Lucius Julius Caesar IV

Lucius Julius Caesar was the son of the consul of 90 BC, Lucius Julius Caesar. He was the father of another Lucius Julius Caesar, the brother of Julia Antonia, and the uncle of the Brothers Antonii, Marcus, Gaius, and Lucius. He won the consulship of 64 BC.

Career

During the debate in the senate with regards to the punishment of the Catalinarian conspirators, he voted for the death penalty, although his own brother-in-law Publius Cornelius Lentulus (Sura) was amongst them. Sometime after his consulship, he became an augur. He was a legate in Gaul in 52 BC, working for his cousin Gaius Julius. After the conquest of Gaul, when the Senate, under the influence of Marcus Porcius Cato, moved to strip Julius Caesar of his army and provinces. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Lucius Caesar sided with his cousin against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and the optimates. However, he took no active part in the war effort against the optimates.

After the battle of Pharsalus, Caesar rotated some of his veteran legions to Italy. However, the legions became mutinous, obliging Mark Antony, by this point Caesar's Master of the Horse, to leave Rome to deal with them. In his absence, Lucius Caesar was put in charge. Unfortunately, Lucius Caesar proved too old to prevent Rome from falling into turmoil.

Caesar's assassination in 44 BC created an unstable atmosphere throughout the Roman Republic. Striving to remain neutral while the contentions between the Caesareans and the Liberators grew worse, he retired to Neapolis. This retirement was brief, as Lucius Caesar was back in Rome before the end of the year. He openly joined Marcus Tullius Cicero's senatorial faction, leading the Senate in repealing Antony's agrarian law. However, he did not utterly renounce his nephew, as he refused to allow for a state of civil war to be declared against Antony. More than anything else, he sought to avoid another civil war, and worked toward re conciliating the various factions. After Antony suffered several defeats, Lucius Caesar was one of the first to say Antony should be declared an enemy of the state. He paid for this, for when the Second Triumvirate was formed, his nephew had him proscribed. Fleeing to his sister's house, he remained there until she obtained a pardon for him from her son, a difficult task. He died sometime after 43 BC.

References

* [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0547.html L. julius L. f. L. n. caesar entry in Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology" (Nr. 11 in v. 1, page 538) at "The Ancient Library" website]