Julius Caesar

Alternative meanings: Julius Caesar (disambiguation).

Table of contents

1 Early life 2 Caesar's cursus honorum 3 The First Triumvirate and the Gallic War 4 The civil war 5 The literary Caesar 6 The military Caesar 7 Caesar's name 8 Caesar's marriages and offspring 9 Chronology 10 References 11 Related topics 12 External links

Early life

Caesar was born in Rome to a well-known patrician family (gens Julia) which supposedly traced its ancestry to Julus, the son of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who according to myth was the son of Venus. At the height of his power in 45 BC, Caesar began building a temple to Venus Genetrix at Rome, signifying his link to the goddess. His father and namesake, Gaius Julius Caesar, achieved the rank of praetor (see cursus honorum). His mother was an Aurelia from the Cottae branch, a rich and influential family of plebeian stock. As a young boy, he lived in a modest house in the Subura quarter, where he apparently learned to speak several languages, including Hebrew and Gallic dialects.

The Julii Caesarii, although of impeccable aristocratic patrician stock, were not rich by the standards of the Roman nobility. Due to this, no member of his family had achieved any outstanding prominence in recent times, though in his father's generation there was a renaissance of their fortunes. His paternal aunt, Julia, married Gaius Marius, a talented general and reformer of the Roman army. Marius was also the leader of the Populares faction of the Senate, frequently opposed to the Optimates conservatives.

Towards the end of Marius' life in 86 BC, internal politics reached a breaking point. Several disputes of the Marius faction against Lucius Cornelius Sulla led to civil war and eventually opened the way to Sulla's dictatorship. Caesar was tied to the Marius party through family connections. Not only was he Marius' nephew, he was also married to Cornelia Cinnilla, the youngest daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Marius' greatest supporter and Sulla's enemy.

Thus, when Sulla emerged as the winner of this civil war and began its program of proscriptions, Caesar, not yet 20 years old, was in a bad position. Sulla ordered him to divorce Cornelia in 82 BC, but Caesar refused and prudently left Rome to hide. Only the intervention of his family and closest friends saved him from certain proscription and death. Despite Sulla's pardon, Caesar did not remain in Rome and left for military service in Asia and Cilicia. During these campaigns he served under the command of Lucius Licinius Lucullus and distinguished himself for bravery in combat. In 81 BC he was sent to Bithynia to raise a fleet and while there became the lover of King Nicomedes, an affair that was to echo the rest of his life. His sexual escapades were such that (according to Suetonius), the elder Curio in one of his speeches called him "every woman's man and every man's woman."

Back in Rome in 78 BC, when Sulla died, Caesar began his political career in the Forum at Rome as an advocate, known for his oratory and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption. Aiming at rhetorical perfection, Caesar traveled to Rhodes for philosophical and oratorical studies with the famous teacher Apollonius Molo.

On the way, Caesar was kidnapped by pirates. When they demanded a ransom of twenty talents, he laughed at them, saying they did not know who they had captured. Instead, he ordered them to ask for fifty. They accepted, and Caesar sent his followers to various cities to collect the ransom money. Thirty-eight days later, they returned with the ransom and Caesar was set free. As soon as he was ransomed, he organized a naval force, captured the pirates and their stronghold and put them to death by crucifixion. However, since he admired them, he had their throats cut before they were crucified.

In 69 BC, Caesar became a widower after Cornelia's death trying to deliver a stillborn son. In the same year, he lost his aunt Julia, to whom he was very attached. During the funerals Caesar delivered eulogy speeches from the rostra. Julia's funeral was filled with political connotations, since Caesar insisted on parading Marius's funeral mask. This was the first attack on the Sullan proscription laws of the former decade. Although Caesar was very fond of both women (according to Suetonius), these speeches were interpreted by his political opponents as propaganda for his upcoming election for the office of quaestor.

Caesar's cursus honorum

Caesar was elected quaestor by the Assembly of the People in 69 BC, at the age of 30, as stipulated in the Roman cursus honorum. He drew the lots and was assigned with a questorship in Hispania Ulterior (a Roman province roughly situated in modern Portugal and southern Spain).

On his return to Rome, Caesar pursued his judicial career until his election as curule aedile in 65 BC. The functions of this office were similar to a present day mayor and included regulation of construction, traffic, commerce and other aspects of Rome's daily life. It was also a dangerous office because it included the organization of the Roman games in the Circus Maximus.

The public funding for this event was limited and, if the aedile wanted to offer the city magnificent games, in order to push forward his political career, this meant heavy expenses to their own purse. Caesar threw spectacular games that included the diversion of the Tiber River for a specific representation in the Circus. He ended the year in glory but in bankruptcy. His debts reached several hundreds gold talents (millions of euros in today's currency) and threatened to be an obstacle for his future career.

His success as aedile was, however, an enormous help for his election as Pontifex Maximus (high priest) in 63 BC, following the death of the previous holder Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. This office meant a new house – the Domus Publica (public house) – in the Forum, the responsibility of all Roman religious affairs and the custody of the Vestal virgins under his roof. For Caesar, it also meant a relief of his debts.

Caesar's debut as Pontifex was however marked by a scandal. Following the death of his wife Cornelia, he had married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla. As the wife of the Pontifex and an important matrona, Pompeia was responsible for the organization of the Bona Dea festival in December. These rites were exclusive to women and considered very sacred. However, Publius Clodius Pulcher managed to get in the house disguised as a woman. This was absolute sacrilege and Pompeia received a letter of divorce. Caesar himself admitted that she could be innocent in the plot, but, as he said: "Caesar's wife, like the rest of Caesar's family, must be above suspicion."

Sixty-three BC was an especially difficult year, not only for Caesar, but for the Roman Republic itself. Marcus Tullius Cicero was senior Consul and Caesar had been elected Urban Praetor by the Centuriate Assembly. During his consulship Cicero revealed a conspiracy to overthrow the elected magistrates organized by Lucius Sergius Catilina, a patrician aristocrat frustrated about his own political failure.

The result was the conviction to death of five notable Roman men, Catiline's allies, without a trial. This scandalized democratic Roman society, and Caesar opposed this violent measure with all his strength. His views were eventually defeated in a famous meeting of the Senate, due to Cato the younger's insistence, and the men were executed in the same day. (This was also the day when Caesar saw his affair with Servilia Caepionis exposed to the public eye.) Caesar's opposition led to accusations – never proved – of involvement on the conspiracy.

If Caesar was implicated in the Catiline affair, it did him no lasting damage. In 61 BC, after his praetorship, he served as governor of the province of Hispania Ulterior. This term permitted him to pay part of his debts.

The First Triumvirate and the Gallic War

In 59 BC Caesar was elected senior Consul of the Roman Republic by the Centuriate Assembly. His junior partner was his political enemy Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, a member of the Optimates faction and personal friend of Marcus Porcius Cato. The first act of Bibulus as Consul was to retire from all political activity in order to search the skies for omens. This apparently pious decision was designed to make Caesar's life difficult during his Consulship. Indeed, he needed allies and he found them where none of his enemies expected.

At this time the leading general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) was fighting in the Senate for farmlands for his veterans, without success. A former Consul, Marcus Licinius Crassus, allegedly the richest man in Rome, was also having problems in obtaining his long-desired military command against the Parthian Empire. Caesar the Consul was in desperate need of Crassus's money and Pompey's influence, so an informal alliance was created. Historians call this union the First Triumvirate (rule by three men). To confirm the alliance, Pompey married Julia Caesaris, Caesar's only daughter. Despite the differences in age and upbringing, this political marriage proved to be a love match.

Following a difficult year as Consul, Caesar was given Proconsul powers to govern Gaul (southern France) and Illyria (the coast of Dalmatia) for five years. He was not content with an idle governorship. Instead, he started the Gallic Wars (58 BC-49 BC) in which all of Gaul (the rest of France) and parts of Germania were annexed to Rome. Among his legatess were his cousins Lucius Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius, Titus Labienus and Quintus Tullius Cicero (Cicero's younger brother).

Caesar waged war against various peoples, defeating the Helvetii (in Switzerland) in 58 BC, the Belgic confederacy and the Nervii in 57 BC and the Veneti in 56 BC. On August 26th 55 BC he attempted an invasion of Britain and, in 52 BC he defeated a union of Gauls led by Vercingetorix at the battle of Alesia. His accounts of these campaigns were recorded in his commentaries De Bello Galico ("On the Gallic Wars").

According to Plutarch, the whole campaign resulted in 800 conquered cities, 300 subdued tribes, one million men sold to slavery and another three million dead in battle fields. Ancient historians are notorious for exaggerating numbers of this kind; Caesar's conquest of Gaul was certainly the greatest military triumph since the campaigns of Alexander the Great.

Despite his successes and the benefits they brought to Rome, Caesar remained unpopular among his peers, especially with the conservative faction, who always suspected him of wanting to become king. In 55 BC, his partners Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls and honored their agreement with Caesar by prolonging his proconsulship for another five years. This was to be the last act of the First Triumvirate.

In 54 BC, Julia Caesaris died in childbirth, leaving both Pompey and Caesar heartbroken. Crassus was killed in 53 BC during his ill-fated campaign in Parthia. Without Crassus or Julia, Pompey began to drift towards the Optimates faction. Still away in Gaul, Caesar tried to secure Pompey's support by offering him one of his nieces in marriage, but Pompey refused. Instead, Pompey married Cornelia Metella, the daughter of Metellus Scipio, one of Caesar's greatest enemies.

The civil war

In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to return to Rome and disband his army because his term as Proconsul had finished. Moreover, the Senate forbade Caesar to stand for a second consulship in absentia. Caesar knew that he would be prosecuted and politically eliminated if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a Consul or without the power of his legions. So Caesar refused to act as ordered and crossed the Rubicon river (the frontier with Italy) on January 10, 49 BC and civil war broke out. Historians differ as to what Caesar said upon crossing the Rubicon; the two competing lines are "The die is cast" and "Let the dice fly high!" (a line from the New Comedy poet Menander), the former in Latin (Alea iacta est) and the latter in Greek. This minor controversy is occasionally seen in modern, contemporary literature when an author wishes to underscore his or her superior knowledge by attributing the less popular Menander line to Caesar.

The Optimates, including Metellus Scipio and Cato the younger, fled to the south, not knowing that Caesar had only his Tenth Legion with him. Caesar pursued Pompey to Brundisium, hoping to patch up their deal of ten years before. Pompey eluded him, however, and Caesar made an astonishing 27-day route-march to Spain to defeat Pompey's lieutenants in Spain. He then went back east, to challenge Pompey in Greece where on July 10, 48 BC at Dyrrhacium Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat to Pompey. He decisively defeated Pompey's numerically superior army -- Pompey had nearly twice the number of infantry and considerably more cavalry -- at Pharsalus in an exceedingly short engagement in 48 BC.

Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by an officer of King Ptolemy XIII. In Rome, Caesar was appointed dictator, with Marcus Antonius as his master of the horse (magister equitum, or chief lieutenant); Caesar resigned this dictatorate after eleven days and was elected to a second term as consul with Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus as his colleague. He pursued Pompey to Alexandria, where he camped his army and inadvertently got tangled in the Alexandrine civil war between Ptolemy and his sister, wife, and co-regnant queen, the Pharaoh Cleopatra VII. Perhaps as a result of Ptolemy's role in Pompey's murder, Caesar sided with Cleopatra; he is reported to have wept at the sight of Pompey's head, which was offered to him by Ptolemy's chamberlain Pothinus as a gift. In any event, Caesar defeated the Ptolemaic forces and installed Cleopatra as ruler, and began an affair with her which produced his only known natural son, Ptolemy XV Caesar, better known as "Caesarion".

After spending the first months of 47 BC in Egypt, Caesar went to the Middle East, where he annihilated King Pharnaces II of Pontus in the battle of Zela; his victory was so swift and so complete that he commemorated it in his triumph with the words Veni, vidi, vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). Thence, he proceeded to Africa to deal with the remnants of Pompey's senatorial supporters. He quickly gained a significant victory at Thapsus in 46 BC over the forces of Metellus Scipio (who was killed in battle) and Cato the Younger (who committed suicide). Nevertheless, Pompey's sons Gnaeus Pompeius and Sextus Pompeius, together with Titus Labienus, Caesar's former propraetorian legate (legatus propraetore) and second in command in the Gallic War, escaped to Spain. Caesar gave chase and defeated the last remnants of opposition at Munda in a fiercely contested battle in March 45 BC. During this time, Caesar was elected to his third and fourth terms as consul in 46 BC (with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus) and 45 BC (without colleague).

Immediately after his return from the East (and before his departure for Spain), Caesar began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He tightly regulated the purchase of State-subsidized grain and forbade those who could afford privately supplied grain from purchasing from the grain dole. He extended the Roman citizenship to all communities in Gallia Cisalpina, thus enfranchising the remainder of the Italian peninsula. He made plans for the distribution of land to his veterans and for the establishment of veteran colonies throughout the Roman world. In one of his most wide-ranging reforms, Caesar ordered a complete overhaul of the Roman calendar, establishing a 365-day year with a leap year every fourth year (this Source | Copyright

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