, adopted son of the emperor
Tiberius. The genealogy of the Julii Caesares was studied by
Wilhelm Drumann in his monumental history of Rome, and the following tables are based largely on his reconstruction of the family. In most respects, Drumann's genealogy forms the basis for modern scholarship on the family, with one important exception: Drumann believed that the Sextus Julius Caesar who was a
military tribune in 181 BC and the Sextus who was consul in BC 157 were father and son. While chronology suggested that the tribune might be the son of the Sextus who had been praetor in 208 BC, the consul's filiation indicated that his grandfather's name was
Lucius. Accordingly, Drumann inferred the existence of an otherwise unknown Lucius Julius Caesar between the praetor and the military tribune, although in order to make sense chronologically, the praetor would have to have been rather elderly and the tribune very young when they held their respective offices. More recent scholarship has concluded that the military tribune and the consul were the same man, which means that his grandfather, Lucius, was the father of the praetor of 208 BC, rather than his son. It is therefore Sextus, the praetor of 208 BC, rather than an otherwise unknown Lucius Julius Caesar, who was the father of Lucius Julius Caesar, praetor in 183 BC, and Sextus, the consul of 157 BC. These sons provide the first two branches of the family; but the third branch, representing the ancestors of Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator, are less certain. We know that Caesar's grandfather was also named
Gaius, and that he married a woman of the
Marcia gens. Drumann supposed that he might have been the son of a senator named Gaius Julius, who wrote a Roman history in Greek about 143 BC. This Gaius, he proposed, might have been a brother of Sextus Julius Caesar, the consul of 157, and therefore a son of the Sextus who was military tribune in 181. Since the two Sexti were in fact the same man, this would probably make the senator Gaius a third son of Sextus Julius Caesar, the praetor of 208 BC. If he was a senator in 143, and the great-grandfather of Caesar, who was born in BC 100, he was probably not the consul's son, as
his eponymous and presumably eldest son, Sextus, was praetor in BC 123. The rest of the genealogy is well-known. As Caesar left no legitimate sons to carry on his name and legacy, by his will he adopted his grand-nephew, Gaius
Octavius, who thus became "Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus", the future emperor
Augustus. Octavian had only a daughter, and therefore adopted two of his grandchildren by
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who thus became
Gaius and
Lucius Julius Caesar; but when both died young, the emperor adopted their brother, who became
Agrippa Julius Caesar (Postumus), and a stepson, Tiberius Claudius Nero, who became
Tiberius Julius Caesar. Tiberius' son, Nero Claudius Drusus, became
Drusus Julius Caesar, and he adopted a nephew, Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, who became
Germanicus Julius Caesar; their children also became part of the Julia gens. The line draws to a close with the death of Germanicus' son, Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, better known simply as Gaius or
Caligula, in AD 41; after this, the imperial authority passed to Gaius' uncle,
Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, and out of the Julian line. ==Genealogical tables==