arsinoe IV, Egypt's former queen, was paraded in chains, the spectators admired her dignified bearing and were moved to pity. Triumphal games were held, with beast-hunts involving 400 lions, and gladiator contests. A naval battle was held on a flooded basin at the Field of Mars.  At the Circus Maximus, two armies of war captives, each of 2,000 people, 200 horse and 20 elephants, fought to the death. Again, some bystanders complained, this time at Caesar's wasteful extravagance. A riot broke out, and only stopped when Caesar had two rioters sacrificed by the priests on the Field of Mars. 
After the triumph, Caesar set forth to passing an unprecedented legislative agenda.  He ordered a census be taken, which forced a reduction in the grain dole, and that jurors could only come from the Senate or the equestrian ranks. He passed a sumptuary law that restricted the purchase of certain luxuries. After this, he passed a law that rewarded families for having many children, to speed up the repopulation of Italy. Then he outlawed professional guilds, except those of ancient foundation, since many of these were subversive political clubs. He then passed a term limit law applicable to governors. He passed a debt restructuring law, which ultimately eliminated about a fourth of all debts owed. 
The Forum of Caesar, with its Temple of Venus Genetrix, was then built, among many other public works. Caesar also tightly regulated the purchase of state-subsidised grain and reduced the number of recipients to a fixed number, all of whom were entered into a special register. From 47 to 44 BC he made plans for the distribution of land to about 15,000 of his veterans. 
The most important change, however, was his reform of the calendar. The calendar at the time was regulated by the movement of the moon, and this had resulted in a great deal of disorder. Caesar replaced this calendar with the Egyptian calendar, which was regulated by the sun. He set the length of the year to 365.25 days by adding an intercalary/leap day at the end of February every fourth year. 
To bring the calendar into alignment with the seasons, he decreed that three extra months be inserted into 46 BC (the ordinary intercalary month at the end of February, and two extra months after November). Thus, the Julian calendar opened on 1 January 45 BC.  This calendar is almost identical to the current Western calendar.
Shortly before his assassination, he passed a few more reforms. He established a police force, appointed officials to carry out his land reforms, and ordered the rebuilding of Carthage andCorinth. He also extended Latin rights throughout the Roman world, and then abolished the tax system and reverted to the earlier version that allowed cities to collect tribute however they wanted, rather than needing Roman intermediaries. His assassination prevented further and larger schemes, which included the construction of an unprecedented temple to Mars, a huge theater, and a library on the scale of the Library of Alexandria. 
He also wanted to convert Ostia to a major port, and cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Militarily, he wanted to conquer the DaciansParthians, and avenge the loss at Carrhae. Thus, he instituted a massive mobilization. Shortly before his assassination, the Senate named him censor for life and Father of the Fatherland, and the month of Quintilis was renamed July in his honor. 
He was granted further honors, which were later used to justify his assassination as a would-be divine monarch; coins were issued bearing his image and his statue was placed next to those of the kings. He was granted a golden chair in the Senate, was allowed to wear triumphal dress whenever he chose, and was offered a form of semi-official or popular cult, with Mark Antony as his high priest. 
The history of Caesar's political appointments is complex and uncertain. Caesar held both the dictatorship and the tribunate, but alternated between the consulship and the Proconsulship. His powers within the state seem to have rested upon these magistracies.  He was first appointed dictator in 49 BC possibly to preside over elections, but resigned his dictatorship within eleven days. In 48 BC, he was re-appointed dictator, only this time for an indefinite period, and in 46 BC, he was appointed dictator for ten years. 
In February 44 BC, one month before his assassination, he was appointed dictator for life. Under Caesar, a significant amount of authority was vested in his lieutenants,  mostly because Caesar was frequently out of Italy.  In October 45 BC, Caesar resigned his position as sole consul, and facilitated the election of two successors for the remainder of the year which theoretically restored the ordinary consulship, since the constitution did not recognize a single consul without a colleague. 
In 48 BC, Caesar was given permanent tribunician powers,  which made his person sacrosanct and allowed him to veto the Senate,  although on at least one occasion, tribunes did attempt to obstruct him. The offending tribunes in this case were brought before the Senate and divested of their office. This was not the first time that Caesar had violated a tribune's sacrosanctity. After he had first marched on Rome in 49 BC, he forcibly opened the treasury although a tribune had the seal placed on it. After the impeachment of the two obstructive tribunes, Caesar, perhaps unsurprisingly, faced no further opposition from other members of the Tribunician College. 


In 46 BC, Caesar gave himself the title of "Prefect of the Morals", which was an office that was new only in name, as its powers were identical to those of the censors. Thus, he could hold censorial powers, while technically not subjecting himself to the same checks that the ordinary censors were subject to, and he used these powers to fill the Senate with his own partisans. He also set the precedent, which his imperial successors followed, of requiring the Senate to bestow various titles and honors upon him. He was, for example, given the title of "Father of the Fatherland" and "imperator". 
Coins bore his likeness, and he was given the right to speak first during senate meetings.  Caesar then increased the number of magistrates who were elected each year, which created a large pool of experienced magistrates, and allowed Caesar to reward his supporters. 
Caesar even took steps to transform Italy into a province, and to link more tightly the other provinces of the empire into a single cohesive unit. This addressed the underlying problem that had caused the Social War decades earlier, where individuals outside Rome and Italy were not considered "Roman", and thus were not given full citizenship rights. This process, of fusing the entire Roman Empire into a single unit, rather than maintaining it as a network of unequal principalities, would ultimately be completed by Caesar's successor, the emperor Augustus.
When Caesar returned to Rome in 47 BC, the ranks of the Senate had been severely depleted, and so he used his censorial powers to appoint many new senators, which eventually raised the Senate's membership to 900. All the appointments were of his own partisans, which robbed the senatorial aristocracy of its prestige, and made the Senate increasingly subservient to him. To minimize the risk that another general might attempt to challenge him,  Caesar passed a law that subjected governors to term limits. 
Near the end of his life, Caesar began to prepare for a war against the Parthian Empire. Since his absence from Rome might limit his ability to install his own consuls, he passed a law which allowed him to appoint all magistrates in 43 BC, and all consuls and tribunes in 42 BC. This, in effect, transformed the magistrates from being representatives of the people to being representatives of the dictator. 
On the Ides of March (15 March; see Roman calendar) of 44 BC, Caesar was due to appear at a session of the Senate. Mark Antony, having vaguely learned of the plot the night before from a terrified Liberator named Servilius Casca, and fearing the worst, went to head Caesar off. The plotters, however, had anticipated this and, fearing that Antony would come to Caesar's aid, had arranged for Trebonius to intercept him just as he approached the portico of Theatre of Pompey, where the session was to be held, and detain him outside. (Plutarch, however, assigns this action to delay Antony to Brutus Albinus). When he heard the commotion from the senate chamber, Antony fled. 
According to Plutarch, as Caesar arrived at the Senate, Tillius Cimber presented him with a petition to recall his exiled brother.  The other conspirators crowded round to offer support. Both Plutarch and Suetonius say that Caesar waved him away, but Cimber grabbed his shoulders and pulled down Caesar's tunic. Caesar then cried to Cimber, "Why, this is violence!" ("Ista quidem vis est!"). 


At the same time, Casca produced his dagger and made a glancing thrust at the dictator's neck. Caesar turned around quickly and caught Casca by the arm. According to Plutarch, he said in Latin, "Casca, you villain, what are you doing?" Casca, frightened, shouted, "Help, brother!" in Greek ("ἀδελφέ, βοήθει", "adelphe, boethei"). Within moments, the entire group, including Brutus, was striking out at the dictator. Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenceless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius, around 60 or more men participated in the assassination. He was stabbed 23 times. 
According to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal.  The dictator's last words are not known with certainty, and are a contested subject among scholars and historians alike. Suetonius reports that others have said Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "καὶ σύ, τέκνον;" (transliterated as "Kai su, teknon?": "You too, child?" in English). However, for himself, Suetonius says Caesar said nothing. 
Plutarch also reports that Caesar said nothing, pulling his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators.[93] The version best known in the English-speaking world is the Latin phrase "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", commonly rendered as "You too, Brutus?"); this derives from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where it actually forms the first half of a macaronic line: "Et tu, Brute?Then fall, Caesar." It has no basis in historical fact and Shakespeare's use of Latin here is not from any assertion that Caesar would have been using the language, rather than the Greek reported by Suetonius, but because the phrase was already popular when the play was written. 
According to Plutarch, after the assassination, Brutus stepped forward as if to say something to his fellow senators; they, however, fled the building. Brutus and his companions then marched to the Capitol while crying out to their beloved city: "People of Rome, we are once again free!" They were met with silence, as the citizens of Rome had locked themselves inside their houses as soon as the rumor of what had taken place had begun to spread. Caesar's dead body lay where it fell on the Senate floor for nearly three hours before other officials arrived to remove it.
Caesar's body was cremated, and on the site of his cremation the Temple of Caesar was erected a few years later (at the east side of the main square of the Roman Forum). Nowadays, only its altar remains. A lifesize wax statue of Caesar was later erected in the forum displaying the 23 stab wounds. A crowd who had gathered there started a fire, which badly damaged the forum and neighboring buildings. In the ensuing chaos Mark AntonyOctavian (later Augustus Caesar), and others fought a series of five civil wars, which would end in the formation of the Roman Empire.
The result unforeseen by the assassins was that Caesar's death precipitated the end of the Roman Republic. The Roman middle and lower classes, with whom Caesar was immensely popular and had been since before Gaul, became enraged that a small group of aristocrats had killed their champion. Antony, who had been drifting apart from Caesar, capitalised on the grief of the Roman mob and threatened to unleash them on the Optimates, perhaps with the intent of taking control of Rome himself. To his surprise and chagrin, Caesar had named his grandnephew Gaius Octavian his sole heir, bequeathing him the immensely potent Caesar name and making him one of the wealthiest citizens in the Republic. 
The crowd at the funeral boiled over, throwing dry branches, furniture and even clothing on to Caesar's funeral pyre, causing the flames to spin out of control, seriously damaging the Forum. The mob then attacked the houses of Brutus and Cassius, where they were repelled only with considerable difficulty, ultimately providing the spark for the Liberators' civil war, fulfilling at least in part Antony's threat against the aristocrats.  Antony did not foresee the ultimate outcome of the next series of civil wars, particularly with regard to Caesar's adopted heir. Octavian, aged only 18 when Caesar died, proved to have considerable political skills, and while Antony dealt with Decimus Brutus in the first round of the new civil wars, Octavian consolidated his tenuous position.
To combat Brutus and Cassius, who were massing an enormous army in Greece, Antony needed soldiers, the cash from Caesar's war chests, and the legitimacy that Caesar's name would provide for any action he took against them. With the passage of the lex Titia on 27 November 43 BC,  the Second Triumvirate was officially formed, composed of Antony, Octavian, and Caesar's loyal cavalry commander Lepidus.  It formally deified Caesar as Divus Iulius in 42 BC, and Caesar Octavian henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a god"). 
Because Caesar's clemency had resulted in his murder, the Second Triumvirate reinstated the practice of proscription, abandoned since Sulla. It engaged in the legally sanctioned murder of a large number of its opponents to secure funding for its forty-five legions in the second civil war against Brutus and Cassius. Antony and Octavius defeated them at Philippi.
Afterward, Mark Antony formed an alliance with Caesar's lover, Cleopatra, intending to use the fabulously wealthy Egypt as a base to dominate Rome. A third civil war broke out between Octavian on one hand and Antony and Cleopatra on the other. This final civil war, culminating in the latter's defeat at Actium, resulted in the permanent ascendancy of Octavian, who became the first Roman emperor, under the name Caesar Augustus, a name that raised him to the status of a deity. 
Julius Caesar had been preparing to invade Parthia, the Caucasus and Scythia, and then march back to Germania through Eastern Europe. These plans were thwarted by his assassination.  His successors did attempt the conquests of Parthia and Germania, but without lasting results.
Julius Caesar was the first historical Roman to be officially deified. He was posthumously granted the title Divus Iulius or Divus Julius (the divine Julius or the deified Julius) by decree of the Roman Senate on 1 January 42 BC. Though his temple was not dedicated until after his death, he may have received divine honors during his lifetime: and shortly before his assassination, Mark Antony had been appointed as his flamen (priest).  Both Octavian and Mark Antony promoted the cult of Divus Iulius. After the death of Antony, Octavian, as the adoptive son of Caesar, assumed the title of Divi Filius (son of a god).
Based on remarks by Plutarch,  Caesar is sometimes thought to have suffered from epilepsy. Modern scholarship is "sharply divided" on the subject, and some scholars believe that he was plagued by malaria, particularly during the Sullan proscriptions of the 80s.  Despite the commonly held belief that Caesar suffered from epilepsy, several specialists in headache medicine believe that a more accurate diagnosis would be migraine headache. 
Caesar had four documented episodes of what may have been complex partial seizures. He may additionally have had absence seizures in his youth. The earliest accounts of these seizures were made by the biographer Suetonius, who was born after Caesar died. The claim of epilepsy is countered among some medical historians by a claim of hypoglycemia, which can cause epileptoid seizures. 
In 2003, psychiatrist Harbour F. Hodder published what he termed as the "Caesar Complex" theory, arguing that Caesar was a sufferer of temporal lobe epilepsy and the debilitating symptoms of the condition were a factor in Caesar's conscious decision to forgo personal safety in the days leading up to his assassination. 
A line from Shakespeare has sometimes been taken to mean that he was deaf in one ear: Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf.  No classical source mentions hearing impairment in connection with Caesar. The playwright may have been making metaphorical use of a passage in Plutarch that does not refer to deafness at all, but rather to a gesture Alexander of Macedon customarily made. By covering his ear, Alexander indicated that he had turned his attention from an accusation in order to hear the defense. 
The Roman historian Suetonius describes Caesar as "tall of stature with a fair complexion, shapely limbs, a somewhat full face, and keen black eyes." 
Using the Latin alphabet as it existed in the day of Caesar (i.e., without lower case letters, "J", or "U"), Caesar's name would be rendered "GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR"; the form "CAIVS" is also attested, using the old Roman representation of G by C; it is an antique form of the more common "GAIVS". The standard abbreviation was, and this is not archaic, "C. IVLIVS CAESAR". (The letterform "Æ" is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".)
In Classical Latin,  In the days of the late Roman Republic, many historical writings were done in Greek, a language most educated Romans studied. Young wealthy Roman boys were often taught by Greek slaves and sometimes sent to Athens for advanced training, as was Caesar's principal assassin, Brutus. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his family name was written Καίσαρ, reflecting its contemporary pronunciation. Thus, his name is pronounced in a similar way to the pronunciation of the German Kaiser.
In Vulgar Latin, the plosive /k/ before front vowels began, due to palatalization, to be pronounced as an affricate – hence renderings like   in Italian and   in German regional pronunciations of Latin, as well as the title of Tsar. With the evolution of the Romance languages, the affricate [ts] became a fricative [s]  in many regional pronunciations, including the French one, from which the modern English pronunciation is derived. The original /k/ is preserved in Norse mythology, where he is manifested as the legendary king Kjárr. 
Caesar's cognomen would itself become a title; it was greatly promulgated by the Bible, by the famous verse "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". The title became the German Kaiser and Slavic Tsar/Czar. The last tsar in nominal power was Simeon II of Bulgaria whose reign ended in 1946; for two thousand years after Julius Caesar's assassination, there was at least one head of state bearing his name.

Parents

  • Father Gaius Julius Caesar the Elder
  • Mother Aurelia (related to the Aurelii Cottae)

Sisters

  • Julia Caesaris "Major" (the elder)
  • Julia Caesaris "Minor" (the younger)

Wives

  • First marriage to Cornelia Cinnilla, from 83 BC until her death in childbirth in 69 or 68 BC
  • Second marriage to Pompeia, from 67 BC until he divorced her around 61 BC
  • Third marriage to Calpurnia Pisonis, from 59 BC until Caesar's death

Children

  • Julia with Cornelia Cinnilla, born in 83 or 82 BC
  • Caesarion, with Cleopatra VII, born 47 BC. He was killed at age 17 by Caesar's adopted son Octavianus.
  • adopted: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, his great-nephew by blood, who later became Emperor Augustus.
  • Marcus Junius Brutus: The historian Plutarch notes that Caesar believed Brutus to have been his illegitimate son, as his mother Servilia had been Caesar's lover during their youth. 

Grandchildren

  • Grandson from Julia and Pompey, dead at several days, unnamed.

Lovers

  • Cleopatra VII mother of Caesarion
  • Servilia Caepionis mother of Brutus
  • Eunoë, queen of Mauretania and wife of Bogudes

Notable relatives

  • Gaius Marius (married to his Aunt Julia)
  • Mark Antony
  • Lucius Julius Caesar
  • Julius Sabinus, a Gaul of the Lingones at the time of the Batavian rebellion of AD 69, claimed to be the great-grandson of Caesar on the grounds that his great-grandmother had been Caesar's lover during the Gallic war. 

Political rumors

Roman society viewed the passive role during sexual activity, regardless of gender, to be a sign of submission or inferiority. Indeed, Suetonius says that in Caesar's Gallic triumph, his soldiers sang that, "Caesar may have conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar." According to Cicero, BibulusGaius Memmius, and others (mainly Caesar's enemies), he had an affair with Nicomedes IV of Bithynia early in his career. The tales were repeated, referring to Caesar as the Queen of Bithynia, by some Roman politicians as a way to humiliate him. It is very likely that the rumors were spread only as a form of character assassination; Caesar himself denied the accusations repeatedly throughout his lifetime, and according to Cassius Dio, even under oath on one occasion.  This form of slander was popular during this time in the Roman Republic to demean and discredit political opponents. A favorite tactic used by the opposition was to accuse a popular political rival as living a Hellenistic lifestyle based on Greek and Eastern culture, where homosexuality and a lavish lifestyle were more acceptable than in Roman tradition. 
Catullus wrote two poems suggesting that Caesar and his engineer Mamurra were lovers,  but later apologised. 
Mark Antony charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors. Suetonius described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavian as political slander. Octavian eventually became the first Roman Emperor. 
During his lifetime, Caesar was regarded as one of the best orators and prose authors in Latin—even Cicero spoke highly of Caesar's rhetoric and style. Only Caesar's war commentaries have survived. A few sentences from other works are quoted by other authors. Among his lost works are his funeral oration for his paternal aunt Julia and his Anticato, a document written to defame Cato in response to Cicero's published praise. Poems by Julius Caesar are also mentioned in ancient sources.