The modern myth of Junia Tertia (UPDATED)

UPDATE (Dec. 2022): Wikipedia's pages for Caesar, Servilia, Junia Tertia, and Silanus have been fixed and this information removed. Hopefully, it won't return.

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Junia Tertia was the third daughter of Servilia and Decimus Junius Silanus. Both wikipedia and TV Tropes claim that Tertia was rumored to be Julius Caesar's daughter. I'm sure there are other sites that claim the same thing, using wikipedia as a reference.

Wikipedia (Caesar's page):

"Junia Tertia (born ca. 60s BC), the daughter of Caesar's lover Servilia was believed by Cicero among other contemporaries, to be Caesar's natural daughter."

Wikipedia (Tertia's page):

"[...] (although she was rumoured to actually be the illegitimate daughter of Julius Caesar, who was her mother's lover) [...]

She was said by some to be the natural daughter of Julius Caesar, her mother's lover at the time of her birth. Later on there were rumors that Servilia pimped her out to Caesar when his interest in her mother began to wane – although the former rumour, that his interest in her was paternal, seems the more likely to be true (and it is extremely unlikely that both were true at once: incest not being a vice that Caesar was ever accused of, even by his worst enemies). Either could have been the reason for Cicero to remark, at an auction where Caesar had sold goods to Servilia at reduced prices, that they had been discounted by a third (tertia)."

TV Tropes:

"There's a similar debate among historians about the paternity of Brutus' younger sister, Junia Tertia. Modern writers tend to consider her more plausible candidate as Caesar's child."

Let me say this loud and clear: THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT!

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So, how did this story come about? The answer is Colleen McCullough's series of novels, "Masters of Rome." Her novels are well-researched, but they also contain lots of inventions, distortions, and errors. And for some reason, they are hugely influential on wiki.

This is how it goes in the novels: Servilia's intimate life with her husband is nonexistent because Silanus is impotent. The affair between her and Caesar begins in 68 BC, right after his quaestorship. She gives birth to Tertia in 67, and Caesar is the baby daddy. Years later, Cicero makes a joke about Tertia because everyone knows that she is Caesar's kid.

Now...

1. Tertia was born c. 74 BC.

The very first record of Servilia's relationship with Caesar dates to 63 BC. And even if you believe that Caesar fathered Brutus in the 80s, at the age of 14, there are still no records of their involvement in the 70s. Caesar's absence from Rome from 75 to 73 also poses a problem.

2. Only two sources mention Tertia in relation to Caesar, and both allege that she was his lover. I'm sure you can see how yucky it is that McCullough made her his daughter.

Suetonius:

"But beyond all others Caesar loved Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, for whom in his first consulship he bought a pearl costing six million sesterces. During the civil war, too, besides other presents, he knocked down some fine estates to her in a public auction at a nominal price, and when some expressed their surprise at the low figure, Cicero wittily remarked: "It's a better bargain than you think, for there is a third off." And in fact it was thought that Servilia was prostituting her own daughter Tertia to Caesar."

Play on words: tertia means "third." This auction took place in 47 BC, so Tertia was about 27 years old.

Macrobius:

"Symmachus deinde: Mater M. Bruti, Servilia, cum pretiosum aere parvo fundum abstulisset a Caesare subiciente hastae bona civium, non effugit dictum tale Ciceronis: Equidem, quo melius emptum sciatis, conparavit Servilia hunc fundum tertia deducta. Filia autem Serviliae erat Iunia Tertia eademque C. Cassii uxor, lasciviente dictatore tam in matrem quam in puellam. Tunc luxuriam senis adulteri civitas subinde rumoribus iocisque carpebat, ut mala non tantum seria forent."

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the English translation. Macrobius repeats the same joke by Cicero and says that Caesar was sleeping with both Servilia and Tertia, and that this rumor was used to slander his reputation.

That's it. These are the only mentions of Tertia in Caesar's story. Neither alleges a blood relation between them.

3. "was believed by Cicero among other contemporaries to be Caesar's natural daughter." 

Cicero's joke was clearly understood by everyone to mean that Tertia was Caesar's lover. No source reports any other interpretation.

4. "There's a similar debate among historians about the paternity of Brutus' younger sister, Junia Tertia." 

There are no such debates in academic circles. There are debates on Brutus' paternity and on Caesarian's paternity, but there are no debates on Tertia's paternity.

5. "Modern writers tend to consider her more plausible candidate as Caesar's child." 

Who are these writers exactly? I have never seen any self-respecting historian or whatever do that.

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Personally, I do not believe that Tertia was Caesar's lover.

"There are bound to be many different Caesars. Perhaps every generation has to create its own. We can at least seek to attempt to rescue him from the fog of innuendo, distortion, and salacious gossip which enveloped him in his own day." – Jeremy Paterson