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Julius Caesar
General, politician, and master of propaganda, Julius Caesar is closely associated with the fall of
the Roman Republic. A man of profound charisma who was well known for his pivotal military
campaigns, Caesar was also an author and a shrewd developer of military propaganda.
Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 100 BCE, the son of a noble but unremarkable patrician family.
Caesar's early life was dominated by the political turmoil that surrounded the violent rivalry
between followers of the populist Gaius Marius, who was Caesar's uncle, and Lucius Cornelius
Sulla, the champion of senatorial privilege. After surviving Sulla's purges following his final victory
over Marius' forces, Caesar spent his youth studying in Asia Minor before beginning his military
and political careers. He married Cornelia, the daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who was a
consul.
After distinguishing himself in the east as a soldier and orator, Caesar returned to Rome in 73 BCE to assume the duties
of a pontifex, an important Roman priest. He now also began his climb through the cursus honorum (the chain of Roman
offices that characterized the careers of politically ambitious Roman elites). He was first elected military tribune, an office
with combined military and political functions, and in 69 became quaestor, the lowest office of the cursus honorum. Before
setting out to the provinces to take up his duties, however, both Caesar's wife and his Aunt Julia, Marius' wife, died.
Caesar used their deaths to fulfill propagandistic ends, endearing himself to many Roman citizens by breaking a long
tradition of women not receiving public funerals. He held lavish funerals for both, in which he noted their aristocratic
lineage and the significant role Cinna and Marius had played in the Roman Republic. That public praise of Cinna and
Marius was an important step in defining Caesar's politics, as it angered the Optimates and positioned Caesar with the
Populares.
On returning from the provinces, Caesar began in earnest the political maneuvering for which he would become famous.
He supported the agitation of northern Italian Latin colonies for Roman citizenship and began courting the patronage of
powerful Pompey the Great, who became Caesar's father-in-law when Caesar married his daughter Pompeia. The
cooperation of Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was a wealthy former supporter of Sulla, would form
what would later be called the First Triumvirate, and the union of their diverse talents, resources, and mammoth ambitions
would help to change forever the face of Roman politics.
During that time, Caesar won many supporters but also alienated important and respected men at Rome, including the
conservatives Cicero and Cato the Younger. As praetor, he was almost prevented from taking command of his province in
Further Spain by his creditors, who tried to have him prevented from leaving Rome. However, Crassus guaranteed his
debts, and Caesar focused his efforts in Spain against various hostile tribes, winning enough booty not only to pay off his
personal debts but also to contribute handsomely to the public coffers.
Caesar returned to Rome with greatly enhanced prestige and ambitions, aiming now for a consulship. In addition to his
own desire for honors and power, Caesar increasingly needed political success to protect himself from his ever-increasing
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and ever-angrier circle of enemies. Caesar returned to Rome to announce his candidacy for the consulship, promising
Pompey, Crassus, and others certain key pieces of legislation in return for their support. Although he won the election of
58, his colleague was the nephew of the arch-anti-Caesarian Cato. To win the legislation he had promised to his
followers, Caesar used physical violence and unprecedented political corruption to neutralize the efforts of his colleague
and his supporters.
The First Triumvirate now came into its own. Through the passage of highly dubious laws, the position of Caesar's allies
and supporters were secured and their loyalties rewarded. Rich provinces became prizes for political fidelity, and although
that practice was nothing new, the naked contempt Caesar and his friends displayed for convention and legal precedent
hardened attitudes and stoked fears among their rivals. After those rivals failed to win a prosecution of Caesar for
corruption, a rising of tribesmen in Gaul drew Caesar back to the battlefields and to more lucrative conquests.
It was with those conquests that Caesar maintained his position, enriching Roman nobles and nonnobles alike while the
treasury of Rome was forced to foot the bills for Caesar's legions, which were increasingly seen as his personal army.
Caesar's personal safety depended upon the personal army, at his command as long as he retained the imperium of
office and his relationship with his fellow triumvirs. In 55, Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls, and Caesar had his
command in Gaul extended by five years. The relationship began to crumble when in 53 Crassus was killed in battle
against the Parthians. Meanwhile, Pompey was gradually seduced away by Caesar's enemies. As Caesar's five-year
command neared its end, his enemies planned to arrest and try him at Rome.
In 49, Caesar famously crossed the Rubicon River in northern Italy and began what would prove to be a very bloody civil
war. Pompey was put in charge of the anti-Caesarian republican forces, but he was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus
and killed after fleeing to Egypt. After joining forces with the Macedonian-Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator,
Caesar eventually defeated the republican forces in 45, killing tens of thousands of Roman troops in the process. After
returning to Rome and showing extraordinary clemency toward his defeated enemies, Caesar, now dictator for life, was
murdered on the Ides of March, 44 BCE by a group of Roman nobles, including Caesar's friend Marcus Junius Brutus,
who feared that Caesar harbored plans to make himself king.
Though less noted for his literary ambition, Caesar was a master orator and author of many books on Roman history.
Little extant writing has survived, except Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War and Commentaries on the Gallic Wars,
which, written in seven books, covers the excursions of Gallia and Britannia.
Although no name is as closely associated with the fall of the Roman Republic as that of Caesar, his murder did nothing
to restore the republic. Instead, a horrible cycle of civil war followed, resulting in the advent of the first Roman emperor,
Augustus, in 27 BCE. Caesar's career is a symptom of the times in which Caesar lived, not the cause of the ills that
destroyed the republic. In an age of ruthless and ambitious Roman elites, Caesar is remarkable less for the ends he
pursued than for the intelligence and energy with which he pursued them.
Further Reading
Gruen, Erich S. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995; Meier,
Christian, Caesar, trans. by David McLintock, 1995.
Select Citation Style:
MLA
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MLA
Sizgorich, Tom. "Julius Caesar." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 3 June 2014.
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