He was a man of the people, a populist who helped military veterans and initiated land
reform.
He was a brilliant strategist on the battlefield, an astute politician and an avid historian.
This man would become the last dictator of the Roman Republic, paving the way for the
great Roman Empire.
Julius Caesar was masterful, artful and above all, powerful.
He was adored by the man in the street for all those things, but despised by those who
were envious of the hold he had over the people.
This is the story of his life.
Gaius Julius Caesar was born on the 12th of July, 100 BC, in Rome.
His parents were named Gaius Julius Caesar and Aurelia Cotta.
This family of his was noble, claiming descent from powerful ancestors.
Where the name Caesar originated has been debated.
It might have been related to the procedure of the Caesarean section; it could have been
linked to the slaying of an elephant or it might have been down to the first Caesar’s
thick, curly locks of hair.
Despite being noble, the family was not particularly rich and didn’t hold much sway in Roman
politics of the day.
They were comfortable, though, with the father holding the position of senator and the mother
hailing from a wealthy family.
Information is scant as to what happened in the early childhood of Julius Caesar, but
we do know that he had to grow up fast due to his father passing away.
At age 16, he was the man of the family.
This was a time of division in Rome and there was a bloody civil war.
Caesar’s uncle Marius was in the middle of that, a man who had granted Caesar the
position of high priest of Jupiter.
Caesar was also married to the daughter of his uncle’s main ally, Lucius Cornelius
Cinna.
Then all came undone for the young man when his uncle and his ally lost the civil war
to the powerful Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
Caesar was in a precarious position and his life was in danger.
He was soon stripped of his priesthood, robbed of the inheritance he was set to receive,
and for the sake of his survival he went into hiding.
But Caesar had a stroke of luck when his mother’s family joined the support of Sulla.
He was allowed to come out of hiding, but he was stripped of his title of priest.
As things went, this would make the man to be, because priests were not allowed to become
part of the military.
Free of his title, Caesar looked to the army.
This being a time of pervasive back-stabbing, the literal kind, Caesar was well aware that
being close to Sulla was perhaps not a prudent thing to do.
He got out of Rome as fast as he could and joined military campaigns that stretched to
Asia.
He soon became a man of distinction and received credit for his part in military victories.
Caesar had found his footing and his bearing in life.
When he was 22-years old the great Sulla bit the dust, and with him out of the way, Caesar
knew he could likely return to Rome without the fear of being killed by an enemy.
That he did, and he acquired a house in the “Subura”, a lower-class neighborhood ripe
with crime where the streets always thronged with people.
Stripped of his inheritance, Caesar was not a wealthy man by any means.
His getting to know those streets would shape his view of life.
He would not forget the average man.
It’s now that Caesar’s life took another turn, because during his time in the subura
he became an admired prosecutor who brought down corrupt governors who had taken advantage
of their positions.
He was renowned for his gift of speech and dazzled people with his fluid orations.
He fought righteously and he won.
He garnered even more praise in Rome after people heard the story of him being kidnapped
by pirates when he was travelling the seas.
While held prisoner he showed no fear and even demanded that the pirates raise the ransom
they had asked for.
He was worth more than the demand, he told the pirates.
The money was paid and Caesar was released, but that wasn’t the end of it.
He soon got a fleet together and went in search of the pirates.
He found them and brought them back to Rome to face the music.
He had them all crucified, just as he had told them would happen when he was in captivity.
But Caesar was lenient, too, and rather than have them experience the full force of this
brutal kind of execution, he first slit their throats.
After that, it was back to the army and more campaigns in Asia.
On his return to Rome the now esteemed man was quickly made a public official and it
is here where his life in politics began.
It wasn’t all plain-sailing.
He lost his wife, then married again, and then divorced.
But at age 37 he ran for the position of Pontifex Maximus, which translates as chief priest
of the Roman state religion.
It was a messy affair, with his rivals for that post accused of corruption.
But Caesar won and it wasn’t even close.
At the age of 41 he was elected senior Roman consul, a position he gained with the help
of some powerful friends.
He and these two friends would form what is called the First Triumvirate.
This consisted of Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), and Marcus Licinius Crassus.
Why would they do that?
Well, the simple answer is the constitution was in place to prevent any one person becoming
too powerful and having too much control.
But these men agreed to make a secret alliance in which they would help each other.
Together they were powerful, and each of them would take advantage of that.
Caesar had one thing in mind to start with, a populist move which would involve redistributing
public land to some of the poorer people in Rome.
If anyone was against this, he said force might be used.
The two men in his triumvirate agreed, and so people became aware of the alliance.
He was successful, but his number of enemies were growing, especially within the ranks
of the Roman aristocracy.
Caesar was viewed as a populist upstart, a possible danger to the wealthy elite, but
he had the admiration of the people for his social reform.
He had the backing of his co-aligned, and so his power just grew and grew.
The thing was, he was still not a rich man and he had debts to pay.
He was aware that money could be made by winning military campaigns, and he looked towards
the region of Gaul which now covers parts of western Europe.
That land was inhabited by Germanic tribes that might be a threat to Rome, and so Caesar
defeated them with two legions.
He wasn’t done by any means, and he defeated more tribes.
After which, he concentrated his efforts on an invasion of Briton.
On his way there he won more campaigns winning battles against various European tribes, although
his first invasion of Britain was unsuccessful.
On his second attempt his troops made it further inland and some alliances were made, but Caesar
was forced to retreat once more due to revolts in Gaul.
But we shouldn’t underestimate what he had achieved.
Caesar and his legions had crossed Europe and they had defeated everyone in their path.
They had breached the borders of that island of Briton.
Caesar had gained great respect for these campaigns, but he had his detractors in the
people that thought he was gaining too much power.
In Rome there was trouble, and the triumvirate was strained.
One of the enduring strengths of this alliance was the fact that Caesar’s daughter was
married to Pompey, but she died while giving birth.
Caesar offered him another relative, albeit a distant one this time, and that was turned
down.
Things went from bad to worse when the third member of the triumvirate, Crassus, died in
a military campaign.
Pompey then married the daughter of one of Caesar’s political enemies and that was
the end of the triad.
Caesar meanwhile was busy fighting insurrection in Gaul, campaigns that at times may not have
gone as he wanted, but he nonetheless came out as victor.
The many tribes had known if they fought each other and the Romans they were done for, so
they formed an alliance and did have some success against Caesar’s armies.
But in the end Caesar was victorious and he marched through parts of Europe and defeated
around 300 tribes while destroying 800 cities.
Caesar is now 50 years old and he faces a very big problem.
Pompey is heading the senate and he’s just demanded that Caesar disband his legions and
return to Rome.
Caesar is seen as a power unto himself and a threat to those in the senate.
He’s accused of insubordination and treason.
He knows what will happen and he does not meet the demand.
Instead he takes a single legion, men who are wholeheartedly behind him, to the border
of Italy.
He will not bow down.
In Caesar’s own words he said, “the die is cast” and he entered Italy ready to go
against his opponents in the Senate.
Caesar was vastly outnumbered with his one legion, but those were hardened men who’d
been fighting tribes for some time.
The fight didn’t even happen and Pompey fled to Spain with his tail between his legs.
Caesar went in pursuit and left Rome in the hands of the great Mark Anthony.
Caesar had no ships since they had been taken by Pompey, and so he marched into Spain, first
subduing anyone that might align with Pompey and his troops, and then going in search of
Pompey himself.
What ensued was the Battle of Dyrrhachium, and at first Pompey had all the strategic
advantages.
Caesar’s army was in a bad position, unable to attack and blocked in so they could not
get provisions to feed themselves.
Pompey on the other hand had the sea, and he could wait as long as he wanted.
But as time went by Pompey was finding it more difficult to get supplies, while the
harvest was on its way and Caesar would be in good stead for battle.
When the fighting finally commenced, Caesar lost ground; he was simply outnumbered by
Pompey’s forces.
Both forces didn’t back down, but in the end Caesar halted his attacks.
Both armies retreated and went in search of more men as well as supplies, and then what
happened sometime after was the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece.
Pompey again was in a much stronger position with double the troops that Caesar had and
a lot more provisions.
He knew if he just waited, Caesar’s army would starve.
But the senate demanded Pompey attack and so he did.
Caesar’s battle-hardened soldiers were commendable, and his instructions were perfect.
At the end of the battle when many men had lost their lives all Pompey could do was watch
his men running away.
He had finally been defeated.
Caesar was a proud man and it’s said he remembered every officer, or centurion, by
their name.
Pompey fled to Egypt but there Ptolemy XIII demanded that he be executed.
He gave the head to Caesar to see.
It backfired and Caesar was inflamed, because he had been using his time granting amnesty
to all those in the senate that had been against him.
Instead of killing his enemies and anyone who had fought against him, Caesar showed
mercy and allowed the men to live their lives normally.
Caesar then campaigned against the Egyptian pharaoh and he won again.
He made the great Cleopatra the ruler and they became lovers, which is a story that
has gone down in history.
Although Caesar was married in Rome, what happened in Egypt kind of stayed in Egypt.
Now dictator of Rome, Caesar went off again on more campaigns and this time he easily
defeated armies in the Middle East.
He moved on to Africa where there were Roman enemies who had been aligned with Pompey,
and while he didn’t win all the fights, he did enough.
The campaigns didn’t stop and Caesar went away to Spain.
At this time his name was being sung in the streets and he was being praised for the great
and merciful man he was.
His enemies were not all slaughtered, but they had not turned against him in Rome.
But enmity towards him started to fester when he was made dictator for another ten years
and began a course of social reforms that supported the lower and middle classes.
This infuriated most of the wealthy people of course.
He wanted to reform tax; subsidize grain, reduce government debt, support veterans of
the military and give Roman citizenship to people in territories far and wide.
He made laws so that certain people couldn’t buy extravagant luxury goods.
He also brought in the Julian calendar, the pre-cursor to the calendar we use today in
the West.
At the same time he held outrageous games where 100s of wild animals were killed as
well as over 2,000 war captives.
This kind of thing was seen as over the top by some people.
…. It was March 15 and Caesar was 55 years old.
He had won over many of the people and had become known as a mighty leader, but his power
and his reforms had annoyed many of the Roman elites.
They wanted him dead, and so they plotted to assassinate him.
Mark Anthony had got wind of this plot, but his own plan to inform Caesar was thwarted.
Caesar was called to the Senate where he thought he had some matters to deal with, but little
did he know that when he arrived those waiting for him had all conspired to kill him.
Senators grabbed him and pulled him to the ground and then proceeded to stab him.
His body was punctured 23 times and 60 men were involved.
It was the politician named Marcus Junius Brutus that led the plot, and some records
state that Caesar’s last words were, “You too, Brutus?”
Brutus then marched through the streets announcing to the people that once again Rome was free.
The consequence of this was the lower and middle classes were outraged that their champion
had been brutally murdered by corrupt politicians.
They became a mob, and a violent one at that.
The story is a long one, but civil wars ensued.
Mark Anthony aligned with Caesar’s old flame, Cleopatra, and the two of them warred against
Caesar’s grandnephew, Octavian.
Octavian won, and he became the first emperor of the Roman Empire.
Caesar has gone down as perhaps the greatest military leader in ancient Rome, and he had
an expression he used to state how he quickly dealt with other armies.
That was, “Veni, vidi, vici” or “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
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