Lucius Julius Sex. f. L. n. Caesar was a member of the patrician house of the Julii Caesares at ancient Rome, and held the office of praetor in 183 BC.
Family
Lucius was the son of Sextus Julius Caesar, who had served as praetor in 208 BC during the Second Punic War. He had at least one brother, Sextus, who attained the consulship in 157 BC, and probably a second brother, Gaius, a senator who wrote a history of Rome in Greek around 143 BC. Although it was common for the eldest son to be named after his father, Lucius—apparently named after his grandfather—was likely the eldest brother. Following the cursus honorum, he was probably approaching forty years of age when elected praetor, and was likely born no later than 220 BC. His brother Sextus first appears in history holding the junior post of military tribune in 181 BC and did not become consul for another twenty-four years. Lucius had a son, also named Lucius, who was praetor in 166 BC and thus was probably born before 200 BC; Sextus' son only obtained the praetorship in 123 BC.
Career
Elected praetor for 183 BC, Lucius was assigned the province of Cisalpine Gaul. The senate tasked him with preventing the Transalpine Gauls from building a city on the site of Aquileia, where they had begun to settle, but instructed him to do so without resorting to open hostilities. A Roman colony was planned for the location, and triumvirs were appointed for that purpose in the same year. Thus Lucius played a crucial role in the founding of what would become one of the largest cities of classical antiquity.
Sources
The primary ancient source for his life is Livy (Ab Urbe Condita, Book XXXIX). Modern scholarship relies on the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (William Smith, ed., 1849) and T. Robert S. Broughton's The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).
