Caesar was born in Rome, the son of Julius Caesar and Aurelia, he belonged to the Gens Julia, who traced his lineage to the goddess Venus and the Trojan Anchises, parents of Aeneas.
• He was Mario's nephew-in-law (who was married to Julia, Cesar's paternal aunt) and Cinna's son-in-law, since he was married to his daughter Cornelia. Sulla forgave him for his family relations, although the young man fled from Rome.
• He studied at Rhodes (75-4 BC) perfecting his eloquence under Apollonius, Cicero's teacher. We don't know anything about him from 72 to 70.
• On his return to Rome he first opted for the optimates . Then he turned to Crassus.
Offices of Julius Caesar
Your currus honorum can be summarized in these positions and dates:
• 69-68 BC. He served in Hispania as quaestor.
• 65 BC. Mayor.
• 63 BC. He presented himself and was elected Pontifex Maximus, despite the fact that this position was reserved for illustrious elders and was a challenge to the Patres . Shortly afterward, in the trial of Rabinius, he confronted Cicero.
• 62 BC. Praetor.
• 61 BC. Propraetor in Hispania, where his management was admirable, he pacified Lusitania and acquired great prosperity, perhaps with the help of the priests of Hercules Gaditano and the Phoenician merchants of Cádiz, since he took Rome with him, as the first provincial in the Senate, to L. Cornelio Balbo, Cadiz.
Back in Rome, he made a pact with Pompey and Crassus, forming a Triumvirate and sharing power.
The First Triumvirate (59 BC)
In these circumstances Caesar, Crassus and Pompey allied themselves to share power:
• Caesar :was the politician.
•Crassus :it represented the wealth, the economic power, due to the excessive price offered by the equestrians at the auction of the income of Asia.
• Pompey :represented military power. He had disbanded his army but was upset that he found a reluctant Senate to :
- Approve the measures he had taken in Asia.
- And to grant land to the veterans of him.
Your pact with him was an unofficial agreement , of mutual support against the Optimates , but in practice it was a personal sharing of power and ensured Caesar's election as Consul, 59 B.C.
To ensure his purpose, Caesar sought the support of the Senate and the other consul, M. Calpurnio Bibulo ( Optimate ).
• Not getting this support, he went into direct action and with the help of Pompey's veterans and the threat of violence, he finally got the Consulate.
Caesar's consulator (59 B.C.)
Caesar was elected Consul for the support that Pompey and Crassus gave him, his management is characterized by contempt for the laws and his disdain for the Senate. Thus, the bills were presented to the people directly, without going through this institution. This Consulate was his first step towards obtaining totalitarian power, since instead of being an exponent of the power of the Senate, he would turn it into his own instrument, attributing legislative activity to himself by relying on the people and the Popular Assembly, manipulated and forced by the weight of veterans. Among the numerous measures that were approved under his consular mandate, we will only mention two:an Agrarian Law and another against Cicero
- Agrarian Law . César proposed an Agrarian Law for the distribution of lands from the ager publicus to the democratic nucleus, mainly to Pompey's veterans and to poor citizens who had at least three children. This law was passed despite the opposition of his colleague at the consulate (Bilbulo ), opposition that endangered his life (58 BC).
- Against Cicero . Caesar had Clodius elevated to the Tribunate (58 BC), Cicero's implacable enemy, since he needed the services of this character to get rid of the great orator, who was an authorized and ardent defender of the aristocracy.
Clodius, once elevated to the office of Tribune. he proposed several laws with the intention of attracting the plebs, among them a Law of prouocatione that was approved, by which anyone who had made any citizen die without the consent of the Roman people was condemned to exile. Cicero, who had executed the conspirators with Catilina, without the people granting them an appeal, had to leave Rome, spending two years in exile (58 BC) in Greece.
Caesar and Gaul (58-51 BC)
Caesar, by the Rogatio Vatinia obtained command for four years as Proconsul of Roman Gaul because, aspiring to be the sole owner of Rome, he understood that he needed two things:money and soldiers.
All this and much more:the fame of unsurpassed general, he got it in Gaul, by conquering all the territory that today is France.
Thus, he obtained command of Illyricum, Cisalpine Gaul, and Transalpine Gaul (whose governor had died), with four Legions and the power to elect his own Legates.
He thus managed to protect himself from an opposition that in his impotence became very aggressive, led by Cato, in which Cicero was also.
Gaul before Caesar (123-58 b.c.)
Transalpine Gaul was the territory between the Germania Sea, the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, Gaul was occupied by three different peoples:The Belgian , the Celts and the Aquitanians . These peoples were divided into numerous tribes in which nobles and non-nobles vied for power. In addition, there were confederations, in conflict with each other.
At the beginning of the 6th century BC, the Greeks of Focea had founded the colony of Massalia (Marseille), which was later the metropolis of other foundations such as Emporion, in Iberia. The Massaliots allied themselves with the Romans in the struggles against the Etruscans and Carthaginians for supremacy of the western Mediterranean. This alliance was first on an equal footing and later on a protectorate regime exercised by Rome and the Roman Legions established a camp in Aquae Sextiae (Aix) to stop Marseille from the invasions of the Gauls, a generic name then applied to the Celts and the peoples listed.
Narbon Gaul
The South of France was made a Roman province in 121 B.C. It was called Galia Narbonense through the city of Narbo (Narbonne). This was the state of Gaul when Caesar intervened in its conquest.
The Romans entered Gaul as auxiliaries of the Greeks against the Gauls and made their conquest as auxiliaries of the Gauls against the Helvetii and Swabians .
The Gallic campaigns constitute the most admirable page of Julius Caesar's military genius. In Gaul he proved himself an excellent tactician and general, creating a formidable army without which it would have been impossible for him to triumph in the civil war against Pompey and gain power in Rome.
Reasonforthegallianwars
The pretext for Caesar's intervention in Gaul was the summons of the Aedui and Sequani to Rome, threatened by the Helvetii and Suevi.
Duration (58-51BC)
The Gallic War lasted seven years (58-51 BC), which Caesar himself narrated in his famous Commentaries on the Gallic War, in seven books.
Main events of the conquest of Gaul. The different towns
allobroges
The Allobroges, located in the upper basin of the Rhône, were allies of the Romans from the mid-2nd century BC. In 58 BC, the Helvetii burned their villages and invaded Gaul. Caesar, already Consul, came to the defense of Rome's allies and won a brilliant victory over Bribracte (Autun ), capital of the Eduos.
Galos Secuanos
The Welsh Sequani then asked for help against the Suevi, led by their king Ariovistus, on whom Caesar inflicted a tremendous defeat at Besançon (58 BC), forcing him to return to his homeland, where he died shortly after.
The Belgians
The Belgians, who lived between the Seine and the Rhine, were alarmed at the proximity of the Romans and came out to meet them in number of 300,000. Caesar only had about 50,000 legionnaires. The Belgians suffered a tremendous disaster along the Aisne in 57 BC
The Armoricans
After the Belgians, the inhabitants of Armorica (NO. of Gaul) revolted. The Romans were forced to fight against a very bellicose people who knew how to use all the accidents in their territory to their advantage and who were also expert sailors.
Despite these difficulties, Caesar managed to defeat them by land and sea, destroying two hundred ships. After this disaster, they sued for peace. Caesar killed his entire Senate and the population was sold into slavery (56 BC).
England
After consolidating the conquests made, Caesar went twice to Britania (54-56 BC) and subdued the coastal tribes.
Gallic uprising
After drowning a partial uprising of the Gauls (53 BC), Caesar had to face a general confederation of peoples, under the command of Vercingetorix 52 BC, chief of the Arverni (arverni ), who after heroically defending himself in the stronghold of Alesia (Galia Lugdunense ), surrendered to Caesar.
He was not magnanimous with the vanquished:he made him appear as a captive in the triumphal ceremony in Rome (45 BC) and, later, he had him strangled.
In the year 50 B.C., the Gauls were completely subdued .
The situation in Italy. The confrontation with Pompey
Caesar, despite being away from Rome, continued to closely follow events in Italy.
As Proconsul he could not enter Rome without giving up his imperium proconsular and leave the legions.
While Caesar was in Gaul (58-50 BC), Clodius sent Cato to Byzantium to keep him away from politics and distributed free wheat to the people, reestablished associations (Collegia ) abolished by the Senate. Pompey began to fear Clodius and the ambition of the absent Caesar, trying to approach Cicero, also absent from Rome, and the Senate, to regain his position against Clodius and Caesar, and thus began the separation of the triumvirates that would lead to the Civil War, after a period of anarchy in Rome.
The Anarchy
As the political situation in Rome deteriorated due to the power vacuum when Cato's attempt to polarize discontent against the triumvirate failed, a gang war began, led by T. Annio Milón and Clodio, who allied himself with the Optimizes , while Pompey stood by and allowed Cicero to return to Rome.
In gratitude, he defended the proposal to entrust the supply of wheat to the city for 5 years to Pompey, the Cura Annonae , which gave him a power against Clodius and made Crassus turn against him.
He joined Cato, Clodius and the Metelos, enemies of Pompey, who in turn was suspicious of Caesar and his proconsular power in Gaul. And he had no choice but to turn to him for the power of the opposition, which Cicero could not counter.
• 56 BC. Lucca interview (near Pisa) among the triumvirs. In her. Caesar acts as a mediator between Crassus and Pompey, renewing the pact of 59 BC, deciding that Crassus and Pompey would present themselves to the Consulate the following year, in addition, in the use of their magistracies. Caesar would send veterans to the elections and they would procure the extension of their respective mandates for five years, until the end of 49. And César would stand for Consul in 48 BC.
• 55 BC. Pompey-Crassus:Second Common Consulate . His bill materialized the Lucca agreements and transferred the provinces of Hispania and Syria, respectively, to Pompey and Crassus for five years, with the prerogatives of recruiting and deciding on peace and war.
• Crassus, trying to imitate Caesar, started a war with the Parthians (55) but was defeated and killed at Carrhae (53 BC). so Caesar and Pompey were confronted, who remained in Rome under the pretext of the Cura Annonae , leaving the army of Hispania in command of the Legacies of him.
Fight of Caesar and Pompey (49-45 B.C.)
The causes
Although the causes of the confrontation between Caesar and Pompey were their own personal ambitions and the decomposition of the power of the Roman Republic, which allowed the exercise of personal power, we can summarize them in the first place in the fear of the Senators that Caesar, Mario's nephew , made the Popular Party triumph.
Two other accidental causes also determined the start of the fight:
- The death of Julia , wife of Pompey and daughter of Caesar. Perhaps, if she had lived, she would have been able to avoid the clash between the two.
- The death of Crassus in the Parthian War. This death put two ambitions in front of each other, without any intermediary that could cushion or avoid their clashes.
The circumstances
Subdued the Gauls, Caesar knew how to get everything he needed from the conquered country to preserve in his favor the loyalty of the Roman people and that of the army, thanks to his generous gifts.
The Senate frightened of Caesar's popularity and seeing in Pompey his docile instrument, appointed him Sole Consul (52 BC sine colleague ), an unprecedented event in Rome. With him were the conservatives, for whom Caesar was his worst enemy and forbade Caesar, being proconsul, to present his candidacy to the consulate. At the same time he ordered her to leave his province before the appointed time. Caesar refused to renounce his province while Pompey did not renounce his and spending a lot of money with the help of one of the Consuls, Lucius Emilio Paulo and especially the Tribute of the Plebs, Gaius Scribonius Curion, managed to delay the appointment for a few months. of a successor of his in Gaul, which would have taken away the imperium proconsular and command of the legions.
The facts
But all efforts to reach a compromise failed. In 49 BC, on January 7, the Senate established Martial Law (senatum consultum ultimun ) and entrusted the Republic to Pompey.
Caesar's agents, Mark Antony and Cassius Longinus, who as Tribunes of the Plebs had vetoed measures unfavorable to Caesar, fled. As the end result of his political maneuvering (such as his proposal to simultaneously discharge all armies), it was to be damnation. Caesar rebelled at being ordered to discharge the army, and on January 11 he crossed the Rubicon, a small stream that marked the limit of his jurisdiction, with his army. With the phrase:Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") he openly rebelled against the Senate, heading towards Rome, starting a new civil war.
His legal pretext to justify the march on Italy was that the Optimates they had violated the tribunician rights and attempted against the freedom of the Roman people, which he expressed his willingness to defend.
Pompeyo's Plans
Pompey abandoned the city, which he could not defend because his legions were in Hispania, leaving the order that all the magistrates follow him to Greece. The Senate and the Consuls obeyed, with such haste that they did not even remember to take 400 million from the public treasury.
His plans were to leave Italy, move the war to the East and gather resources there to return and reconquer Italy as his predecessor Sulla had done.
Meanwhile, the army that his Legacies, Afranius and Petreius, would lead in Hispania, would attack Caesar from the rear. Thus, Pompey headed for Brindisi, in southern Italy, from where he embarked for Egypt.
Caesar in Rome
Caesar, meanwhile, chose to go to Hispania. He before him reorganized the Republic, seizing the Treasury left by the Pompeians and distributing the command of the Provinces among his supporters:
— Gaul Cisalpine, to Crassus son.
— The Illyrian, to Gaius Antony.
— Africa was to be occupied by Curio.
— Adriatic to Cornelius Dolabella.
— The Tyrrhenian to Quinto Hortensiol.
The Campaign of Hispania (49 B.C.) and other fronts
On the way to Hispania, César laid siege to Marseilles, which had declared itself a supporter of Pompey, but without waiting for the result, he reached the Iberian Peninsula and only in forty days (between May and August 49 BC), he defeated in Llerda (Lérida). Afranius and Petreius , and Varrón that defended itself in Cádiz (49 BC). Later, he conquered Marseilles, returned to Rome and had himself elected Consul for the year 48 BC.
The Llerda campaign is an example of Caesar's military genius, who managed to capitulate the enemy troops without engaging in combat.
Once the West in his hands. Caesar had his hands free to confront Pompey in the East.
His other fronts, on the other hand, were not so glorious:
— Dolabela's fleet was defeated in the Adriatic.
— Gaius Antony had to capitulate in the Illyricum.
— The army of Africa was lost, due to the help given to the Pompeians by King Juba of Numidia.
The Dictatorship of 49 a.C.
At the end of 49 BC, Caesar tried to assert his political position. Appointed Dictator, he legally called elections and was elected Consul, ordering a series of economic measures to alleviate debt problems and granting the right of citizenship to the communities of Galia Traspadana, leaving the Dictatorship at the end of December.
Caesar-Pompeius confrontation
Already in Epirus, both contenders met twice:
- In Dyrrhachium :Where Pompey won in 49 BC
- In Farsalia (Thessaly) in August 48 BC, the decisive battle was fought, Caesar winning by his decision to order the advance of his troops and his tactical ability, reinforcing the right wing with six cohorts that annihilated the Pompeian cavalry.
In this battle, which for many authors marks the end of the Roman Republic, the Pompeian army suffered losses of 15,000 men and 24,000 were taken prisoner.
Death of Pompey:
After the battle of Pharsalia, Pompey went to Syria and then to Egypt, with the intention of raising an army. He sought asylum from King Ptolemy XIII, of whom he was tutor and whose father he had placed on the throne of Egypt. Followed by 2,000 men, he arrived in front of Pelusius.
On September 28, 48 BC, a boat approached Pompey under the pretext of taking him to the king. Near the coast, a servant of Ptolemy named Septimius, who had been Military Tribune under Pompey, ran his sword through his body. Headless, his corpse was thrown on the beach and piously buried by a freedman named Philip.
This murder was mainly due to the situation in Egypt, where the two brother kings Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII were fighting each other.
She had been expelled from her country by the followers of her brother and was preparing to gather an army to recover her throne.
The campaigns against the Pompeians
The disappearance of Pompey from the political scene did not mean the end of the civil war, since there were still some groups of Pompeians in almost all parts of the Roman world:in Asia Minor, Africa and Spain.
Caesar in Asia (47 BC)
Farnaces (97-47), son of Mitríades VI, King of Pontus, had revolted against Rome. With the promptness that Caesar used to put into all his acts, he moved to the place of the fight and, in a campaign of five days, completely defeated him near Zela (47 BC).
Shortly after Pharnaces was assassinated. To express the speed of this campaign, Caesar wrote a friend a letter containing this laconic phrase:Veni, vidi, vinchi (I arrived, I saw and I won).
Caesar in Africa (46BC)
While Caesar was away from Rome, his government in this city was made unpopular by the excesses committed by Mark Antony, Magister Equitum of Caesar. Pompeian leaders, including Cato and Scipio, Pompey's son-in-law, joined Juba, king of Numidia 50-60 BC.
Caesar arrived in Africa and soon after defeated his enemies at the Battle of Thapsus (46 BC), killing 50,000 soldiers. It is said that he would have wanted to save Cato, who had locked himself in the city of Utica, where he committed suicide.
Caesar in Rome (46 a.C.)
Back in Rome, the Senate granted Caesar the Dictatorship for ten years, and named him Praefectus Moribus (or Censor of Morals and Customs), in addition to granting him the power to propose candidates to the magistracies.
Caesar celebrated four Triumphs for his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Syria and Africa and organized festivals that lasted forty days, during which he distributed large sums of money among his soldiers and lavished games and banquets in favor of the humble people of Rome.
Caesar in Hispania (45 a.C.).
The sons of Pompey, Gnaeus and Sextus , had gathered in Hispania a great army, composed of thirteen legions. To suffocate this fearsome core of rebellion, Caesar went to Hispania.
He found the Pompeians in Munda, a city located in Baetica, of very doubtful identification (perhaps Malaga). The fight was fierce and an instant indecisive; but finally Caesar triumphed in 45 BC
Caesar's reforms:Political and administrative reorganization
After defeating the Pompeians, Caesar had himself appointed Consul sine colleague and became perpetual dictator and imperator , Consul for 10 years and supreme head of the army. In addition to these powers, he was already Pontifex Maximus (an office for life) and monopolized the Potestas Tribunicia . In addition to these powers,
• The right to appoint and remove public officials was reserved.
• To mint coins with the bust of him.
• Organized the census of citizens.
• Reduced to 150,000 citizens who were entitled to receive free grain.
• He reordered the communal life of the Italics with the Lex lulia Municipalis .
• He distributed land among his soldiers.
• He reformed the supply of the Provinces.
• Sent settlers to the Provinces.
• Expanded the Senate to 900 members.
• He reformed the Calendar, adding ninety days to the previous year, adopting the cycle of 365 days instead of 355 and instituted leap days.
• Promoted monumental constructions.
Caesar's assassination
Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, March 15, 44 BC
The conjuration
Despite the excellent administrative measures carried out by César, the party of the Optimates maneuvered against him and organized a conspiracy, at the head of which were:
— Cassius:Former lieutenant of Crassus and
— Brutus:Nephew of Cato.
The conspirators, who numbered eighty, sought to put an end to the tyranny represented by the powers acquired by Caesar and restore the traditional Republic and the power of the optimates.
The facts of the assassination of Julius Caesar
On March 15, the feast day of Anna Perenna, forty years after taking the virile toga, from the year 44 B.C. (Ides of March 44). César went to the place where the Senate was meeting without his usual and faithful Hispanic guard, despite the bad dreams of his wife, Calurnia, who warned him not to attend the public meeting and the warning of the haruspex Spurinna, who warns about the dangers that hang over him and the bad omens offered by the entrails of the sacrificed victims.
Before entering the compound he learned of the plan of the conspiracy, but was unfazed by it. Once inside the Senate, the conspirators surrounded him and, although at first he tried to defend himself, seeing that one of the murderers was Brutus, whom he loved dearly, he pronounced those famous words: Tu Quoque, fili ? and covering his face with his toga, he gave himself up to the fury of the assassins. Caesar fell at the foot of the statue of Pompey, pierced by twenty-three stab wounds.
Rome at the death of Caesar
After moments of confusion, César's father-in-law, Pisón, tried to make César's will public, causing a great uproar with his decision, although he was supported by Antonio, voting the funeral rites at the expense of the State, fixing the reading of his will for the next meeting of the Popular Elections.
The date of the funeral was probably set for March 20, since 17 and 19 were holidays and its organization was arranged by Antonio, who wanted to take Caesar's place, which Cicero also wanted.
In the will, César appointed Octavio as the main heir, bequeathed to the Republic his gardens beyond the Tiber and to each citizen who received subsidies from the State (about 150,000) the sum of 300 sesterces.
In the midst of the confusion of the funeral honors, skilfully manipulated by Antonio, the Forum was set on fire, in front of the Tribune of the orators (Rostra), to the body of the famous character (where an altar still stands, always with fresh flowers) .
With the death of César, the old Republic was not remade nor was its old democratic functioning restored. It only succeeded in delaying an already ongoing process of transformation of the State, which precipitated Rome and its dominions into another thirteen years of civil war, until Octavian's reforms.
Meaning of C. Julius Caesar
No one doubts César's quality as a writer, his leadership skills, his tactical genius or his capacity as a strategist and reformer of the republican army, although there are many who doubt his capacity as a statesman, although he is recognized as the prefigurator of the political structures of the future imperial regime.
His death taught his heir, Octavian, the future Augustus, the dangers of an open monarchical attitude, which would lead the young man to create a new and original form of government:The Principality, fundamentally maintaining the old republican structures:Senate and magistracies. , accumulated in his person the different powers that put him at the head of Rome.