Caesar, Gaius Julius

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Caesar, Gaius Julius

Julius Caesar rose from relative obscurity to supreme power in the late Roman republic. A brilliant general and formidable politician, he defeated all rivals to become dictator of Rome. Fear that he would make himself king prompted his assassination in 44 B.C. But Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, later rose to become the emperor Augustus.

Early Life

Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 B.C. Although patrician and claiming descent from Venus through Aeneas's son Iulus (Ascanius), Caesar's family had not achieved real prominence. His father, also named Gaius Julius Caesar, was Gaius Marius's brother-in-law and married Aurelia, who was connected with the prominent Aurelii family; he died in about 85 B.C., however, before reaching the consulship. In 84, Caesar married Cornelia, daughter of Marius's old partner Lucius Cornelius Cinna. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla ordered him to divorce her, he refused and escaped harm through the intervention of such people as his mother's relative Gaius Aurelius Cotta.

Caesar was then sent to collect a fleet from the Roman ally Nicomedes IV of Bithynia and was honored for conspicuous bravery at the siege of Mytilene (80 B.C.). Returning home after Sulla's death (78), he unsuccessfully prosecuted (77–76) two Sullans, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Gaius Antonius Hibrida. He then left Rome for studies in Rhodes but was captured en route by pirates. After obtaining ransom, he recruited private troops, captured the pirates, and had them executed in 75–74. His studies on Rhodes were interrupted by the outbreak of war with Mithradates VI of Pontus, against whom he hastily gathered a force in 74.

Political Rise and Military Success

During a legateship to help Marcus Antonius Creticus fight piracy, Caesar was made a pontiff at Rome in 73 B.C. After his military tribunate and possible service against Spartacus (72 or 71), he sided with those seeking power from outside the circle of nobles who dominated the Senate. He supported restoration of tribunician powers and the recall from exile of those who had supported Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in his revolt of 77. Caesar also advertised his Marian connections: by displaying Marius's effigies at his aunt Julia's funeral; through funeral orations (69) for both Julia and his wife; and by the restoration (65) of Marius's battle trophies on the Capitoline Hill.

After serving (69) as quaestor in Spain, Caesar earned popularity among the TranspadaneGauls by supporting (68) their agitation for Roman citizenship. He next married (68) Pompeia, granddaughter of Sulla and relative of Pompey the Great; evidence indicates that he supported important military assignments for Pompey in 67 and 66. As aedile in 65 B.C., he achieved great popularity—and went into debt—by financing splendid games. He also probably cooperated (65) with Marcus Licinius Crassus in an attempt to annex Egypt; in supporting (64, 63) Catiline for the consulship; and in promoting the land-distribution bill of PubliusServiliusRullus.

In 64 B.C., Caesar presided over trials of those who had committed murder during Sulla's proscriptions. The following year he prosecuted Gaius Rabirius and used that trial to attack the legality of the Senatusconsultumultimum, the Senate's decree of a state of emergency. In the elections of that year, massive bribery helped him become Pontifex Maximus. Caesar took no part in Catiline's conspiracy; he did, however, court popularity by opposing the execution of Catiline's accomplices and, as praetor in 62, by supporting measures favorable to Pompey. Soon after, though, he divorced Pompeia on suspicion of infidelity with PubliusClodius, although he refused to testify against the latter in the Bona Dea affair (61). Caesar later married (58) Calpurnia.

Caesar became governor of Further Spain in 61 after Crassus had helped pacify his creditors. Military action in Spain restored Caesar's finances, and he outwitted his political enemies by forgoing a triumph (the traditional victor's procession in Rome) in order to win election (60) to the consulate with the support of Crassus and Pompey. Faced with increased opposition from conservatives such as Cato the Younger, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed the so-called First Triumvirate to further their ambitions in 60–59. After obtaining a reduction of the Asian tax contracts for Crassus, ratification of Pompey's postwar arrangements in the East, and land for Pompey's veterans, Caesar received the governorships of Illyricum, Cisalpine Gaul, and Transalpine Gaul. He was also given control of a large army, which he used to subjugate Gaul. He gained enormous political strength from the Gallic Wars, which lasted from 58 to 51 B.C.

War with Pompey

Although Caesar's daughter, Julia, married Pompey in 59, strain, encouraged by Crassus, developed between the two men. The Triumvirate was renegotiated at Luca in 56. But the death of Julia in 54 and Crassus in 53 and the phenomenal success of Caesar in Gaul eventually destroyed Caesar's relationship with Pompey. In 50, Pompey joined opponents of Caesar's bid for a second consulate. Caesar's offers of compromise were rejected by the Senate. On Jan. 10, 49 B.C., Caesar precipitated civil war by leading his army across the Rubicon River into Italy proper.

Caesar's veteran army soon overran Italy, forcing the unprepared Pompey to withdraw to Greece. In August 49 a lightning campaign secured Spain, and Caesar then crossed to Greece. At Dyrrhachium (Durazzo) he suffered a loss, but his hardened veterans totally defeated Pompey's superior numbers at Pharsalus on Aug. 9, 48 B.C. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered. Following him there, Caesar became involved in the civil war between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII. He made Cleopatra his mistress as well as queen of Egypt.

In 47 B.C., Caesar went to Anatolia. There he defeated Pompey's ally Pharnaces, king of Bosporus, at Zela; this victory occasioned Caesar's famous boast Veni, vidi, vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). He returned to Rome, but in December 47 he crossed to North Africa to meet a new threat from the Pompeian forces. After victory at Thapsus, he returned home in 46 B.C. to an unprecedented quadruple triumph. Pompey's sons, however, organized new resistance against him in Spain. Caesar's victory over them at Munda, on Mar. 17, 45 B.C., was the hardest won of all.

Dictator of Rome

Caesar was now showered with political powers and honors. He was appointed dictator (49, 48), then dictator for 10 years (46), and finally dictator for life (44). He was also elected consul (48, 46–44), appointed prefect of morals (46), awarded tribunician sacrosanctity (44), and honored by portrayal on coins and by the erection of a temple to his clemency (45). Caesar introduced numerous reforms, such as limiting the distribution of free grain, founding citizen colonies, introducing (Jan. 1, 45) the Julian calendar, and enlarging the Senate. At the same time, he reduced debts, revised the tax structure, and extended Roman citizenship to non-Italians. While meeting genuine needs, these popular reforms also strengthened Caesar's control of the state at the expense of his opponents, whom he tried to placate with ostentatious clemency.

In 44 B.C., Caesar, likening himself to Alexander the Great, began to plan the conquest of Parthia. Fearing that he would become an absolute king, many whom he had earlier pardoned conspired to murder him. The conspirators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, stabbed him at a meeting of the Senate in Pompey's theater on Mar. 15 (the Ides of March), 44 B.C. Falling at the foot of Pompey's statue, Caesar addressed Brutus in Greek: "Even you, lad?"

Caesar was an accomplished orator and writer. His two surviving works, On the Gallic War and On the Civil War, introduced the genre of personal war commentaries. Subtle propaganda for Caesar, they are also lucid narratives that hold the reader.

Dynamic, witty, urbane, and highly intelligent, Caesar aroused loyalty and admiration among both contemporaries and later generations. Nevertheless, his immense ambition and the contempt he displayed for the republican traditions of his opponents drove them to desperate measures against him. He therefore left Rome's great problems for his adopted son and heir, the future Augustus.

Allen M. Ward

Further Reading:

Adcock, Frank E., Caesar as a Man of Letters (1956; repr. 1969).

Bradford, Ernie, Julius Caesar: The Pursuit of Power (1984).

Fuller, J. F. C., Julius Caesar (1965; repr. 1991).

Gelzer, Matthias, Caesar: Politician and Statesman (1985).

Goldsworthy, Adrian, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (2006).

Grant, Michael, Julius Caesar (1975; repr. 1992).

Harrison, George B., ed., Julius Caesar in Shakespeare, Shaw, and the Ancients (1960).

Jiménez, Ramon L., Caesar against Rome: The Great Roman Civil War (2000).

Kahn, Arthur, The Education of Julius Caesar (1987).

Meier, Christian, Caesar: A Biography (1996).

Weinstock, Stefan, Divus Julius (1971).

Yavetz, Zwi, Julius Caesar and His Public Image (1983).

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