Julius Caesar claimed descent from which mythical hero?
"Early life and career of Julius Caesar The early career of Julius Caesar was characterized by military adventurism and political persecution. Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 BC, into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. His father died when he was just 16, leaving Caesar as the head of the household. His family status put him at odds with the Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who almost had him executed. At about that time, Caesar found himself captured by pirates,"
"about Hercules. Hercules Hercules () is a Roman hero and god. He was the equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name ""Hercules"". In later Western art and literature and in popular culture, ""Hercules"" is more commonly used than ""Heracles"" as the name of the hero. Hercules was a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled"
"Hercules Hercules () is a Roman hero and god. He was the equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus (Roman equivalent Jupiter) and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Greek hero's iconography and myths for their literature and art under the name ""Hercules"". In later Western art and literature and in popular culture, ""Hercules"" is more commonly used than ""Heracles"" as the name of the hero. Hercules was a multifaceted figure with contradictory characteristics, which enabled later artists"
"could claim to have four major Olympian gods in his family tree: (Jupiter, Juno, Venus and Mars), so he encouraged his many poets to emphasize his supposed descent from Aeneas. Ascanius Ascanius (; Ancient Greek: Ἀσκάνιος) (said to have reigned 1176-1138 BC) a legendary king of Alba Longa and is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and either Creusa, daughter of Priam, or Lavinia, daughter of Latinus. He is a character in Roman mythology, and has a divine lineage, being the son of Aeneas, who is the son of the goddess Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of"
"assimilated, scholars have sometimes compared him functionally to Greek and Roman divine figures such as Mercury, Actaeon, specialized forms of Jupiter, and Dis Pater, the latter of whom Julius Caesar said was considered the ancestor of the Gauls. There have been attempts to find the ""cern"" root in the name of Conall Cernach, the foster brother of the Irish hero Cuchulainn in the Ulster Cycle. In this line of interpretation, ""Cernach"" is taken as an epithet with a wide semantic field—""angular; victorious; bearing a prominent growth""—and Conall is seen as ""the same figure"" as the ancient Cernunnos. There is even"
"between Julius Caesar and Cornelius Scipio for a great Roman hero to write about and decided on Scipio. Caesar's life did not represent Christian values that he wanted to convey to the reader. Cornelius Scipio, the hero of the poem, received the agnomen (nickname) of ""Africanus"" for defeating Hannibal and the Carthaginians. The title for the poem ""Africa"" is based on the nickname of the hero. The adopted grandson of the poem's hero is Scipio Aemilianus, also known as Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus ""Africanus"" – receiving his like agnomen for destroying Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War. Petrarch's"
"Heracles Heracles ( ; , ""Hēraklês"", Glory/Pride of ""Hēra"", ""Hera""), born Alcaeus (, ""Alkaios"") () or Alcides (, ""Alkeidēs"") () was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon. He was a great-grandson and half-brother (as they are both sired by the god Zeus) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom"
"around the empire were set up portraying him in the guise of Hercules, reinforcing the image of him as a demigod, a physical giant, a protector, and a battler against beasts and men (see ""Commodus and Hercules"" and ""Commodus the Gladiator"" below). Moreover, as Hercules, he could claim to be the son of Jupiter, the supreme god of the Roman pantheon. These tendencies now increased to megalomaniacal proportions. Far from celebrating his descent from Marcus Aurelius, the actual source of his power, he stressed his own personal uniqueness as the bringer of a new order, seeking to re-cast the empire"
"that showed her crowned with triumphal laurels. Pompey's erstwhile friend, ally, and later opponent Julius Caesar went still further. He claimed the favours of ""Venus Victrix"" in his military success and ""Venus Genetrix"" as a personal, divine ancestress – apparently a long-standing family tradition among the Julii. When Caesar was assassinated, his heir, Augustus, adopted both claims as evidence of his inherent fitness for office, and divine approval of his rule. Augustus' new temple to Mars Ultor, divine father of Rome's legendary founder Romulus, would have underlined the point, with the image of avenging Mars ""almost certainly"" accompanied by that"
"own name; his opponent Marius believed he had a destiny, and that no ordinary man might kill him. Pompey also claimed Venus' personal favour, and built her a temple. But the first Roman to become a god, as part of aiming at monarchy, was Julius Caesar. Caesar could claim personal ties to the gods, both by descent and by office. He was from the ""gens Julia"", whose members contended to be descended from Aeneas and his mother Venus. In his eulogy for his aunt Julia, Caesar also indirectly claimed to be descended from Ancus Marcius and the kings of Rome,"
"Ajax the Great Ajax or Aias ( or ; Greek , gen. ""Aiantos""; archaic ) is a mythological Greek hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer. He plays an important role, and is portrayed as a towering figure and a warrior of great courage in Homer's ""Iliad"" and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. He is also referred to as ""Telamonian Ajax"" (, in Etruscan recorded as ""Aivas Tlamunus""), ""Greater Ajax"", or ""Ajax the Great"", which distinguishes him from Ajax, son of Oileus (Ajax the Lesser). Ajax"
"as sons."" or ""Blessings on your fresh courage, boy, scion of gods and ancestor of gods yet to be, so it is man rises to the stars."" In this verse, Virgil makes a clear reference to the offspring of Iulus, from whom Augustus Caesar claimed descent. Therefore, in this verse Virgil refers to the Gens Julia, the family of Augustus and Julius Caesar, who was deified after his death. The sic itur ad astra become almost proverbial and several mottos use an ""ad astra"" phrase. After this episode, Apollo orders to the Trojans to keep Ascanius away from the war."
"the second-hand citation of one of Julius Caesar's comments in his ""Commentaries on the Gallic Wars"" (""VI"":18), where he says that the Gauls all claimed descent from ""Dīs Pater"". However, Caesar's remark is a clear example of ""interpretatio Romana"": what Caesar meant was that the Gauls all claimed descent from a Gaulish god that reminded him of the Roman Dīs Pater, a scholia on the Pharsalia equates Dis Pater with Taranis, the chief sky deity in the Gaulish religion. Different possible candidates exist for this role in Celtic religion, such as Gaulish Sucellus, Irish Donn and Welsh Beli Mawr, among"
"the triumvirate while praising his ancestors. In 44 BC, Julius Caesar was preparing for war with Parthia to avenge the defeat inflicted by the Parthians on Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae. To this end, an enormous variety of denarii and aureii were being minted in large numbers. The coin on the right is from January–February 44 BC. The Venus holding Victory and a sceptre on the reverse was a reference to the claim of the gens Julia to descend from Aeneas and thus Anchises and the goddess Venus. This was innocuous to Romans, but the obverse showing Caesar himself"
"Julius Caesar and Cornelius Labeo, because on it the ""flaminica dialis"" offered the sacrifice of a goat to Jupiter in the Regia. One of the sources for the Parcae is ""Metamorphoses"" by Ovid, II 654, V 532, VIII 452, XV 781. Another source is Aeneid by Virgil, in the opening of Book I. In mythology the Parcae were located on a higher hierarchical level than the highest gods : """"The power of the Parcae was great and extend. Some suppose that they were subjected to none of the gods but Jupiter; while others support that even Jupiter himself was obedient"
"Ascanius Ascanius (; Ancient Greek: Ἀσκάνιος) (said to have reigned 1176-1138 BC) a legendary king of Alba Longa and is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and either Creusa, daughter of Priam, or Lavinia, daughter of Latinus. He is a character in Roman mythology, and has a divine lineage, being the son of Aeneas, who is the son of the goddess Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of the king Priam; thus Ascanius has divine ascendents by both parents, being descendant of god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Dardanus. He is also an ancestor of Romulus, Remus and"
"now close approximation to the Senate house symbolized the unity that Caesar felt between himself and the Senate. Caesar also placed a statue of his favourite horse in front of the temple. Following his assassination, a statue of Caesar riding this horse was added. Caesar (gens Julia) claimed descent from Venus through his ancestor Julus. The Temple of Venus Genetrix was completed after Caesar's assassination by Roman senators, which included lavish games in reference to Caesar's original dedication to the Forum. Caesar had plans for this temple well in advance, having dedicated the construction of a temple to ""Venus Victrix"""
"statues, with one headed by Aeneas and the other by Romulus. In propagating his apotheosis, Augustus chose to include his adoptive father Julius Caesar who had recently achieved divinity himself, whereas Aeneas and Romulus are included for their divinity was well established. Kings of Alba Longa would have claimed to be descendents of Jupiter as Virgil demonstrates in the Aeneid. He represents the Alban kings as being crowned with a civic oak-leaf crown. The Roman kings then adopted the crown, becoming personifications of Jupiter on earth. Latinus was thought to have become ""Jupiter Latiaris"" after ""vanishing"" during a battle with"
"to divine ancestry as a descendant of Venus and Anchises, supporting this claim in his text. In a speech by Jupiter, he references a ""Trojan Caesar"" as a descendant of Ascanius (by the name of Iulus) and therefore of Venus:""from this noble line shall be born the Trojan Caesar... a Julius, name descended from great lulus!""This text also reminds the audience of the bloodline shared between Aeneas and Augustus. In Book VI, when Aeneas is in Elysium, his father describes descendants who will one day inherit their name. He describes Aeneas' children, followed by Romulus, then skips ahead to Augustus"
"using the elephant as a claim for extraordinary political power in Rome, the coin is an unmasked allusion to this etymology of the name and directly identifies Caesar with the elephant, because the animal treads a Gallic serpent-horn, the ""carnyx"", as a symbolic depiction of Caesar's own victory. Several other interpretations were propagated in antiquity, all of which remain highly doubtful: Another interpretation of ""Caesar"" deriving from the verb ""caedere"" (""to cut"") could theoretically have originated in the argument of the Julians for receiving a sodality of the Lupercalia, the ""luperci Iulii"" (or ""Iuliani""). The praenomen ""Kaeso"" (or ""Caeso"") was"
"and armor for various gods and heroes, including the lightning bolts of Jupiter. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno, and the husband of Maia and Aphrodite (Venus). His smithy was believed to be situated underneath Mount Etna in Sicily. As the son of Jupiter, the king of the gods, and Juno, the queen of the gods, Vulcan should have been quite handsome, but baby Vulcan was small and ugly with a red, bawling face. Juno was so horrified that she hurled the tiny baby off the top of Mount Olympus. Vulcan fell down for a day and a"
"Pegasus Pegasus (, ""Pḗgasos""; ) is a mythical winged divine stallion, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is a child of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled by the Gorgon Medusa upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated her. Pegasus is the brother of Chrysaor and the uncle of Geryon. Greco-Roman poets wrote about the ascent of Pegasus to heaven after his birth, and his subsequent obeisance to Zeus, king of the gods, who instructed him to bring lightning and thunder from Olympus. Friend of the Muses, Pegasus"
"fall of Troy (1184 BC) and the founding of Rome (753 BC), this seems unlikely. The Julian family of Rome, most notably Julius Cæsar and Augustus, traced their lineage to Ascanius and Aeneas, thus to the goddess Venus. Through the Julians, the Palemonids make this claim. The legendary kings of Britain – including King Arthur – trace their family through a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus. Aeneas's consistent epithet in Virgil and other Latin authors is ""pius"", a term that connotes reverence toward the gods and familial dutifulness. In the ""Aeneid"", Aeneas is described as strong and handsome, but neither his"
"Zeus Zeus (; , ""Zeús"" ) is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. His mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Indra, Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Thor, and Odin. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by"
"the Caesar family, as well as the famous relationship between Josephus and the Flavians, Vespasian and Titus, and also one of the poems of Horace. According to Bruno Bauer, Julius Caesar sought to interpret his own life as an Oriental miracle story, and Augustus Caesar completed that job by commissioning Virgil to write his ""Aeneid"", making Caesar into the Son of Venus and a relative of the Trojans, thereby justifying the Roman conquest of Greece and insinuating Rome into a much older history. By contrast, said Bauer, Vespasian was far more fortunate, since he had Josephus himself to link his"
"Jupiter (mythology) Jupiter (from or ""Iuppiter"" , from Proto-Italic *djous ""day, sky"" + *patēr ""father"", thus ""sky father""), also known as Jove gen. ""Iovis"" , is the god of the sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice. Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as"
"of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources. Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. His cognomen was subsequently adopted as a synonym for ""Emperor""; the title ""Caesar"" was used throughout the Roman Empire, giving rise to modern cognates such as Kaiser or Tsar. He has frequently appeared in literary and artistic works, and his political philosophy, known as ""Caesarism"" inspired politicians into the modern era. Gaius Julius Caesar was born into a patrician family, the ""gens Julia"", which claimed descent from Iulus, son"
"the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Caelus Caelus or Coelus was a primal god of the sky in Roman myth and theology, iconography, and literature (compare ""caelum"", the Latin word for ""sky"" or ""the heavens"", hence English ""celestial""). The deity's name usually appears in masculine grammatical form when he is conceived of as a male generative force, but the neuter form Caelum is also found as a divine personification. The name of Caelus indicates that he was the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Uranus (Οὐρανός, ""Ouranos""), who was of major importance in the theogonies of the Greeks. Varro couples him"
"Hill, where the citadel was located. In the Capitoline Triad, he was the central guardian of the state with Juno and Minerva. His sacred tree was the oak. The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name ""Iuppiter"". In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto, the Roman equivalents of Poseidon and Hades respectively. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also"
"Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (; Greek: Αἰνείας, ""Aineías"", possibly derived from Greek meaning ""praised"") was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's ""Iliad"". Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's ""Aeneid,"" where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became"
"daughter of Aeneas and Lavinia, and his father was Mars. In his ""Hymn to Asclepius"", Homer attributes his origin to the god Apollo and the daughter of a renowned soldier, King Phlegyas. As the divine patron of the healing art, Asclepius became the most popular of the hero gods of Greece. The belief that religion was concerned with sickness and disease was central to his cult. His sanctuaries in the Greco-Roman world became so famous there was a movement to make him a god of the first rank and identify him with Zeus himself. Asclepius was ""the one who leads"
"Atlas (mythology) In Greek mythology, Atlas (; , ""Átlas"") was a Titan condemned to hold up the celestial heavens for eternity after the Titanomachy. Atlas also plays a role in the myths of two of the greatest Greek heroes: Heracles (the Roman equivalent being Hercules) and Perseus. According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, Atlas stood at the ends of the earth in extreme west. Later, he became commonly identified with the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa and was said to be ""King of Mauretania"". Atlas was said to have been skilled in philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. In antiquity, he"
"and so from Mars. Moreover, when he was a teenager, Marius had named him ""flamen Dialis"", the special priest of Jupiter. Sulla had cancelled this appointment; however, relatively early in his career, Caesar had become pontifex maximus, the chief priest of Rome, who fulfilled most of the religious duties of the ancient kings. He had spent his twenties in the divine monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean, and was intimately familiar with Bithynia. Caesar made use of these connections in his rise to power, but not more than his rivals would have, or more than his other advantages. When he spoke"