Gaius Julius Iullus

Gaius Julius Iullus ( 489 BC) was a Roman politician from the early Republic. He was the first from the ancient patrician clan of the Julii to attain the consulship, which he held in 489 BC as the colleague of 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.

Family 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. Iullus' filiation is not found in the surviving fragments of the Fasti Capitolini. If he was the father of the same Gaius Julius Iullus 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.

If Iullus was the father of Gaius, the consul of 482, then he was also the father of Vopiscus Julius Iullus, consul in 473, who shares the same filiation and must have been the younger Gaius' brother.