Julia (c. 130 BC – 69 BC) was the wife of the Roman consul Gaius Marius and a paternal aunt of future Roman dictator Julius Caesar.

Biography

Julia was the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcia (daughter of praetor Quintus Marcius Rex). She was a sister of Gaius Julius Caesar (the father of Julius Caesar) and Sextus Julius Caesar, consul in 91 BC. At about 110 BC she married Gaius Marius. They had a son, Gaius Marius the Younger. Plutarch also mentions that Marius had two step-sons named Quintus Granius and Gnaeus Granius, it is possible that these men were children of Julia by an earlier marriage or step-children of Marius from a marriage to another woman before Julia. If Quintus and Gnaeus were indeed Julia's sons, then her earlier husband was likely a member of the Campanian trading family since Julia was a patrician and would only have married someone from the Grania gens if they were very rich. According to Plutarch, it was by marrying her, a patrician woman, that the upstart Marius got the attention of the snobbish Roman Senate and launched his political career. Julia is remembered as a virtuous woman devoted to her husband and their only child. Her reputation alone permitted her to keep her status, even after Sulla's persecutions against Marius himself and his allies. Julia died in 69 BC and received a devoted funeral eulogy from her nephew Julius Caesar.