House of Julii
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The House of Julii, one of the factions of the computer game Rome: Total War, are situated in the north of the Italian Confederation, or Roman Republic. From the beginning of the game, they control the provinces of Etruria (the city of Arretium) and Umbria (the city of Ariminum).
The Julius family in real life didn't own northern Italy, but they did become the sovereign rulers of Rome. When playing the game the player is trying to replicate, or expand, on Julius Caesar's success in Gaul. The faction must fight Gaul, Germania, Spain and the northern Carthaginian Empire in Spain. The faction must also fight, or ally, with Britannia.
In the game, each Roman House represents a different view of the Roman world, and a different vision for the future of the Republic. The liberal Julii are extremely populist, believing in the power and importance of the Senate and People of Rome; everything is done for the glory of the Republic and the fact that Julii family members happen to be made wealthy and well-loved by their citizens is only a bonus and not an incentive.
This reflects the fact that although historically, the majority of the gens may have been socially conservative, its more famous members were not. Gaius Marius, who married Julia, aunt of Gaius Julius Caesar, was a very liberal member, and served as a populist politician, general, senator, and consul. Gaius Julius Caesar himself was a life-long populist. Both Marius and Caesar were very resolute in their belief that soldiers should be recruited from throughout the Roman Republic, not just Rome, that non-patricians be allowed to serve, that the generals and the state, not the individual soldiers, should be in charge of paying for weapons and armor, that retired soldiers should be given farming land as a sort of pension, and they [Marius and Caesar] favored also the enfranchisement of Italian citizens and the military auxiliaries, respectively.
The historical Julii clan claimed direct descent from the goddess Venus, however, in the game, the goddess of love is not a deity that the Julii build temples to (these are Jupiter, Ceres, and Bacchus). The Julii are not very traditional, however, being one of the least aristocratic of the Patrician families, and their view of Roman culture can be summed up with the phrase "times change". Living on the frontier of civilization, they occupy the margin between the civilized comforts of Rome-proper and the savage, frozen wilderness of the Barbarian north. As such, they have an intense distaste for Barbarians and the barbarian lifestyle, and although being undoubtedly roughened-up by their life alongside the barbarians, they feel that their duty to Rome is to spread Latin civilization northward. They especially dislike Gauls, who have been a thorn in their side for generations.
After some success, the player can start the civil war, which happened in real life, but not how the game portrays it. They must strike down the Roman Senate (S.P.Q.R.), and the other Roman factions: the House of Brutii (the enemies of the Hellenistic world) and the House of Scipii (the arch-enemies of Carthage).
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