Gaius Julius Iulus (consul 489 BC)

Gaius Julius Iulus was the first of the ancient patrician gens Julia to attain the consulship, which he held in 489 BC.

According to legend, the Julii were one of the noble houses that came to Rome from Alba Longa when that city was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome, but it was not until the twenty-first year of the Republic that a member of that family was elected consul. Iulus' filiation is not found in the surviving fragments of the Capitoline Fasti. If he was the father of the same Gaius Julius Iulus who was consul in 482 BC, then his father's name was Lucius. This is the interpretation given in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, which generally follows Wilhelm Drumann's scholarship on the Julii. However, in The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Broughton gives Gaius as the father of the consul of 489.

If Iulus was the father of Gaius, the consul of 482, then he was also the father of Vopiscus Julius Iulus, consul in 473, who shares the same filiation and must have been the younger Gaius' brother. As far as can be determined from their filiations, all of the later Julii Iuli who appear in history were descended from these two brothers. At least some classical scholars believe that the later Julii Caesares may also be descended from this family.

Iulus was consul in 489 BC with Publius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus. According to Dionysius, it was during their year of office that the Volscian leader Attius Tullius provoked a confrontation with Rome. With the help of the Roman exile Coriolanus, the Volsci prepared for war and began raiding Latin territory. As planned, the impact of the Volscian operations fell more heavily on the poor, exacerbating the already tense relationship between the patricians and the plebeians.

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