Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar
	Bust of Julius Caesar in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
Born	Gaius Iulius Caesar; July 12 or 13, 100 BC; Rome, Roman Republic
Died	March 15, 44 BC (aged 55); Rome, Roman Republic
Title	Dictator of the Roman Republic
Spouse(s)	Cornelia (84 BC–68 BC); Pompeia (68 BC–63 BC); Calpurnia (59 BC–44 BC)
Children	Julia; Caesarion (illegitimate); Augustus (adopted)
Parents	Gaius Julius Caesar (father); Aurelia (mother);

Gaius Julius Caesar (in Latin: Gaius Iulius Caesar;^{[lower-alpha 1]} July 12 or 13, 100 BC – March 15, 44 BC) was a Roman politician and general of the 1st century BC, a member of the patrician Julii Caesares, who attained the highest magistracies of the Roman State and dominated the politics of the Republic after winning the civil war that pitted him against the most conservative faction of the Senate.

Born into the gens Julia, a patrician family of modest fortune, he was related to some of the most influential men of his time, such as his uncle Gaius Marius, who would have a decisive influence on his political career. In 84 BC, at the age of 16, the popularis Lucius Cornelius Cinna appointed him flamen Dialis, a religious office from which he was removed by Sulla, with whom he came into conflict because of his marriage to Cinna's daughter. After escaping death at the hands of the dictator Sulla's hired killers, he was pardoned thanks to the intercession of his mother's relatives. Sent to the province of Asia, he fought at Mytilene as legate of Marcus Minucius Thermus. He returned to Rome upon Sulla's death in 78 BC and practiced law for a time. In 73 BC he succeeded Gaius Aurelius Cotta as pontiff, and he soon came into contact with the consuls Pompey and Crassus, whose friendship would allow him to launch his own political career.^{[lower-alpha 2]} In 70 BC Caesar served as quaestor in the province of Hispania Ulterior and as curule aedile in Rome. While holding that magistracy, he put on spectacles that the people remembered for a long time.

In 63 BC he was elected urban praetor, obtaining more votes than the rest of the candidates. That same year Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, the pontifex maximus appointed during Sulla's dictatorship, died, and Caesar won the elections held to replace him. At the end of his praetorship he served as propraetor in Hispania, where he led a brief military campaign against the Lusitanians. In 59 BC he was elected consul thanks to the support of his two political allies, Pompey and Crassus, the men with whom Caesar formed the so-called First Triumvirate. His colleague in the consulship, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, withdrew in order to obstruct Caesar's work; Caesar nevertheless succeeded in passing a series of legal measures, among which an agrarian law regulating the distribution of land among veteran soldiers stands out.

After his consulship he was appointed proconsul of the provinces of Transalpine Gaul, Illyria and Cisalpine Gaul, the last of these after the death of its governor, Celer. His government was characterized by a very aggressive policy with which he subjugated practically all of the Celtic peoples in several campaigns. This conflict, known as the Gallic Wars, ended when the republican general defeated the last pockets of opposition at the Battle of Alesia, led by an Arvernian chieftain named Vercingetorix. His conquests extended Roman rule over the territories that today make up France, Belgium, the Netherlands and part of Germany. He was the first Roman general to penetrate the unexplored territories of Britannia and Germania.

While Caesar was finishing the organization of the administrative structure of the new province he had annexed to the Republic, his political enemies in Rome were trying to strip him of his army and his office through the Senate. Caesar, knowing that if he entered the capital he would be tried and exiled, tried to stand for the consulship in absentia, which the optimates refused. This and other factors drove him to defy the senatorial orders and carry out the famous crossing of the Rubicon, the moment at which, apparently, he uttered the immortal phrase alea iacta est ("the die is cast"). He thus began a new civil war, in which he confronted the optimates, who were led by his former ally, Pompey. His victories over the conservatives at the battles of Pharsalus, Thapsus and Munda made him master of the Republic. The fact that he was in the midst of a civil war did not prevent him from confronting Pharnaces II at Zela and the enemies of Cleopatra in Alexandria. Upon his return to Rome he had himself named consul and perpetual dictator, and began a series of economic, urban and administrative reforms.

Although under his rule the Republic experienced a brief period of great prosperity, some senators saw Caesar as a tyrant who aspired to restore the Roman monarchy. With the aim of removing the threat that the dictator posed, a group of senators made up of some of his trusted men, such as Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, and former lieutenants, such as Gaius Trebonius and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, hatched a conspiracy in order to eliminate him. This plot culminated when, on the Ides of March, the conspirators murdered Caesar beside the statue of Pompey, in a temple near the forum. His death triggered the outbreak of a long period of wars, in which the supporters of Caesar's regime, Mark Antony, Octavian and Lepidus, defeated his assassins, led by Brutus and Cassius, in the double Battle of Philippi. At the end of the conflict, Octavian, Antony and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate and divided the territories of the Republic among themselves, although, once Lepidus had been pushed aside, they would finally clash again at Actium, where Octavian, Caesar's heir, defeated Mark Antony and became the first Roman emperor, Augustus.

Apart from his political and military career, Caesar stood out as an orator and writer. He wrote at least one treatise on astronomy, another on Roman republican religion and a study of Latin, none of which has survived to the present day. The only works that are preserved are his Commentaries on the Gallic War and his Commentaries on the Civil War. The course of his military career and much of his life are known through his own works and through the writings of authors such as Suetonius, Plutarch, Velleius Paterculus and Eutropius.

Family

Julius Caesar was a member of the Julii Caesares, a patrician family of the gens Julia that first appears in the historical record at the end of the 3rd century BC, during the Second Punic War.^[3] However, it is not until the Late Republic, when they had divided into two branches—assigned to different tribes—,^[4] that the Julii Caesares rank among the leading aristocratic families.^[5]

His father, his namesake, was a senator of praetorian rank who withdrew from politics after a provincial governorship in Asia.^[6] His mother was Aurelia, a member of the Aurelii Cottae, a prominent family of the plebeian nobility.^[5] Several members of this family reached the consulship at the end of the 2nd century BC and the beginning of the following one, which would be a considerable help for the political advancement of the future dictator.^[7] More decisive would be the connection with Gaius Marius, who married Julia, Julius Caesar's paternal aunt.^[8] Marius and his followers (the Marian party) dominated Roman politics at the end of the 2nd century BC, and it was this connection that Julius Caesar exploited at the start of his political career.^[9]

Besides his aunt Julia, the consul of 91 BC, Sextus Julius Caesar, may also have been his father's brother.^[10] His two sisters, about whom almost nothing is known, married wealthy members of the Italic aristocracy:^[11] the elder a member of the gens Pedia;^[12] the younger Marcus Atius Balbus, who was related to the Pompeii.^[13] Lucius Pinarius Scarpus was descended from another marriage of the elder of his sisters.^[14]

Julius Caesar was married at least three times.^{[lower-alpha 3]} First, to Cornelia, daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, of a patrician family. Cinna was a supporter of Marius and an enemy of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, so Julius Caesar was strengthening his ties with the principal leaders of the Rome of the 80s of the 1st century BC.^[16] Nevertheless, after Cornelia's death, he married Pompeia, granddaughter of Sulla himself and of a consular family,^[17] whom he divorced after a scandal during the celebrations of the Bona Dea.^[18] His last marriage was to Calpurnia, daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a prominent member of the Senate, as part of the marriage policy of the first triumvirate.^[19]

From his first marriage he had a daughter, Julia,^[20] who was married to his triumviral colleague Gnaeus Pompey the Great ^[21] and who died in childbirth.^[22] Without direct heirs, he adopted by testament his grandnephew Gaius Octavius, the future Emperor Augustus.^[23]

Birth

Julius Caesar was born in Rome^[24] on July 12 or 13, 100 BC. Following the classical sources,^[25] most modern scholars agree on the year,^{[lower-alpha 4]} except Theodor Mommsen (102 BC) and Jérôme Carcopino (101 BC), who based themselves on assumptions drawn from the leges annales.^[30] As for the day, while some authors hold for the 13th,^[31] others prefer the 12th^[25] and still others do not decide in favor of either.^[27] The doubts arise from a passage of Cassius Dio in which he says that Julius Caesar was born on the 13th, but that it was changed to the 12th by a triumviral law.^[25] This change was due to the fact that on July 13 games were held in honor of Apollo and, according to an oracle, no other festival in honor of a divinity could take place on the same day.^[29] The rest of the classical sources give July 12 as the date of birth.^[25]

Early years

Julius Caesar enters history in 84 BC, when Cinna chose him to be flamen Dialis and married him to his daughter Cornelia after breaking off the young man's previous engagement to Cossutia.^[25] At that time Cinna controlled the Republic. However, the civil war that followed Cinna's death ended with the triumph of Sulla and the annulment of his entire program.^[25] Julius Caesar received the order to divorce Cornelia. His refusal drove Sulla to proscribe him and forced Caesar to flee Rome.^[32] It was the intervention of his relatives and the backing of the Vestal Virgins that allowed the young Caesar to avoid the fate of other proscribed men, with the agreement that he would keep his marriage and renounce the priesthood.^[33] According to Suetonius and Plutarch, on that occasion Sulla said that there were many Mariuses in the young man.^[34]

Realizing that Sulla's pardon could be revoked at any moment, Caesar judged that the safest course was to stay away from Rome for a time and decided to travel to the East to take part in the war against Mithridates VI of Pontus under the orders of the propraetor Marcus Minucius Thermus. During the siege of Mytilene in 81 BC, he was ordered to go to Bithynia to request from Nicomedes IV the loan of a small fleet with which to assault the rebel city. Apparently, the Asian King was so dazzled by the beauty of the young Roman messenger that he invited him to rest in his chamber and to take part in a feast at which he served as royal cupbearer during the banquet. Caesar's adventure in Asia very soon reached the ears of the citizens of Rome. In Roman politics, accusing someone of engaging in passive homosexual relations was a common strategy,^[35] since homosexuality in the passive role, unlike the active one, was considered a shameful practice. His political enemies proclaimed that he had prostituted himself to a barbarian King and nicknamed him "the queen of Bithynia", thus doing great damage to his reputation. However, Caesar always denied this. The rest of the campaign earned him a better reputation, because he showed great capacity for command and commendable daring and personal courage, for which Minucius Thermus, after the capture of Mytilene, would award him the civic crown, the highest decoration for valor granted in the Roman Republic.^[36]

After Sulla's death in 78 BC, Caesar returned to Rome and began a career as a lawyer in the Roman Forum, through which he became known for his polished oratory. His first case was directed against Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, a protégé of Sulla who had been elected consul in 81 BC and then, the following year, proconsul in Macedonia, where he had apparently embezzled State funds. Dolabella, on learning of the proceedings against him, hired for his defense one of the most illustrious lawyers of the time, Quintus Hortensius (called "The Dancer" because of the way he moved on the rostrum), and the eminent Lucius Aurelius Cotta—Caesar's own uncle, but this was normal. Despite these formidable opponents, Caesar displayed his quality as an orator, which, although it did not help him win the case, did bring him the fame he was seeking.^[37]

The following year some Greek cities that had been plundered by Gaius Antonius Hybrida during Sulla's campaign in Greece entrusted him with the defense of their cause. Caesar spoke before the praetor Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus with great eloquence and won the trial, but Hybrida appealed to the tribunes of the plebs, who exercised their right of veto and suspended the sentence handed down against him.^[38] In 73 BC the death of his uncle opened the way for him to be elected pontifex in his place, and he thus entered the College of Pontiffs, a religious body of great importance in the devotional life of Rome.

Despite this success, Caesar decided to travel to Rhodes to broaden his education by studying philosophy and rhetoric with the grammarian Apollonius Molon, who was considered the best of the time. However, during the voyage, his ship was attacked off the island of Pharmacusa by pirates, who kidnapped him. When they demanded a ransom of 20 talents of gold (one talent was equivalent to approximately 26 kilograms), Caesar laughed and challenged them to ask for 50. During his captivity he devoted himself to composing some speeches, with the pirates as his audience, whom he called ignorant barbarians when they did not applaud. Thirty-eight days later, the ransom arrived and Caesar was released after a fairly comfortable captivity, during which, despite treating his kidnappers kindly, he warned them on several occasions of their dark future. Thus, once he had regained his freedom, he organized a naval force that set out from the port of Miletus, captured the pirates in their hideout and took them to prison in Pergamon. Once they had been captured he went in search of Junius, governor of Asia, because it fell to him to punish the prisoners. Junius was more interested in the booty and left the bandits to Caesar's judgment, who had them crucified, just as he had promised them, although in a gesture of "compassion" he ordered that their throats be cut first.^[39]^[40]

In 69 BC, Cornelia died while giving birth to a stillborn child, and shortly afterward Caesar lost his aunt Julia, Marius's widow, to whom he had felt very close. Against the customs of the time, Caesar insisted on organizing public funerals for both. Both funerals also served to defy Sulla's laws, for at Julia's burial the images of Gaius Marius and of the son she had had with him, who had also fought against Sulla—his late cousin, Gaius Marius the Younger—were displayed; and at Cornelia's burial, the image of her father Lucius Cornelius Cinna. All of them had been proscribed and the dictator's laws forbade displaying their images in public, but Caesar did not hesitate to break the rules. This defiance was greatly appreciated by the plebeians and by those who made up the faction of the populares, and, to the same degree, repudiated by the optimates.^[41]

Political rise

Caesar was elected quaestor by the Comitia in 69 BC, at 30 years of age, as stipulated by the Roman cursus honorum. In the subsequent drawing of lots, he was assigned a post in the Roman province of Hispania Ulterior, located in what is today Portugal and southern Spain. According to a local legend, in the Temple of Hercules Gaditanus (Herakleion) of the city of Gades, located on what is today the Sancti Petri Islet, Julius Caesar had a dream predicting his dominion over the world, after having wept before the bust of Alexander the Great for having reached Alexander's age without having achieved any important success.^[42]^[43] There, as quaestor, he met Lucius Cornelius Balbus the Elder, who later became an adviser and friend of the future dictator and propraetor of Hispania Ulterior in 61 BC. Gades provided great support to the Roman fleet in its campaign in Lusitania, where Balbus was already praefectus fabrum, that is, a kind of chief of engineers, belonging to the general staff of the legions.

Back in Rome, Caesar continued his career as a lawyer until he was elected curule aedile in 65 BC, the first office of the cursus honorum that was exercised within Rome. The functions of an aedile can be compared, to some extent, to those of a modern President of a municipal board, and included the regulation of construction, traffic, commerce and other aspects of daily life, among them the functions of chief of police. But the office, the first public rung toward the supreme magistracy of the consulship, could also be the last one held, since it included the organization of the games in the Circus Maximus, which, owing to the limited public budget, required the aedile to use personal funds. This was especially true in Caesar's case, as he intended to put on memorable games to boost his political career. And, indeed, he used all his ingenuity to achieve it, going so far as to divert the course of the Tiber and flood the Circus to stage a naumachia (a battle between ships). He ended the year with debts on the order of several hundred talents of gold.^[45]

Nevertheless, his success as aedile was an important help so that, after the death of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius in 63 BC, Caesar was elected Pontifex Maximus,^[46] a dignity that endowed the person elected with enormous auctoritas and dignitas. On the day of his election there were suspicions of an attempt on his life, which led Julius Caesar to say to his mother:

Mother, today you will see your son dead in the Forum or wearing the toga of the supreme pontiff.

— Suetonius^[47]

The office entailed a new house in the Forum, the Domus Publica, the presidency of the College of Pontiffs and a certain preeminence in the religious life of Rome, as well as the assumption of the duties and rights of the paterfamilias over the Vestal Virgins.^[47] His debut as Pontifex Maximus was marked by a scandal. After Cornelia's death, Caesar had married Pompeia (daughter of Cornelia Sulla and Quintus Pompeius Rufus), Sulla's granddaughter. As wife of the Pontifex Maximus and one of the most important women in Rome, Pompeia was responsible for organizing the rites of the Bona Dea in December, an exclusively female liturgy in which men could not take part. But during the celebrations of 62 BC, Publius Clodius Pulcher (a young demagogic leader, considered dangerous) managed to enter the house disguised as a woman, apparently moved by the lascivious purpose of lying with Pompeia. In response to this sacrilege, of which she was probably not guilty, Pompeia received an order of divorce. Caesar declared in public that he did not consider her responsible, but justified his action with the celebrated maxim:

Caesar's wife must not only be honorable; she must also appear to be so.

— Plutarch^{[lower-alpha 5]}

Clodius was acquitted by the will of the people, since nothing had been proven and Caesar himself did not wish to testify against him.

In the elections for 63 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero was elected senior consul. It was a particularly difficult year not only for Caesar, but also for Rome. During his consulship, Cicero revealed a conspiracy to depose the elected magistrates and reduce the functioning of the Senate, a plot led by Lucius Sergius Catilina, a patrician frustrated by his lack of political success. Although no trial was held against them, in the strict sense of the term, the fact is that almost all of those accused in the conspiracy, and certainly Catiline, were present at the sessions of the Senate in which they were "tried". At the third meeting, Cicero shifted his responsibility onto the curia by having the senators debate the penalty to which the conspirators should be sentenced. The result was a death sentence for five prominent Romans allied with Catiline and for Catiline himself.^[48] All of these matters were left for posterity in the famous Catilinarians written by Cicero himself.

Caesar opposed the death penalty, using his best oratory to that end, but he was defeated by the insistence of Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, and the five men were executed that same day. It was also at this dramatic meeting of the Senate that Caesar's romance with Servilia, sister of Marcus Porcius Cato, came to light.^{[lower-alpha 6]} Caesar's political opponents accused him of being part of the conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina, which was never proven nor harmed his career.

Caesar was elected urban praetor for 62 BC, the most distinguished praetorian post, since it dealt with matters between Roman citizens. He supported the tribune of the plebs Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos when the latter introduced some laws in favor of Pompey the Great. However, those laws were vetoed by Cato and street fighting broke out between the two sides.^[49] After his complicated year as praetor, Caesar was appointed propraetor of Hispania Ulterior.^[48]

The first triumvirate

Caesar's government in the province of Hispania is not well documented; it is known that he led a small and swift war in the north of Lusitania that perhaps provided him with some booty to pay off part of the debts incurred during his term as aedile, and to earn good credit as a military leader. Undoubtedly, the military success was important, since the Senate granted him a triumph.^[50]

Caesar left his province even before the arrival of his successor and marched to Rome with haste. On reaching the Campus Martius he had to stop at the entrance to the city—for he still held imperium—until he had celebrated the triumph.^[51] Unable to enter Rome, he settled in the Villa Publica and hastened to submit his candidacy for the consulship through an intermediary or else by means of a letter to the senate, since there is no record of the latter meeting extra-pomerium, that is, "outside the pomerium", to hear the request. After a one-day delay, it seemed that the Senate would have no problem validating it.^[52]

*Cedant arma togae* ("Let arms yield to the toga"). Marcus Tullius Cicero never let anyone forget his claim that in 63 BC, with the defeat of Catiline's conspiracy, he had saved the Republic.

Cato, spokesman of the most conservative optimate faction, was reluctant to let a popularis politician obtain the consulship, and even more so if that politician was Caesar, whom he detested;^[53] and knowing that the vote had to be held before sunset, he kept speaking until well into the night, so that the motion could not be approved. In view of this, Caesar decided to forgo the laurels of his triumph and stand personally as a candidate.^[54]

Having been unable to neutralize Caesar's entry into the elections, the optimates moved quickly to find a candidate who would balance the scales and who belonged to the sphere of conservative ideas, in order to counteract the measures Caesar might take.^[55] Pompey, meanwhile, had begun to distribute money among his clientele and voters, spending whatever was necessary to buy both consulships. Meanwhile, Cato chose as candidate his son-in-law Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who for the optimates played the role of savior of the Republic. In the elections for 59 BC Caesar came first by a wide margin and Bibulus came in second place.^[56]

Everything seemed to be proceeding naturally for the conservatives, who, after politically blocking Pompey, and faced with the prospect—unacceptable to them—of allowing a man like Caesar, so thirsty for glory and with military talents, to become governor of a province, began maneuvers to prevent it. Cato proposed to the Senate that once the consuls' term had ended, and with Italy plagued by outlaws and bandits only ten years after the rebellion of Spartacus, it would be for the good of the Republic to charge the consuls with putting an end to them in a mission lasting one year. The Senate welcomed the idea, which became law. Cato's will was fulfilled perfectly and it seemed that Caesar would end his consulship as a policeman, among Italian villagers and shepherds.^[57]

It was a risky decision, nevertheless, but in taking it the Senate made sure that if Caesar did not accept it he would have to resort to force to revoke it and would be declared a criminal, a second Catiline. Cato's strategy always consisted of identifying himself with tradition and cornering his enemies against it until forcing them to take on the role of revolutionaries. In the Senate the allies of the optimates led by Cato held a solid majority, counting on Crassus and his powerful bloc, since everyone expected him to oppose any measure of Pompey's.^[58]

At the first meeting of the Senate during Caesar's consulship, he tried to offer a generous agreement to reward Pompey's veterans. Cato was not willing to let it be approved and began to use his favorite tactic: he talked and talked until Caesar stopped him from continuing, signaling with a nod of his head to his lictors to take him away. On seeing this, some senators began to leave their seats; when questioned by Caesar as to why they were leaving, one of them answered him: "I prefer to be in prison with Cato than in the Senate with you".^[59]

In view of this, he was forced to back down, but his retreat was purely strategic: he took the campaign for his agrarian law directly before the Comitia. Rome began to fill with Pompey's veterans, which alarmed the conservatives. Caesar could indeed have the proposal approved by the people with the force of law, but going against the will of the Senate was an unorthodox tactic that would ruin his standing among his colleagues, and his career would have been over. Caesar's strategy was revealed in the final stretch of the vote: it surprised no one that the first person to speak in favor of his veterans was Pompey; but the identity of the second person who supported the motion was a surprise: Marcus Licinius Crassus. The optimates, overwhelmed, saw all their hopes collapse. Together the three men could divide up the Republic as they pleased.^[60] Historians designate this union as the first triumvirate, or the rule of the three men. To confirm the alliance, Pompey married Julia, Caesar's only daughter, and despite the difference in age and social background, the marriage was a success.^[61]

The reasons why these three figures of Roman public life decided to join together should be sought in nothing other than the interests of each. Pompey needed Caesar to have the agrarian laws approved that would provide land for his veterans; Crassus wanted a proconsular command that would bring him true glory, which he had not obtained in his suppression of the revolt of Spartacus; and Caesar needed Pompey's prestige and Crassus's funds to be able to obtain the province he longed for.^[62] Of course, it should not be thought that the rapprochement of these three great figures of the Republic was sudden; however much of a surprise it was to their contemporaries, it was a political maneuver whose existence they became aware of rather gradually.^[63]

Marcus Bibulus and the conservatives who supported him began a rearguard strategy: they started to use the veto to oppose Caesar's proposals; but Caesar was not willing to be prevented from legislating, and took his bills directly before the Comitia, where they were approved, among other things, thanks to the determined physical support of Pompey's veterans.^[64] However, when during a scuffle some members of the populus dumped a basket of manure on Bibulus's head, he chose to withdraw from all political life, though without renouncing his magistracy, on the pretext of devoting himself to observing the heavens in search of omens.^[65]^[64] This decision, apparently of a religious spirit, was intended to prevent Caesar from passing laws during his consulship, but Caesar systematically ignored the unfavorable auguries that Bibulus published daily and relied on the tribunes of the plebs and on the Comitia for decision-making.^[65]

As is well known, the Romans named the years after the two consuls who governed during that period. The year 59 BC, given Bibulus's nonexistent participation, was called by the Romans themselves (with a sense of humor) the "year of Julius and Caesar".^[65]^[66]

The Gallic Wars

After his consular year, Caesar received proconsular powers to govern the provinces of Transalpine Gaul (today the south of France) and Illyria (the coast of Dalmatia) for five years, thanks to the support of the other two members of the triumvirate, who kept their word. To these two provinces was added Cisalpine Gaul after the unexpected death of its governor, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer. They were very good provinces for someone who, like Caesar, and following the typical mentality of the Roman proconsul, had no intention of governing peacefully, since he was in need of assets to pay the fabulous sums he owed.^[67]

The opportunity arose through a supposed threat from the Helvetii, who were planning to migrate to the west of Gaul. Determined to prevent it, and with the political excuse that they would come too close to the province of Cisalpine Gaul—the Helvetii wanted to settle in the district of the Santones, north of Aquitania—he recruited troops and began the military operations that would ultimately give rise to what was later called the Gallic Wars (58–49 BC),^[68] in which he conquered the so-called Gallia Comata or long-haired Gaul (today France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and parts of Belgium and Germany), in several campaigns. Caesar made a show of force by twice building a bridge over the Rhine and twice invading Germania without the intention of conquering it, and he made another display of strength by also crossing the English Channel twice toward the British Isles, although it is true that these two incursions had a more strategic than colonizing purpose.^[69]

Among his legates (legion commanders) were Lucius Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Marcus Licinius Crassus, son of his fellow triumvir, Titus Labienus, a client of Pompey, and Quintus Tullius Cicero, the younger brother of Marcus Tullius Cicero, all men who would become important figures in the following years.

In matters of tactics, Julius Caesar used with great results what became known as celeritas caesaris, or "Caesarian speed" (which can be compared, allowing for the differences, to the so-called blitzkrieg of the 20th century), besides his military genius both in pitched battles and in the siege of cities. In addition, he knew how to combine wisely force, diplomacy and the manipulation of the internal quarrels of the Gallic tribes, in order to divide and defeat them.^[70]^[71]

Caesar defeated peoples such as the Helvetii in 58 BC, the Belgic confederation and the Nervii in 57 BC, and the Veneti in 56 BC. Finally, in 52 BC, Caesar defeated a confederation of Gallic tribes led by Vercingetorix at the Battle of Alesia. His personal chronicles of the campaign are recorded in his Commentaries on the Gallic War (De bello Gallico).

According to Plutarch, the war closed with a tally of eight hundred cities taken,^{[lower-alpha 7]} three hundred tribes subjugated, one million Gauls reduced to slavery and another three million killed on the battlefields. Pliny the Elder speaks of more than one million dead and roughly the same number of prisoners, and Velleius Paterculus says that four hundred thousand Gauls died and many more were taken prisoner, although the figures of the ancient historians must be taken with great caution, including those of Julius Caesar himself.^[72]^[73]

On several occasions he used the tactic of surprising the enemy by appearing before him as if by magic and, despite the days of marching, he had his soldiers engage the adversary directly, even though the enemy believed that fatigue would nullify the drive of his legions. He was equally brilliant in the sieges of cities, reaching his peak in the siege of Alesia, where he ordered the construction of a double line of fortifications several kilometers long, to shield himself against the almost three hundred thousand Gauls who were trying to help the eighty thousand besieged soldiers of Vercingetorix, whom Caesar had trapped inside the stronghold. Caesar, with fewer than fifty thousand troops belonging to ten legions that were never at full strength after eight years of war in Gaul, defeated both forces in the same battle in which the fate of the Gauls was decided.^[70]

Political crisis

But despite his successes and the benefits that the conquest of Gaul brought to Rome, Caesar remained unpopular among his peers, particularly among the conservatives who feared his ambition.

In 56 BC, the triumvirate was faltering, since Pompey did not trust Crassus and believed that he was the one who, from the shadows, was backing Clodius and his henchmen, who were sowing violence in Rome.^[74] Faced with this situation, which threatened his proconsulship, Caesar summoned his two allies to a meeting in the city of Lucca, since he could not go to Rome without renouncing his imperium. Apparently, not only they attended this meeting, but also some two hundred senators (two thirds of the Senate); at this council it was agreed that both Pompey and Crassus would stand for the consulship the following year and that, once consuls, they would promulgate a law by which Caesar's proconsulship would be extended for five more years. This pact is known in History as the "Conference of Luca".^[75] The following year, as was to be expected, his allies Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus were elected consuls and honored the agreement established with Caesar.

However, in 54 BC, Julia died in childbirth, leaving her father and her husband deeply grieved. Marcus Licinius Crassus, for his part, died in 53 BC at the Battle of Carrhae, facing the Parthians, during the disastrous campaign in Persia, doomed to failure from the start by very poor planning. While still in Gaul, Caesar tried to secure his alliance with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus by proposing marriage to one of his nieces, but Pompey preferred to marry again, to Cornelia, daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, who belonged to the optimate faction.

The disaster of the Battle of Carrhae, in which Crassus died with his legions while confronting the Parthians, and the death of Julia finally broke the triumvirate. Days later, after Caesar's victory at Alesia, Caelius, as tribune, put forward an additional bill: Caesar would be exempted from the obligation to come to Rome to submit his candidacy for the consulship. This measure meant that Caesar's opponents and enemies who intended to prosecute him for the alleged crimes of his first consulship would lose all possibility of trying him, since Caesar would at no time cease to hold a magistracy. As long as he was proconsul, Caesar would have judicial immunity, but if he were forced to enter Rome to stand for the consulship he would lose his office and, for a time, could be attacked with a whole battery of lawsuits from his enemies.^[76]

Caesar's power was seen by many conservative senators as a threat. If Caesar returned to Rome as consul, he would have no trouble getting laws passed granting land to his veterans, and with them a reserve of troops that would surpass or rival Pompey's. Cato and Caesar's enemies opposed this head-on, so that the Senate became embroiled in long discussions about the number of legions he should have under his command and about who should be the future governor of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria.

Statue of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus at the Villa Arconati, Italy.

Pompey finally came down in favor of the traditionalists and issued a clear verdict: Caesar was to give up his command the following spring, when there were still months to go before the consular elections, more than enough time to try him.^[76] However, in the following elections for tribune of the plebs, Curio was elected, who revealed himself to be a Caesarian and vetoed all attempts to remove Caesar from his command in Gaul. Legally, all the consular attempts to separate Caesar from his troops were annulled by the tribunicia potestas.

At the end of that same year, Caesar encamped at Ravenna with the 13th Legion. Pompey took command of two legions in Capua and began to raise levies illegally, an act that, predictably, the Caesarians turned to their advantage. Caesar was informed of Pompey's actions personally by Curio, who by then had already finished his term. Meanwhile, his post as tribune was taken by Mark Antony, who held it until December.

But when the Senate answered him definitively, barring him from standing for the consulship and placing him before the choice of disbanding his legions or being declared a public enemy, he understood that, whichever alternative he chose, he would be handing himself over defenseless into the hands of his political enemies. On January 1, 49 BC, Mark Antony read a letter from Caesar in the Senate, in which the proconsul declared himself a friend of peace. After a long list of his many deeds, he proposed that both he and Pompey give up their commands at the same time. The Senate concealed this message from public opinion.^[77]

Metellus Scipio set a date by which Caesar was to have given up command of his legions or be considered an enemy of the Republic. The motion was immediately put to a vote. Only two senators opposed it, Gaius Scribonius Curio and Marcus Caelius Rufus. Mark Antony, as tribune, vetoed the proposal to prevent it from becoming law. After Mark Antony's veto of the motion that obliged Caesar to give up his post as governor of Gaul, Pompey announced that he could not guarantee the safety of the tribunes. Antony, Caelius and Curio were forced to leave Rome disguised as slaves, harassed by the street gangs.

On January 7, the Senate proclaimed a state of emergency and granted Pompey exceptional powers, naming him consul sine collega. Cato and Marcellus urged the Senate to pronounce the famous phrase

Caveant consules ne quid detrimenti res publica capiat (Let the consuls see to it that the republic suffers no harm).

which was equivalent to declaring martial law, and urged Pompey to move his troops to Rome immediately. The crisis had reached its climax.^[78]

Civil war

In view of the turn events were taking, Caesar addressed one of his legions, the thirteenth, and explained the situation to its members, asking them whether they were willing to confront Rome in a war in which they would be branded traitors if they lost it. The legionaries responded to their general's address with the decision to go with him.^[79]^[78]

Between January 7 and 14, 49 BC—very probably on January 10—,^[80] Caesar received the news of the granting of exceptional powers to Pompey, and immediately ordered a small contingent of troops to cross the border to the south and take the nearest city. At nightfall, together with the Legio XIII Gemina, Caesar advanced to the Rubicon, the border between the province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy, and, after a moment of hesitation, gave his legionaries the order to advance. Some sources have suggested that it was then that he uttered the famous: Alea iacta est ("The die is cast").^[81]

When the optimates learned the news, they abandoned the city, declaring an enemy of Rome anyone who remained in it. Then they marched south, unaware that Caesar was accompanied only by his thirteenth legion.^[82] Caesar pursued Pompey to the port of Brundisium in southern Italy, with some hope of being able to rebuild their alliance, but Pompey withdrew to Greece with his followers. Then he had to make a decision: either pursue Pompey to Greece, leaving his rear unprotected and exposed to an attack by the Pompeian legions stationed in Hispania, or, allowing Pompey to organize himself in Greece, head for Hispania to secure his rear.^[82]

After weighing the situation, Caesar headed for Hispania in a forced march of barely 27 days, to defeat Pompey's followers in that powerful province. Several legions were stationed there under the command of pro-Pompeian legates, to which must be added the fact that the bulk of the native populations had sworn loyalty to Pompey himself (who was still Proconsul of that province). After several skirmishes and battles, Caesar measured himself against his enemies at the Battle of Ilerda, near present-day Lleida, where he defeated them definitively.^[83]

Only when he considered his rear secure, and after organizing the political institutions in Rome, which had fallen into anarchy, did Caesar head for Greece. On July 10, 48 BC, Caesar was defeated at the Battle of Dyrrhachium. However, Pompey did not know how, or was unable, to take advantage of this victory to finish off Caesar, and Caesar managed to escape with his army almost intact to fight another time. The final encounter took place shortly afterward, on August 9, at the Battle of Pharsalus.^[84] Caesar won a crushing victory, thanks to a tactical stratagem. However, his political enemies managed to escape: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus left for Rhodes and from there to Egypt; Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato went to North Africa.

On his return to Rome, he was appointed dictator, with Mark Antony as Magister equitum, and he was elected consul for the second time, with Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus as junior colleague.

In 47 BC, Caesar went to Egypt in search of Pompey, but was surprised by the fact that his old ally and enemy had been murdered the previous year. On learning of his fate, Caesar was saddened by his murder and by having lost the opportunity to offer him his pardon.^[85] Perhaps because of this and because of Rome's interests in Egypt, Caesar decided to intervene in Egyptian politics and replaced King Ptolemy XIII of Egypt, who already held the dignity of pharaoh, with his sister Cleopatra, whom he believed more favorable to Rome. During his stay, he burned his ships to prevent them from being used against him, which seems to have caused the burning of a book warehouse attached to the Library of Alexandria. Caesar had a romance with the Queen of Egypt, and from the relationship it seems a child was born, the future Ptolemy XV of Egypt (Caesarion), who would be the last pharaoh of Egypt, although Caesar never officially recognized him as his son.^[86]

After the campaigns in Egypt, Caesar went to Asia Minor, where he quickly defeated Pharnaces, King of Pontus, at the Battle of Zela, after which he uttered the famous phrase: Veni, vidi, vici.^[87] He then went to North Africa to attack the leaders of the conservative faction who had taken refuge there. At the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC, Caesar won yet another victory and saw two of his fiercest enemies disappear: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato. But Pompey's sons, Gnaeus and Sextus Pompey, as well as his former chief legate in Gaul, Titus Labienus, managed to escape to the provinces of Hispania.^[88]

After the victory

Caesar returned to Rome at the end of July 46 BC. The total victory of his faction endowed Caesar with enormous power, and the Senate hastened to legitimize his victory by naming him dictator for the third time in the spring of 46 BC, for an unprecedented term of ten years.

In September he celebrated his triumphs, offering four triumphal parades that took place between September 21 and October 2.^[89] Gauls, Egyptians, Asians and Africans paraded in chains before the crowd, while giraffes, British war chariots and battles on artificial lakes left his fellow citizens open-mouthed. The war between Romans was masked by the victories over foreigners, and the celebrations were unprecedented in their scale and duration.

During the celebrations Vercingetorix, who had remained in a silver prison since his capture after Alesia, was ritually executed; in that same parade, the axle of Caesar's chariot broke and he nearly fell to the ground. The triumphal parade over Pharnaces II featured a float bearing the motto "Veni, vidi, vici".^[87]^[90]

Caesar did not forget to reward his troops, and so he gave each legionary five thousand denarii, equivalent to what they would earn in the 16 years of compulsory service, each centurion ten thousand, and each tribune and prefect twenty thousand denarii. He also assigned them land, though not near Rome, so as not to dispossess citizens, and thus established Roman colonies in recently conquered territories. He distributed to the people ten modii of wheat per head and as many pounds of oil, along with 300 sesterces, in fulfillment of an old promise he had made to them, to which he added 100 more for the delay. He reduced house rents: in Rome up to the sum of 2,000 sesterces, in the rest of Italy up to five hundred. To all this he added the distribution of meat and, after the triumph over Hispania, two public feasts; and, not considering the first worthy enough of his magnificence, the one he offered five days later was much more abundant.^[91] He also gave spectacles of various kinds, including gladiatorial combats and comedies in every district of the city, performed by actors of all nations and in all languages. Games in the circus, athletes and a naumachia completed the program.^[92]

In the Forum, among the gladiators fought Furius Leptinus, whose family included praetors, and Quintus Calpenus, who had been a member of the Senate and had pleaded cases before the people. The sons of many princes of Asia and Bithynia danced the pyrrhic. The Roman citizen Decimus Liberius performed in the games a mime of his own composition, receiving five hundred thousand sesterces and a gold ring, and afterward passed from the stage, through the orchestra, to sit among the equites.^[92]

In the Circus the arena was widened on both sides; a ditch was dug around it and filled with water, and the noblest young men raced quadrigas and bigae in that enclosure, or leaped on horses trained for the purpose. Children divided into two groups, according to their difference in age, performed the games called Trojan. There were five days of combats with wild beasts, and finally a battle was fought between two armies: each consisted of 500 infantrymen, 30 horsemen and 20 elephants. In order to give the troops more space, the barriers of the circus had been removed, forming a camp at each end.^[92]

For three days athletes competed in a stadium built expressly in the vicinity of the Campus Martius. A lake was made in the lesser Codeta (a place on the other side of the Tiber) and there a naval battle was fought: biremes, triremes and quadriremes, representing two fleets, one Tyrian and the other Egyptian, loaded with soldiers. The announcement of these spectacles had drawn a great number of outsiders to Rome, most of whom slept in tents, in the streets and squares, and many people, among them two senators, were crushed or suffocated by the crowd.^[92]

In the winter of 46 BC, a new rebellion broke out in Hispania, led by Pompey's sons. Using their father's old influence and the resources of the province, the Pompey brothers and Titus Labienus managed to assemble a new army of thirteen legions made up of the remnants of the army formed in Africa, the two veteran legions, a legion of Roman citizens from Hispania, and the enlistment of the local population. At the end of 46 BC they took control of almost all of Hispania Ulterior, including the Roman colonies of Italica and Corduba, the capital of the province. Caesar, in the face of the danger, returned to Hispania and after some skirmishes finally defeated them at the Battle of Munda.

Caesar's building activity deserves separate mention: during his dictatorship he undertook numerous projects to renovate the public buildings of Rome and created many new ones, generally around the Campus Martius and the new Forum complex. Notable among them is the Forum Julium or Forum of Caesar, built in 46 BC on the slopes of the Capitol and completed by Augustus; in the center of the square stood the equestrian statue of Caesar, before the temple of his divine ancestor, Venus Genetrix, an equally outstanding work. In that temple stood the statue of the goddess, installed in the apse of the temple, which was the work of Arcesilaus, whose sketches fetched astronomical prices according to Pliny.^[93]

Absolute power

It should be noted that it has not been historically demonstrated that Caesar's intention was to proclaim himself king and, had he wished to be one, it cannot be known what kind of king: a rex in the Etruscan manner, as Servius Tullius or Lucius Tarquinius Priscus had been, one in the likeness of the Egyptian pharaoh or simply in the style of the Hellenic basileus. What is certain is that a balanced analysis of the facts, as they have come down from the sources, seems to indicate that he was thinking of establishing an autocratic regime of some kind, or at least that this was what those in the circles closest to him were thinking.^[94]

Caesar, after prevailing over the last attempt by the Pompeians, led by Gnaeus Pompeius, son of Pompey the Great, became distrustful, thinking of the possibility of an imminent assassination attempt. A sign of this is that in December of 45 BC, on the eve of the Saturnalia, he went to spend a few days with the stepfather of Gaius Octavius (his grandnephew) at the residence the latter owned near Puteoli (today Pozzuoli), and had himself accompanied by an escort of 2,000 men.

Cicero, whose villa adjoined that of Lucius Marcius Philippus, had asked Caesar to do him the honor of dining with him. The dictator accepted. The events of that evening were recorded in a famous letter from Marcus Tullius Cicero to Titus Pomponius Atticus. According to Cicero, Caesar arrived at the villa accompanied by his entire guard. Three special halls received Caesar's retinue. The dinner was a great success. "As he [Caesar] had taken a purge", Marcus Tullius Cicero specifies, "he drank and ate with as much appetite as energy". Caesar showed himself a brilliant and witty conversationalist. "On the other hand", his host adds, "not a word of serious matters. Entirely literary conversation". The next day, December 20, he left for Rome.^[95]

The Senate had taken advantage of Caesar's absence to vote en bloc the decrees concerning the honors conferred upon him. "Thus", explains Cassius Dio, "this work was not to seem the result of coercion, but the expression of their free will". When Caesar was already back in Rome, before placing the decrees at the feet of Jupiter Capitolinus as was traditional, the senators decided to present them to him personally. In this way, the importance of the homage the Senate was paying him was emphasized even further.^[96]

Caesar was in the vestibule of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, busy discussing the plans for the works that the architects and artists had come to submit to him. When he was told that the Senate in corpore had come to see him, preceded by the magistrates in office and by a multitude of citizens of various ranks, he acted as if he attached no importance to it and continued, without interrupting it, his conversation with his collaborators.^[96]

One of the senators stepped forward to deliver a speech appropriate to the circumstances. Then Caesar turned toward him and prepared to listen, without even deigning to rise from his seat. Probably, it was a matter of making plain his displeasure at the affront inflicted on him by the tribune Aquila three months earlier. Likewise, his reply left the senators dumbfounded: instead of lengthening the list of honors granted to him, he insisted rather on reducing them... But, nonetheless, he accepted them. This attitude produced tremendous indignation among the members of the Senate and in the crowd that attended this solemn occasion.^[96]

Caesar did not limit himself to accepting the honorary distinctions that the Senate had heaped upon him, but at the same time he managed to seize multiple prerogatives of a more practical nature that allowed him to gather in his hands the entirety of governmental power. He demanded and obtained that all his acts be ratified by the Senate; public officials were obliged to swear, upon taking office, never to oppose any measure emanating from him; and he had himself granted the privileges of the tribunes of the plebs, thereby obtaining the tribunicia potestas and the sacrosanct immunity that distinguished them.^[96]

As a consequence, the Senate lost its power, remaining as a consultative assembly that passed resolutions, resolutions that the dictator could disregard without even giving an explanation for doing so. Henceforth it would be Caesar who would have the exclusive right to dispose of the finances of the state, and who would prepare the list of candidates for the consulship and other magistracies.^[97]

Thus, in fact, he already possessed all the powers of a Monarch. All he lacked was the title. In this regard, an insinuating propaganda campaign was begun by certain agents to prepare public opinion, which was very hostile to the idea of returning to monarchy. His enemies hoped to be able to ruin him more easily by exploiting his ambition, and they organized themselves to act. As a result, a covert but relentless war would follow.

It began when the gold statue of Caesar that had just been erected on the rostra was crowned with a diadem bearing a white ribbon, a mark of royalty. It was a first attempt, still very discreet, to test the waters and simulate a popular desire in favor of crowning Caesar as King. Two tribunes of the people ordered the diadem torn off and thrown away; having done so, they pretended to set themselves up as defenders of Caesar's civic reputation.^[98]

In the last days of January the traditional Latin festivals took place on the Alban Mount, near Rome. Caesar was called to attend either as Pontifex Maximus or as dictator. He opted for the latter capacity, which allowed him, using the privilege granted him by the Senate, to appear at these ceremonies wearing the purple toga and the high red boots. At the end of the festivities, Caesar made his entry into Rome on horseback. In the midst of the crowd waiting for him, and from the moment he was seen to appear, acclamations rang out, and voices were heard greeting him with the title of king, perhaps coming from duly coached henchmen. Immediately the opposing party intervened and shouts of protest were heard. Caesar saved the situation by replying: "My name is Caesar and not Rex", which, strictly speaking, could be interpreted as meaning that he saw in the greetings addressed to him only an allusion to his kinship with the gens Marcii Reges, to which his mother belonged.^[99]

*Caesar refuses the diadem* (1894 work), when it was offered by Mark Antony during the festival of the Lupercalia.

Another act was planned for February 15, the day of the Lupercalia festival. To attend it Caesar wore the same garments he had worn at the Latin festivals and occupied a golden chair placed in the middle of the speakers' platform, in front of which the procession led by Mark Antony was to pass. Beside the dictator stood the body of magistrates in office: his master of the horse Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the praetors, the aediles... While the college of Julian priests was filing past the platform, one of them, Licinius, appeared at the level of the dais and laid at Caesar's feet a laurel crown entwined with the ribbon of the royal diadem, at which point applause broke out. Then Licinius climbed onto the platform and placed the crown on the head of Caesar, who made a gesture of protest and turned to Lepidus for help, but he did nothing.^[98]

Gaius Cassius Longinus stepped forward and, removing the crown from Caesar's head, placed it on his knees, but Caesar rejected it. At the last minute, Mark Antony tried to smooth things over. He climbed the rostra, seized the crown and placed it again on the dictator's head, but this time Caesar himself removed the crown and threw it away from him. This earned him the applause of the crowd, but some spectators asked him to accept the people's offering.^[98] Mark Antony took advantage of the moment to pick up the emblem, trying to put it on him again, and shouts of Hail, O king! were heard, but mingled with them were indignant protests. Caesar removed the crown and ordered it taken to the temple of Jupiter "where it will be better placed", and he required the recorder of public acts to note there "that the people having offered him the kingship through the hands of the consul, he had refused it".^[100]

Meanwhile, recourse was had to the Sibylline Books, which, having been consumed by flames in the time of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, had since been replaced by spurious copies. Those in charge of the custody of those books announced that certain passages implied that the Roman armies would not obtain victory over the Parthians in the war that was about to begin at any moment, until they were commanded by a king. Soon a rumor circulated in Rome that at the next session of the Senate, which was to take place on March 15, the quindecemvir Lucius Aurelius Cotta, the dictator's uncle, would take the floor to propose that the title of king be conferred on his nephew.^[101]

Planned campaign against Parthia and Dacia

Shortly before his death, Caesar had planned two military campaigns: one against the Dacian kingdom of Burebista and another against the Parthian Empire of Orodes II.^[102] There was no doubt that both peoples represented a potential danger to Roman power;^[103]^[104] however, it cannot be forgotten that a war of conquest of such magnitude arose more from a desire to dominate the world. Caesar now felt invincible and wished to emulate Alexander the Great by conquering the East. He may also simply have been motivated by the pursuit of revenge for the defeat and death of Crassus.^[102]^[105] This is how two historians of Antiquity described his ambition:

His continued victories did not lead his greatness of spirit and his ambition to be content with enjoying what had already been achieved; rather, being an incentive and spur toward the future, they produced designs for greater undertakings and the love of a new glory, as if he had already had his fill of the present one; thus, his passion was then nothing other than a rivalry with himself, as it might be with another, and a contest between his future exploits and those carried out before. He was thinking, then, and preparing to make war on the Parthians, and, once they were defeated, to go through Hyrcania, skirting the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, to pass into Pontus, invade Scythia and, then traveling through the regions neighboring Germania and Germania itself, to return to Italy through Gaul and close this circle of Roman dominion with the Ocean, which bounds it on all sides.^[106]

Caesar conceived the idea of a long campaign against the Getae [the Dacians of Burebista] and the Parthians. The Getae are a nation that loves war and a neighboring nation, and they were to be attacked first; the Parthians had to be punished for the treachery used against Crassus…^[107]

As early as the autumn of 45 BC Caesar began intensive preparations for the war^[108] and to establish his political control over the tribunes, since a long absence of the dictator was expected.^[109]^[110] At Apollonia in Illyria an enormous army of sixteen legions and ten thousand horsemen was being concentrated^[107] (in total some ninety thousand men),^[111] and the campaign was expected to begin in the spring of 44 BC, three days after the Ides of March. With Caesar's death the project was canceled, although Mark Antony would attempt to continue it without success years later, and it would be partly completed by Trajan with the Dacian Wars and with the annexation of Mesopotamia.

Plot and assassination

It is not possible to know with certainty what conditions led a group of senators to contemplate the assassination of Caesar. The attempts to establish an autocratic regime perhaps had much to do with it, but it cannot be ruled out that there were other, less noble motivations.

The mere fact that a relatively large number of senators was willing to take part in the plot and to kill Caesar in the Senate itself, which constituted a sacrilege, shows how far matters had gone.

The conspiracy

The most recent events and, in particular, the rumor of what was being prepared for March 15 in the Senate led what remained of the optimates faction, among them Gaius Cassius Longinus, to decide to take action. Gaius Cassius Longinus approached some men he believed he could trust and who, in his judgment, shared his idea of killing the dictator. In this way they would free Rome from the fate he believed awaited it: a new cosmopolitan empire, ruled from Alexandria.^[112]

However, Gaius Cassius Longinus was probably not the right man to be the public face of this kind of action, and it was agreed to sound out Marcus Junius Brutus, who was considered the appropriate figure for this role.^[112]

It is speculated that, after a series of meetings, both agreed that the liberty of the Republic was at stake, but they did not share the same views on how to act. Marcus Junius Brutus did not intend to attend the Senate on the 15th and argued instead for passive protest (abstention). Gaius Cassius Longinus replied that, since both were praetors, they could be compelled to attend. Brutus then answered: "In that case, my duty will be not to remain silent, but to oppose the bill, and to die rather than see liberty expire." Gaius Cassius Longinus rejected this solution outright, for he understood that the Republic would not be saved by their deaths, and he urged him to fight and to take action. His eloquence finally convinced the other man.^[113]

The name of Marcus Junius Brutus attracted several valuable adherents, not least because he claimed descent from that other Brutus (Lucius Junius Brutus) who had led the expulsion of the last King of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, in 509 BC. Among others who joined the plot was Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, a relative of the dictator in whom Caesar had complete trust. In total, the number of conspirators seems to have been about sixty. During the preliminary meetings a plan of action was drawn up. It was decided unanimously to attack Caesar in the middle of the Senate. In this way it was hoped that his death would not appear to be an ambush, but an act for the salvation of the homeland, and that the senators, as witnesses to the assassination, would immediately declare their solidarity.^[114] The conspirators' plans did not only include the assassination of Caesar. They also wanted to drag his corpse into the Tiber, award his property to the State and annul his decrees.^[115]

It must be borne in mind that the motives of the assassins were very diverse. Some were moved by a genuine sense of saving the Republic, and these had been joined by others moved by resentment, envy, or the idea that if Caesar monopolized the magistracies, their own turn to reach power would never come.^[116]

It should also be noted that many of the conspirators were well-known former Pompeians whose lives and property Caesar had spared, and whom he had even trusted with the administration of the State (Cassius and Brutus were provincial governors appointed by Caesar).^[117]

The assassination

On the Ides of March of the year 44 BC, a group of senators belonging to the conspiracy described above summoned Caesar to the Forum to read him a petition they had written, the aim of which was to return effective power to the Senate. Mark Antony had received vague news of a possible plot through Publius Servilius Casca. Fearing the worst, he ran to the Forum and tried to stop Caesar on the steps before he entered the meeting of the Senate.^[118]

But the group of conspirators intercepted Caesar just as he passed into the Theatre of Pompey, where the Roman curia was meeting, and led him to a room adjoining the eastern portico, where they handed him the petition. When the dictator began to read it, Tillius Cimber, who had handed it to him, pulled at his tunic, which caused Caesar to snap at him furiously: Ista quidem vis est? "What kind of violence is this?" (It should not be forgotten that Caesar, who enjoyed the sacrosanctity of the tribunicia potestas and was Pontifex Maximus, was legally untouchable.) At that moment the aforementioned Casca drew a dagger and slashed him in the neck. The victim turned quickly and, driving his writing stylus into his attacker's arm,^{[lower-alpha 8]} said to him: "What are you doing, Casca, you villain?", for it was sacrilege to carry weapons into meetings of the Senate.^[119]^[120]

Casca, frightened, shouted in Greek ἀδελφέ, βοήθει! (adelphe, boethei! = "Help, brothers!"), and, in response to that call, all of them threw themselves upon the dictator, including Marcus Junius Brutus.^[120]^[121] Caesar then tried to leave the building to seek help, but, blinded by blood, he stumbled and fell. The conspirators continued their attack while he lay defenseless on the lower steps of the portico. According to Eutropius and Suetonius, at least sixty senators took part in the assassination. Caesar received twenty-three stab wounds, of which, if we are to believe Suetonius, only one, the second received in the thorax, was fatal.^[120]

Caesar's last words have not really been established, and there is controversy surrounding them. The best known are:

Καὶ σὺ τέκνον. Kai sy, teknon? (in Greek: "You too, my son?"). Suetonius.^[122]
Tu quoque, Brute, filii mi! (Latin translation of the previous phrase: "You too, Brutus, my son!").
Et tu, Brute? (Latin, "You too, Brutus?", the version immortalized in the play by Shakespeare).^[123]
Plutarch tells us that he said nothing, but covered his head with his toga after seeing Brutus among his attackers.^[124]

After the assassination, the conspirators fled, leaving Caesar's corpse at the foot of a statue of Pompey, where it remained exposed for some time. From there three public slaves picked it up and carried it to his house on a litter.^[120] Mark Antony took it from there and showed it to the people, who were shaken by the sight of the corpse. Shortly afterward the soldiers of the Thirteenth Legion, so attached to Caesar, brought torches to cremate the body of their beloved leader. Then the inhabitants of Rome, in great tumult, threw onto that pyre everything they had at hand to feed the fire further.^[125]

Legend has it that Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, after dreaming of a terrible omen, warned Caesar to be careful, but Caesar ignored her warning, saying: "The only thing to fear is fear itself." Other accounts tell how a blind seer had warned him against the Ides of March. When the day came, Caesar, amused, reminded him on the steps of the Senate that he was still alive, to which the blind man replied that the Ides were not yet over.^[126]

Consequences of the assassination

The consequences of Caesar's death were numerous and were not limited to the ensuing civil war. The name "Caesar", for example, became common to all later emperors, because Augustus, whose name was Gaius Octavius, changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar when he was officially adopted by the dictator. Since all the emperors after Augustus up to Nero were adopted, the cognomen Caesar ended up being a kind of title rather than a name, and so from Vespasian onward the emperors bore it as such without having been adopted into the Caesar family. The cognomen accumulated so much prestige that the titles kaiser and tsar derive from Caesar.^[127]

Many of his initiatives were left in abeyance at his death, among them:

To subdue the Dacians, who under the reign of Burebista had expanded as far as the Pontus Euxinus and Thrace;^[128] then to carry the war to the Parthian Empire, passing through Lesser Armenia, and not to fight them in pitched battle until he had gauged their strength.^[129]

The construction of a temple to Mars, larger than any other in the world, by filling in to ground level the lake in which he had staged the naumachia.^[129]

The construction of a gigantic theater at the foot of the Tarpeian Rock.^[129]

To reduce the whole of civil law to a just proportion, and to gather into very few books the best and most indispensable parts of the immense and diffuse number of existing laws.^[129]

To establish Greek and Latin public libraries, as large as possible; he entrusted Marcus Terentius Varro with the task of acquiring and classifying the books.^[129]

He intended to drain the Pontine Marshes, to open an outlet for the waters of Lake Fucino, to build a road from the Adriatic Sea to the Tiber across the Apennines, and to cut through the Isthmus of Corinth.^[129]

On the site where his body was cremated an altar was built, which would serve as the centerpiece of a temple dedicated to him, for in the year 42 BC the Senate deified him under the name of the Divine Julius (Divus Iulius).^[130] This act would become a custom from that moment on, so that all the emperors from Augustus onward were deified at their death. It is this practice that apparently inspired the last words of Vespasian, who, feeling himself dying, seems to have said "I think I am becoming a god".^[131]

After Caesar's death, a power struggle broke out between his grandnephew Caesar Augustus, whom he had named universal heir in his will, and Mark Antony. It would culminate in the fall of the Republic and the birth of a kind of monarchy that has come to be called the Principate. The conspiracy and the assassination thus ultimately proved futile, since they did not prevent the establishment of an autocratic system.

Caesar the seducer

The women of Roman high society

According to the Latin historian Suetonius, Caesar seduced numerous women throughout his life, above all those belonging to Roman high society.^[132]

According to this author, Caesar seduced Postumia, wife of Servius Sulpicius Rufus; Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius; and Tertulla, wife of Marcus Licinius Crassus. He also seems to have frequented Mucia, wife of Pompey.^[132] Likewise, Caesar had relations with Servilia, mother of Brutus, whom he seemed to hold in particular esteem.^[132] Suetonius thus relates the various gifts and favors he offered his beloved, among which a magnificent pearl worth six million sesterces stands out.^[132] Servilia's love for Caesar was publicly known in Rome,^[133] and their relationship lasted from the time they met in 63 BC until the general's death in 44 BC.

Caesar's inclination toward the pleasures of love has also been confirmed by the verses sung by his soldiers on the occasion of his triumph in Rome for the campaigns in Gaul, reported by Suetonius:

Citizens, watch your wives: we bring a bald adulterer
You have fornicated in Gaul with the gold you borrowed in Rome.^[134]

The queens

Caesar had a love affair with Eunoë, wife of Bogud, King of Mauretania.^[135]

However, his most famous relationship was with Cleopatra VII. Suetonius relates that Caesar sailed up the Nile with the Egyptian Queen^[135] on a ship fitted with cabins, and that he would thus have crossed the whole of Egypt and penetrated as far as Ethiopia if the army had not refused to follow them. He had her come to Rome, heaping honors and gifts upon her.^[135] For him it was a good way of keeping a hold on Egypt, where three legions remained stationed and whose role in supplying grain to Italy was beginning to be preponderant. Be that as it may, Cleopatra was present in Rome at the time of Caesar's assassination and quickly returned to her country after the crime.

Caesar as ruler

According to Francisco Pina Polo, Caesar "developed a policy of national reconciliation based on clemency (clementia) toward his enemies", and he points out that "in practice, there were no proscriptions or mass confiscations; on the contrary, Caesar openly pardoned prominent Pompeians, among them Cicero".^[136]

Caesar's work of government, as consul and as dictator, was very extensive, even though the time he actually held power was relatively short. However, as Adrian Goldsworthy rightly points out,^[137] a detailed analysis of each measure, or possible measure, that he took would be excessively long, for his legislative work was arduous. Even so, we can get an idea of his work in this field from the list of legal provisions found in Suetonius and other authors:

Advised by the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, he corrected the calendar in use, in which there was such disorder, through the fault of the pontiffs and the long-standing abuse of intercalations, that the harvest festivals no longer fell in summer, nor the grape harvests in autumn. He adjusted the year to the course of the sun and made it 365 days long, abolishing the intercalary month and adding one day every four years. So that this new order of things could begin on the calends of January of the following year, he added two months between November and December, so that this year consequently had fifteen months, counting the old intercalary month that fell in it.^[138] This momentous reform, which we know today as the Julian calendar, consisted in taking January 1 as the start of the year, starting from the year 153 BC, instead of the traditional March 1, so that the year's campaigns could be planned in advance. It has 365 days divided into 12 months, except for leap years, which have 366 days and add an extra day to the month of February. The Julian calendar counts one in every four years as a leap year, including the centennial years. This calendar produces an error of 7.5 days every 1000 years. It was the calendar used in the West until the end of the 16th century, when a new reform to correct the problem of leap years gave way to the modern Gregorian calendar. Even so, the Julian calendar still remains the one used for their feasts and liturgy by the Eastern Christian churches and the Orthodox Church.

The order of the months and the distribution of days was as follows: januarius (31 days); februarius (28, or 29 in leap years); martius (31); aprilis (30); maius (31); junius (30); julius (31) (previously known as quintilis and so named in honor of Julius Caesar himself, who had been born during this month); sextilis (30) (renamed August (augustus) for the same reason during the reign of his adopted son and successor Octavius Augustus); september (31); october (30); november (31); december (30)

He filled up the Senate, decimated by the civil war, increasing the number of senators to 900 and filling it with his supporters, especially knights (equites), provincial elites, and the odd scribe, centurion and even son of a freedman. Among the most prominent and powerful were the Balbi.^[139]

He created new patricians and increased the number of praetors, aediles, quaestors and lower magistrates, expanding for example the vigintivirate to 26 magistrates (vigintisexviratum). He rehabilitated some of those whom the censors had stripped of their dignity or whom the judges had condemned for bribery. He shared with the people the right to elect magistrates, so that, except for the candidates for the consulship, the other candidates were designated half by the people and half by him. He designated his own on tablets that were sent to all the tribes bearing this brief inscription: "Caesar, dictator, to such-and-such tribe. I recommend to you so-and-so and such-and-such so that they may obtain their dignity by your vote." He admitted the sons of the proscribed to public honors.^[140]

He established the recruitment of foreigners into the legions and created the post of Imperator, who would be the commander of the army.^[140]

He restricted the judicial system to two classes of judges, senators and knights, and abolished the tribunes of the Treasury (tribuni aerarii), who formed the third jurisdiction.^[140]

He took the census of the people, not in the customary way nor in the usual place, but by neighborhoods and according to the registers of the owners of the houses. He reduced the number of those to whom the State supplied wheat from 320,000 to 150,000, and so that the drawing up of these lists could not in the future be the cause of new disturbances, he decreed that the praetor could replace those who died, by lot, with people who were not registered.^[140]

He distributed 80,000 citizens among the overseas colonies, and so that the population of Rome would not be exhausted, he decreed that no citizen older than 20 and younger than 60 who was not bound by a public office should remain outside Italy for more than three years; that no son of a senator should undertake distant journeys unless in the company or under the patronage of some magistrate; and finally, that those who raised livestock should have among their herdsmen at least one third free men of the age of puberty.^[141]

He granted citizenship to all those who practiced medicine in Rome or cultivated the literary arts, this favor being intended to settle them in the city and to attract others.^[141]

As for debts, instead of granting their abolition, which was eagerly awaited and constantly demanded, he decreed that debtors would pay according to the valuation of their properties and in accordance with the price of these assets before the civil war, and that everything that had been paid in money or in written promises by way of interest would be deducted from the principal. With this provision about a quarter of the debts would disappear.^[141]

He dissolved all associations, except those that had their origin in the earliest times of Rome.^[141]

He increased the penalties for crimes, and since the rich committed them without losing any of their wealth, he decreed against parricides the complete confiscation of their property, and against other criminals the confiscation of half of it.^[141]

He expelled from the senatorial order those convicted of extortion.^[142]

He declared null the marriage of a former praetor who had married a woman on the second day after her separation from her husband, even though she was not suspected of adultery.^[142]

He established taxes on foreign goods. He sent guards to the markets to seize prohibited articles and bring them to his house, and sometimes lictors and soldiers went to collect from the dining rooms whatever had escaped the guards' vigilance.^[142]

He prohibited the use of litters, purple and pearls, except for certain persons, certain ages and on certain days.^[142] These measures derived from a law against luxury (lex sumptuaria), and they seem not to have been successful, although "it connected with what had been a growing concern within the aristocracy regarding the excessive increase in its debts".^[136]

As for the currency, he increased to four the number of tresviri auro argento aere flando feriundo ("triumvirs responsible for casting and striking gold, silver and bronze"), entrusting the management of the mint of the temple of Juno Moneta (as well as the public revenues) to some of his own slaves.^[143] He also created a private mint with which he regularly struck, from 48 to 44 BC, the gold he obtained in the Gallic War and by plundering the treasury (15,000 ingots).^[144] He fixed the weight of the aureus at 1/40 of the Roman pound (roughly the equivalent of 8 grams). These coins were very successful because they were similar in weight and fineness to the Macedonian staters.^[145] He also set the aureus at 25 denarii, so that one pound of gold was worth 1000 denarii, after the fall in the price of gold (to 750 denarii per pound) caused by the flood of booty brought from Gaul.^[144] It should also be noted that Julius Caesar was the first living Roman leader whose face appeared on a coin in circulation (44 BC), by authorization of the Senate.^[146] However, there was no substantial issue of bronze under his government, so the shortage of coinage typical of the 1st century BC continued.^[147] In an attempt to restore liquidity, he had a law passed that prohibited anyone from hoarding more than 15,000 denarii, intending to put hoarded coins into circulation. This law, as may be supposed, must undoubtedly have been as ineffective as it was unenforceable.^[148]

Regarding the birth rate, he "offered compensation to all those who had a large number of children", although in any case "increasing the birth rate had been, since the second half of the 2nd century BC, a matter of interest for the Roman aristocracy (agrarian reform of Tiberius Gracchus, speech of the censor Metellus Macedonicus in 131), linked to the survival of the Republic".^[136]

To avoid problems, he was the first Roman legislator to settle his veterans in colonies outside Italy.^[149]

Caesar as a soldier

Unquestionably, one of the most recognized aspects of Julius Caesar's personality is, without a doubt, his military genius. This genius was put to the test many times over the course of his eventful military life, and Caesar almost always responded to the challenges with tactical innovations or ruses that surprised his opponents and gave him advantages in one field or another.

According to Suetonius, Caesar was a true soldier who shared the hardships of war with his milites; he was expert in arms and in horsemanship.^[150] We also know that he was a brave general^[151] who led his troops from the very front line of battle, so that his example would instill courage in the soldiers; he was given to harangues and maintained iron discipline.^[152] Nevertheless, his soldiers venerated him and cases of desertion were very rare, perhaps because of Caesar's magnanimous character.^[153] He also rode a horse born in the stables the general kept at his house. The horse showed atavism in its legs, so that it had several long toes ending in hooves in addition to the central hoof,^[154] something caused by the deactivation of the inhibiting gene that prevents horses from growing toes other than the third during embryonic development.

In order to offer as broad a view as possible of Caesar's tactical ability, brief accounts of some of his battles have been chosen. They are perhaps not the most representative or fundamental, but they are ones that involved some tactical innovation or show how Caesar led his troops: the Battle of Bibracte as an example of a battle against non-Roman forces; the Battle of Alesia as an example of a siege; the Battle of Pharsalus as an example of a fight between Romans; the Battle of Ruspina for the way in which an almost certain defeat was turned into an orderly retreat; and the Battle of Thapsus in Africa, which meant the defeat of the Pompeian forces established in that province and, in the long run, the death of Cato and other leading figures of the opposition to Caesar.

The Battle of Bibracte

In the year 58 BC, Caesar had just taken up his post as proconsul of Gaul when he was informed that a confederation of Germanic peoples, made up of the Helvetii, the Boii and the Tulingi, had decided to leave their ancestral lands and migrate to Gallia Comata.

The two forces met near the town of Bibracte, where Caesar had taken up positions on top of a hill. He had four veteran legions, the VII, VIII, IX and X, which he ordered to form up in triplex acies at the foot of the slope; the legions XI and XII, made up of recruits, and the auxiliaries were deployed below a rise in the ground at the summit.

The Helvetian forces, perhaps some 77,000 warriors if we are to believe Caesar himself in his Commentarii, advanced toward the Romans in a formation that Caesar describes as "a phalanx", which means that they probably formed a compact mass grouped behind their shields, not a formation of the Macedonian type.^[155]

When the Helvetian formation came within suitable range, that is, about 15 meters, the first volley of pila was launched from the Roman ranks. This heavy javelin was designed to bend when it stuck in a shield, thus leaving the attacking warrior the choice of carrying a heavy shield with a javelin stuck in it, which made it hard to handle, or discarding the shield and fighting without protection.

The rain of pila had the effect of breaking up the formation of the Helvetii, so the Romans took the opportunity to charge, sheltered behind their shields, with their gladii, taking advantage of the slope and running downhill. Without shields and poorly armed, the Helvetii were forced to fall back to a hill that lay about a kilometer and a half away.

The legions followed them, confident of a swift victory, when suddenly the Boii and the Tulingi appeared on the battlefield, numbering some 15,000 warriors, threatening the right flank of the Roman army.^[156] The right flank was the most dangerous, since it was the side not covered by the shield, which was carried on the left arm.

Caught thus between the sword of the Helvetii, who on seeing their allies appear threw themselves into the attack with renewed spirit, and the wall of the Boii and Tulingi, Caesar ordered the third line of the triplex acies to wheel to the right, placing itself at right angles facing the new attackers, while the remaining forces, formed in duplex acies, faced the renewed attack of the Helvetii.

Lacking the element of surprise on which they had counted, more poorly armed than the Romans, and with the Helvetii already tired from the fighting, they were crushed by the legions.

Caesar's tactical innovation was the speed with which, after assessing the problem, he converted the traditional legionary deployment in triplex acies into a novel formation, with one front in duplex acies, which took charge of halting the Helvetii, and another in simplex acies, which held off the attack on the flank and ultimately led him to win the battle.

The Battle of Alesia

*The fortifications built by Caesar at Alesia according to the hypothesis that places it at Alise-Sainte-Reine*.
In the corner map the cross shows the location of Alesia in Gaul (today France). In the diagram, the circle shows the weak point in the circumvallation.

Alesia was located on top of a hill surrounded by valleys and rivers and had substantial defenses. Since a frontal assault on the fortress would be suicidal, Caesar considered it better to lay siege to the stronghold in order to starve his enemies into surrender. Considering that there were about 80,000 men fortified inside Alesia along with the civilian population, hunger and thirst would quickly force the surrender of the Gauls. To guarantee a perfect blockade, Caesar ordered the construction of a circular perimeter of fortifications. The details of the engineering works are found in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War (De Bello Gallico) and have been confirmed by archaeological excavations in the area. Walls 18 km long and 4 meters high, with regularly spaced fortifications, were built in a record time of 3 weeks. This line was followed on the inner side by two ditches four and a half meters wide and about half a meter deep. The one closest to the fortification was filled with water from the nearby rivers. Likewise, carefully laid fields of traps and pits were created in front of the palisades to make reaching them even more difficult, along with a series of towers equipped with artillery and spaced regularly along the fortification.^[157]

Vercingetorix's cavalry often counterattacked the Roman works to avoid being completely enclosed, attacks that were answered by the Germanic cavalry, which once again proved its worth in keeping the attackers at bay. After two weeks of work, part of the Gallic cavalry managed to escape from the city through one of the unfinished sections. Caesar, foreseeing the arrival of relief troops, ordered the construction of a second, outer defensive line protecting his troops. The new perimeter was 21 km long and included four cavalry camps. This series of fortifications would protect them when the Gallic relief troops arrived: they were now besiegers preparing to be besieged.^[158]

By this time, living conditions in Alesia were growing steadily worse. With the 80,000 soldiers and the local population, there were too many people inside the fortress for so little food.^[159] This led part of the civilian population to leave the city and ask Caesar's army for food, and even to work as slaves on the construction works, rather than starve to death. Caesar, aware that his own provisions would run short if he fed them, sent them back to the city, and when this happened Vercingetorix ordered the gates of the walls closed, since there was too large a population for the scarce provisions. This part of the civilian population died within a few days.

At the end of September the Gallic troops, led by Commius, came to the relief of those fortified in Alesia and attacked Caesar's outer walls. Vercingetorix ordered a simultaneous attack from inside. However, none of these attempts succeeded, and by sunset the fighting had ended. The next day, the Gallic attack came under cover of the darkness of night, and they achieved greater success than the day before. Caesar was forced to abandon some sections of his fortified lines. Only the swift response of the cavalry, led by Mark Antony and Gaius Trebonius, saved the situation. The inner wall was also attacked, but the presence of trenches and of the fields planted with "lilia" and "cippi", which Vercingetorix's men had to fill in order to advance, delayed them enough to prevent surprise. By then, the situation of the Roman army was also difficult.^[160]

The following day, October 2, Vercassivellaunus, a cousin of Vercingetorix, launched a massive attack with 60,000 men, aimed at the weak point of the Roman fortifications, which Caesar had tried to conceal until then but which had been discovered by the Gauls. The area in question was a zone with natural obstructions in which a continuous wall could not be built. The attack combined the forces outside with those of the city: Vercingetorix attacked the inner fortifications from every angle. Caesar trusted in the discipline and courage of his men and ordered them to hold the lines. He personally went around the perimeter encouraging his legionaries.^[161]

Labienus's cavalry was sent to hold the defense of the area where the breach in the fortifications had been located. Caesar, with the pressure mounting ever higher, was forced to counterattack the inner offensive, and managed to drive back Vercingetorix's men. However, by then the section defended by Labienus was on the verge of giving way. Caesar took a desperate measure, taking 13 cohorts of cavalry (some 6000 men) to attack the enemy reserve army (some 60,000) from the rear. The action surprised attackers and defenders alike.^[162]

Seeing their general face such a tremendous risk, Labienus's men redoubled their efforts. Panic soon began to spread through the Gallic ranks, and they tried to withdraw. However, as was usual in antiquity, an army in disorganized retreat is easy prey for pursuit by the victors, and the Gauls were massacred. Caesar noted in his Commentaries that only the fact that his men were completely exhausted saved the Gauls from complete annihilation.^[163]

In Alesia, Vercingetorix witnessed the defeat of the outer army. Facing both hunger and low morale, he was forced to surrender without a final battle. The next day, the Gallic leader laid down his arms before Julius Caesar, putting an end to the siege of Alesia and to the Roman conquest of Gaul.^[164]

The Battle of Pharsalus

After having been defeated at the Battle of Dyrrachium, the Caesarians finally faced Pompey and his allies in a pitched battle near Pharsalus.

Caesar had with him the legions VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII and XIII, greatly reduced in strength, for they probably consisted of no more than 2750 legionaries each. Moreover, legions VIII and IX, which had held the battle line at Dyrrachium and had been seriously depleted, were ordered to act as one and to protect each other. He also had a small contingent of cavalry. On the other side, Pompey led a force of eleven legions, possibly of 4000 men each, and a cavalry of 7000 horsemen, together with a strong detachment of archers and slingers.^[165]

Both generals formed their armies in triplex acies, facing each other, with the cavalry posted on their respective left wings, since the right flanks of the formations rested on the river Enipeus, which in this way protected the right wing. Caesar placed legions IX and VIII on the right flank, resting on the river, and then successively placed the XI, XII, XIII, VI, VII and X. But behind the line of cavalry, hidden behind a small rise in the ground, he detached and placed a fourth line, made up of six cohorts, at an oblique angle to the cavalry, which received strict orders not to move under any circumstances until signaled to do so with a vexillum.^[165]

Pompey had formed up in a more classical arrangement, with all his legions on an equal footing and the cavalry supported by a dense formation of archers and slingers placed behind it. However, he had arranged them in a more static formation, with the tactical idea that they would present a containing wall to the Caesarian infantry, for Pompey had placed his hopes in the superiority of his cavalry.

The battle, if we are to believe Caesar, opened with the suicidal charge of a primus pilus centurion, that is, the centurion who commanded the first century of the first cohort, a post of great prestige. This centurion, named Crastinus, led 120 volunteers with him to charge against Pompey's lines, where, naturally, they were cut down.^[166]

When this happened, the first and second lines of the Caesarian formation charged, but halfway they stopped to catch their breath when they saw that Pompey's legions did not countercharge (perhaps because Pompey hoped they would tire themselves out first). The Caesarians re-formed their lines, and at that moment Pompey ordered his cavalry to charge.

The Pompeian cavalry set off at a gallop, divided into its individual turmae, followed by the archers, with the aim of outflanking the left wing of Caesar's formation, so as to attack from the rear and form a hammer (cavalry) and an anvil (infantry) to crush the Caesarians. The charge succeeded against the Caesarian cavalry, which fled in disarray.

But at that moment Caesar ordered his hidden line of six cohorts to attack. The Pompeian cavalry found that, instead of taking the Caesarian legions by surprise from the rear and routing them, a new battle line was bearing down on them with ferocity.

The turmae leading the charge panicked and fled, but in their flight they probably collided with the squadrons following them, which suspected nothing, thus sowing further confusion. Caesar's legionaries did not throw their pila but, on their general's orders, used them more like pikes, thrusting them at the faces of the riders and their horses, thereby increasing the panic and confusion. Thus a force of barely 1650 legionaries put the Pompeian cavalry to flight and was able to set about destroying the lightly armed archers and slingers.^[165]

Next, they launched an attack on the now unprotected left flank of the Pompeians, supported at that moment by a furious attack by the third line of the Caesarian legions, which, replacing the tired first and second lines, pressed the battle front.

Attacked by fresh troops in the center and outflanked on the left and from the rear, the Pompeian troops first wavered and then broke into outright flight, leaving 15000 dead on the field, against 200 Caesarians.^[166]^[167]

Caesar's genius lay in foreseeing that Pompey was going to use his cavalry to attack and that his own cavalry did not have the strength to resist it, and in devising a completely novel method with the line of 6 cohorts, setting a trap for his enemy, into which he fell, and which served Caesar to win the battle and destroy the main forces of the Pompeians.

The Battle of Ruspina

After Pharsalus, a large number of Pompeian troops and prominent figures of the faction, such as Cato the Younger, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica Cornelianus and Caesar's former chief legate in Gaul, Titus Labienus, withdrew to the province of Africa to reorganize and stand up to the dictator once again; it was the year 46 BC.

Caesar pursued them and, after landing, established his camp at Ruspina, near present-day Monastir. After a series of vicissitudes, he set out in search of wheat with a force of 30 cohorts armed "lightly",^[168] that is, some 13,000 men more or less, two thousand horsemen and one hundred and fifty archers.^[168]

Suddenly, about five kilometers from the camp, Caesar's scouts warned him that a large force of infantry was approaching them: they were Pompeian troops under the command of Labienus. Aware of his inferiority, Caesar ordered his meager cavalry and the few archers he had to leave the camp and follow him at a short distance.

While Caesar was positioning his men, who, given the small size of this "expeditionary" force, were formed in simplex acies with the cavalry on the wings,^[169] Labienus deployed his forces, which turned out to consist overwhelmingly of cavalry rather than infantry. It was a clever trap set by the Pompeian commander, who had closed up his lines as tightly as possible, interspersing a large body of Numidian light infantry among the horsemen to give that effect from a distance.^[170]

While the Pompeians advanced in a single line of extreme length, Caesar had deployed his troops so as not to be outflanked by those of his enemy. But this was precisely what happened: while the few cavalry troops fought in vain not to be overwhelmed, the center of Caesar's formation was struck by the mass of the Pompeian cavalry and the Numidian light infantry, which attacked and withdrew in turn.

The Caesarian infantry responded as best it could, but began to break apart. Seeing this, Caesar ordered that no soldier move more than four paces away from his unit.^[171] But the numerical superiority of the enemy, the scarce Caesarian cavalry, and the wounded and the horses lost caused Caesar's formation to begin to collapse. At that moment, Caesar ordered his troops to adopt a defensive formation called orbis (literally: orb), basically a circular formation whose purpose was to avoid offering a flank to the enemy.

But he found himself surrounded on all sides by Labienus's much more numerous and mobile troops, in a distant echo of the disastrous Battle of Cannae, and some of his most recent recruits began to falter. Faced with this, Caesar made a decision: he ordered the battle line to be extended in close order as far as possible. This maneuver was always strongly discouraged by Roman tacticians because it took too long to carry out;^[172] however, this time Caesar's forces did it quickly, and once they were deployed in a single line, Caesar gave another order: that every even-numbered cohort take a step back and turn to face the enemy, thereby managing to transform the simplex acies into a duplex acies.^[171]^[173]

At that moment, the Caesarian cavalry appeared to break the circle definitively, forcing the Pompeians to form two battle lines separated by the Caesarian troops. Then the surprised Pompeians were subjected to a rain of pila from both sides of the opposing formation, which caused them to waver and fall back some distance, not far enough to break up, but enough for Caesar to order a return to camp in battle order.

As they were returning to their camp, the Pompeians were reinforced by the unexpected arrival of a force of 1600 horsemen and a large number of infantry, under the command of Marcus Petreius and Gnaeus Piso. This made them attack again with renewed strength, once more surrounding the Caesarians, but now from farther away so that Caesar could not repeat the maneuver, and hurling a rain of missiles at his troops. Caesar's troops halted and, in the face of the onslaught, perhaps formed a "testudo" (tortoise), a formation in which the legionaries covered themselves with their shields.^[174]

As the Pompeian troops ran out of javelins and their fighting energy diminished in the face of Caesar's closed formation, he realized that the moment had come to break it and attack suddenly. He therefore issued orders that, at a signal from him, the wall of shields should be raised to let through some select cohorts, which, adopting the wedge formation, struck the Pompeian troops.^[175] From the account of the African War it is not clear whether this attack took place at several specific points or was a massive attack on a single point, but what is certain is that it had the desired effect and the Pompeian troops opened up, leaving the way clear for Caesar and his men, who withdrew in formation toward their camp, where they fortified themselves.

What is truly brilliant about this battle is not Caesar's defeat itself, but how, through a series of tactical decisions and varied battle formations, he managed to turn what could have been a massacre into an organized retreat in which he preserved the greatest possible number of troops.^[174]

The Battle of Thapsus

After the Battle of Pharsalus, the Pompeian troops had taken refuge in the province of Africa, where, under the command of prominent members of the conservative faction such as Cato the Younger and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, they had managed to reorganize and were ready to continue the fight. The conservatives assembled their forces at an impressive speed. Their army included 40,000 men (some 10 legions), a powerful cavalry led by the man who had formerly been Caesar's right hand in Gaul, Titus Labienus, and allied forces of local kings, among them the Numidian Juba I, and 60 war elephants. Caesar had with him at least 5 legions, although we cannot know how complete they were, and a considerable cavalry force.

After the incident at Ruspina, there followed a series of indecisive encounters between the troops of both factions, small battles to test their strength, and during that time two of the conservatives' legions deserted to join Caesar. Meanwhile, Caesar was awaiting reinforcements from Sicily.^[176]

At the beginning of February, Caesar arrived at Thapsus and laid siege to the city, blocking the southern entrance with three lines of fortifications. The conservatives, under the command of Metellus Scipio, could not afford to lose that position, so they were forced to give battle.^[177]

Scipio deployed his troops, forming the legions in the center in quadruplex acies. He placed the cavalry on the wings, in front of which he placed half of his war elephants (thirty on the right wing and thirty on the left wing). Behind the legionary ranks, on the left wing he placed a formation of light troops and another mixed one of cavalry and light infantry, and on the right wing a mixed one of cavalry and light infantry.^[178]^[179]

Caesar formed up with the legions in the center, in triplex acies (the X and VII on the right and the VIII and IX on the left), placed the cavalry on the wings, and deployed his archers and slingers facing the elephants. But he divided the Legio V Alaudae into two groups of five cohorts each and placed them behind the formations of archers and slingers.^[178]^[179]

Although the battle began earlier than Caesar would have wished,^[177] owing to the impatience of his soldiers on the right wing, he quickly took control of the situation and ordered the attack. The archers and slingers of the right wing fired their missiles at the elephants of the Pompeians' left wing, which, on receiving the rain of arrows and stones, took fright and turned around, charging into their own ranks. At that moment, the Numidian light cavalry posted by Scipio on that wing charged forward, finding the wall of elephants gone, but it was routed by the charge of the legions, and the Legio X took possession of the Pompeian camp, thus preventing the enemy's escape.^[180]^[179]

With nowhere to return to, and with their troops routed, surrendered or dead, the Pompeian leaders abandoned the battlefield to Caesar, thereby giving up the war as lost.^[181]

Caesar's genius in this battle was the tactical move of placing legionary infantry to protect the archers and slingers from the elephants, and promptly taking charge of the course of the battle, turning to his advantage the haste with which it had begun.

Caesar as historian and writer

The written work that has come down to us places Caesar among the great masters of the Latin language. His known works include:

De bello Gallico – Commentaries on the campaigns in Gaul
De bello civili – Commentaries on the civil war

It cannot be stated with certainty that the so-called "Caesarian Corpus" or "Tria Bella", that is, the Alexandrian War, the African War and the Spanish War, was written by Caesar. Among its translators there is a general consensus that these works were not written by him, although they are possibly based on his notes.^[182]

Both the Gallic War and the Civil War are unquestionably Caesar's work and are written in a Latin of great syntactic perfection. Both are proof of their author's erudition and were used, above all, as propaganda before the Senate and the people of Rome. In them he makes highly important references to many aspects of daily life in the Roman army of the late Republic: its organization, tactics, techniques and weaponry.^[183]^[184]

He also made ethnographic descriptions of Celtic and Germanic peoples, including subjects such as social and military organization, religion and language, which even today are required study for experts in the various fields.^[184]

He likewise described geographical places, such as the Hercynian Forest,^[185] and in his writings he describes important aspects that allow a better understanding of the politics of the Roman Republic in the last years of the 1st century BC and of figures such as Pompey, Cicero, Cato and others.^[183]

It is also known that he was curious about many subjects, from Greek philosophy to astronomy, including sacred and linguistic subjects. From references in other classical authors it is known that Caesar composed a treatise on astronomy, another on linguistics and another on auguries, but they have been lost and not even a paragraph of them is known.

It is also known from Suetonius that he composed a treatise in his own defense called the Anticato, two books on Analogy and at least one poem called The Journey. In his youth he wrote the Praises of Hercules, a tragedy titled Oedipus and a Collection of selected sayings.^[186] It seems that his dispatches to the Senate, his letters to Cicero and his private correspondence were preserved. However, Augustus forbade his librarian to have any of these documents copied or published, and so they ended up being lost.^[187] It is known that he was a magnificent orator, for both Plutarch and Suetonius mention it, and it seems that Cicero and Cornelius Nepos also endorsed this opinion.^[188] It is also known that he used a Latin of great perfection.^[189]

Caesar's known work cannot be taken as that of a modern historian, for that was not his intention. The works that survive and whose authorship is not disputed, that is, the Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars, were an instrument of propaganda and a progress report for the Senate, not a work like those of Tacitus or Polybius, so all his statements, especially the political ones, must be analyzed with a critical spirit.^[190] The fact that most of Caesar's literary work has been lost is a drawback that, though common to most classical authors, is no less regrettable, and it has prevented a reasoned critique of Caesar as an author, since historians can only rely on books that, despite being among the most important in Western History, were nonetheless more an instrument of propaganda than a display of erudition.^[191]

Even so, with all their limitations, his writings are in many cases the only ancient testimony we have on many aspects of the peoples, usages and customs of the time.^[192]

Julius Caesar in literature and film

Julius Caesar has frequently been portrayed in literary and cinematic works. In literature, the following stand out:

The tragedy Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, probably Caesar's most celebrated appearance in literature.

His appearance in Cleopatra, by Emil Ludwig, which describes Julius Caesar as warrior and lover.

The play Caesar and Cleopatra, by the British playwright George Bernard Shaw.

The historical novel The Ides of March, by Thornton Wilder, written in epistolary form, which was praised by Jorge Luis Borges himself.^[193]

Likewise, Jorge Luis Borges, in Los conjurados (1985), dedicated a poem to him which, referring to his assassination, begins: Here is what the daggers left.... The text concludes by foretelling his historical mark with the phrase "... whose great shadow will be the whole world".^[194]

"The Plot", a short story by Jorge Luis Borges included in his book El hacedor, alludes in the first of its two paragraphs to the assassination of Julius Caesar.

The novel Caesar, by Allan Massie, which Adrian Goldsworthy himself recommends for its fidelity to the historical facts.^[195]

In the fourth canto of the Divine Comedy, by Dante, Caesar appears in Limbo alongside Hector and Aeneas as a hero of pagan antiquity who did not receive baptism but who was distinguished by his clemency.^[196]

Caesar is one of the characters who appear in the series of historical novels by Colleen McCullough.

Caesar is also the protagonist of the opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto, by Georg Friedrich Händel, premiered in London in 1724.

As for film, the character has appeared in numerous works, from the big screen to television, either as protagonist or as a secondary character.

One of the most highly regarded, both for the quality of the film and for that of its actors, is the 1953 film Julius Caesar, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, whose leading roles were played by Marlon Brando (as Mark Antony), Louis Calhern (as Caesar), Deborah Kerr (as Portia) and James Mason (as Brutus). With music by Miklós Rózsa, the screenplay is an adaptation of Shakespeare's play. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, of which it won one.^[197]

Another of the most awarded and best-known films in which Caesar is a protagonist is the 1963 film Cleopatra. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with cinematography by Leon Shamroy and music by Alex North, the leading roles were played by Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, Richard Burton as Mark Antony, and Rex Harrison as Caesar. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, of which it won four.^[198]

In the world of comics, undoubtedly one of the most celebrated portrayals of Caesar is the character that came from the pen and brush of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, the antagonist (arrogant, proud, but in the end always just) of their famous character Asterix.

In the fourth season of the series Spartacus, Caesar is played (in a very free and not very historical version) by the actor Todd Lasance.

On Netflix, the series Roman Empire (2016-2019) depicts, simultaneously as a documentary and as a television series, the periods of Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius and Caligula.^[199]

Filmography of the character

Year	Film	Director	Actor
1908	Julius Caesar	James Stuart Blackton/William V. Ranous	Charles Kent
1911	Julius Caesar	Frank R. Benson	Guy Rathbone
1917	Cleopatra	J. Gordon Edwards	Fritz Leiber
1934	Cleopatra	Cecil B. DeMille	Warren William
1945	Caesar and Cleopatra	Gabriel Pascal	Claude Rains
1950	Julius Caesar	David Bradley	Harold Tasker
1953	Julius Caesar	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	Louis Calhern
1960	Spartacus	Stanley Kubrick	John Gavin
1963	Cleopatra	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	Rex Harrison
1970	Julius Caesar	Stuart Burge	John Gielgud
1979	Julius Caesar	Michael Langham	Sonny Jim Gaines
1999	Cleopatra	Franc Roddam	Timothy Dalton
1999	Asterix & Obelix Take On Caesar	Claude Zidi	Gottfried John
2001	Vercingétorix	Jacques Dorfmann	Klaus Maria Brandauer
2002	Julius Caesar	Uli Edel	Jeremy Sisto
2002	Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra	Alain Chabat	Alain Chabat
2003	Augustus: The First Emperor	Roger Young	Gérard Klein
2005	Rome	Various	Ciarán Hinds
2008	Asterix at the Olympic Games	Frédéric Forestier and Thomas Langmann	Alain Delon
2012	Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia	Laurent Tirard	Fabrice Luchini
2018	Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion	Alexandre Astier, Louis Clichy	Animation

Chronology

July 12/13, 100 BC – Born in Rome.
82 BC – Escapes Sulla's persecutions
81/79 BC – Military service in Asia and Cilicia
70s BC – Career as a lawyer
69 BC – Quaestor in Hispania Ulterior
65 BC – Aedile
63 BC – Elected pontifex maximus and urban praetor; Catiline conspiracy
59 BC – Consul for the first time; beginning of the First Triumvirate
58 BC – Proconsul: the campaign in Gaul begins
54 BC – Death of Julia
53 BC – Death of Crassus: end of the triumvirate
52 BC – Battle of Alesia
49 BC – Crosses the Rubicon, the civil war begins, Dictator for the first time.
48 BC – Defeats Pompey in Greece; becomes Roman dictator for the second time
47 BC – Campaign in Egypt, meets Cleopatra
46 BC
- January 1: Caesar is appointed dictator for the third time.
- April 16: Defeat of the Pompeians in Africa at the Battle of Thapsus. Cato and Metellus Scipio die
45 BC
- January 1: Caesar is appointed dictator for the fourth time
- March 17: At Munda, Caesar defeats the Pompeians of Hispania, commanded by Titus Atius Labienus, who died in battle, and Pompey's sons, Gnaeus and Sextus.
- Returns to Rome, dictator for the fourth time
44 BC
- January 1: Caesar is appointed dictator for life, a power similar to that of an Emperor
- February: refuses the diadem offered by Mark Antony
- March 15: assassinated

Eponymy

Astronomy

The lunar crater Julius Caesar is named in his memory.
The name of Caesar's Comet (designation C/-43 K1 of the IAU), one of the brightest of which there is any record, is linked to the story of the deification of Julius Caesar promoted by Augustus.

Titles

Preceded by

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius

Pontifex Maximus
63–44 BC

Succeeded by

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus

Preceded by

Lucius Afranius and
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer

Roman consul
with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus
59 BC

Succeeded by

Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus and
Aulus Gabinius

Preceded by

Gaius Claudius Marcellus and
Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus

Roman consul
with Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus
48 BC

Succeeded by

Quintus Fufius Calenus and
Publius Vatinius

Preceded by

Quintus Fufius Calenus and
Publius Vatinius

Roman consul
with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
46 BC

Succeeded by

Himself

Preceded by

Himself and
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus

Roman consul
sine collega
45 BC

Succeeded by

Quintus Fabius Maximus and
Gaius Trebonius

Preceded by

Gaius Caninius Rebilus and
Gaius Trebonius

Roman consul
with Mark Antony
44 BC

Succeeded by

Publius Cornelius Dolabella and
Mark Antony

Preceded by

Lucius Cornelius Sulla
(82–81 BC)

Roman dictator
Rei gerundae causa
49–44 BC

Succeeded by

Himself

Preceded by

Himself
(49–44 BC)

Roman dictator
Perpetuus
44 BC

Succeeded by

Office abolished

Notes

↑ In the Latin records: C. Iulius C. f. C. n. Caesar.^[1]
↑ Probably in the electoral campaign of 71 BC.^[2]
↑ A first marriage to a certain Cossutia, probably arranged by his father with a wealthy Italic family of equestrian rank, may never have taken place.^[15]
↑ So, for example, Ernst Badian,^[25] Richard Billows,^[26] Luciano Canfora,^[27] Adrian Goldsworthy^[28] or Antony Kamm.^[29]
↑ In reality, Caesar's phrase was not as it is usually quoted, but rather "My wife must not even be an object of suspicion", in Plutarch, Life of Caesar, XI. Even less well known is that the real origin of the famous saying is not that quotation either, but the one that Plutarch repeats in a similar form, but in the 3rd person, in the Life of Cicero, XXIX: "I repudiated her because Caesar's wife must be free not only of any shameful act, but even of any suspicion of one".
↑ Apparently, he received a message. Cato, thinking it was some incriminating document, forced him to read it in public; it turned out to be a love letter from Cato's own sister.
↑ For example, the city of Avaricum, in which, of the forty thousand defenders, only eight hundred remained.
↑ The Romans did not write on paper, but on wooden tablets coated with wax. They used a stylus to inscribe the characters.

References

↑ Groebe, P.; Klotz, A. (1918). "Iulius (131)". Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band X, 1 (in Deutsch).
↑ Canfora 2007, p. 30.
↑ Badian 2009, p. 14; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 51.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 51.
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 Badian 2009, p. 15.
↑ Badian 2009, pp. 15–16.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 53; Gruen 1995, p. 76.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 53.
↑ Gruen 1995, p. 76.
↑ Billows 2011, pp. 77–78; Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 51–52.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 405.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 405; Kamm 2006, p. 150.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 405; Southern 2013, p. 21.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 405; Kamm 2006, p. 150.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 99; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 72.
↑ Billows 2011, pp. 99–100; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 72.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 149; Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 136–137.
↑ Billows 2011, pp. 179–180; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 193.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 206; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 228.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 100; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 113.
↑ Billows 2011, pp. 205–206; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 229.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 294; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 377.
↑ Billows 2011, pp. 404–406.
↑ Carcopino 2004, p. 14.
↑ ^25.0 ^25.1 ^25.2 ^25.3 ^25.4 ^25.5 ^25.6 Badian 2009, p. 16.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 71.
↑ ^27.0 ^27.1 Canfora 2007, p. 383.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 49.
↑ ^29.0 ^29.1 Kamm 2006, p. 20.
↑ Badian 2009, p. 16; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 49.
↑ Billows 2011, p. 71; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 49.
↑ Badian 2009, pp. 16–17.
↑ Badian 2009, p. 17.
↑ Plutarch, Parallel Lives. "Caesar", 1; Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars. "Caesar", 1.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 95.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 94.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 99–108.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 103.
↑ Montanelli 2003, p. 228.
↑ Goldsworthy, Adrian Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, p. 213.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 133.
↑ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Alexander and Caesar". 24, 5.
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar" 1, 7
↑ Antonio Blanco Freijeiro (1992). "La Sevilla antigua". In Francisco Morales Padrón (ed.). Historia de Sevilla (in español). Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla. pp. 19–86. ISBN 84-7405-818-X.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 142–143.
↑ In the election that was held in the Comitia. He had the support, among others, of Titus Labienus, who proposed him in his capacity as tribune.
↑ ^47.0 ^47.1 Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 13.
↑ ^48.0 ^48.1 Montanelli 2003, pp. 221–223.
↑ Mommsen, Theodor, Historia de Roma, vol. 4., p. 201.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 198–199.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 199. He probably left his quaestor in charge of the province.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 210.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 2012.
↑ Cassius Dio, op. cit., 37.54.1-2.
↑ Holland, Tom Rubicón, p. 246.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 215.
↑ Holland, Tom Rubicón, p. 247.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 210–211.
↑ Cassius Dio, op. cit. 38.3
↑ Appian, 2.9.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 227–229.
↑ Montanelli 2003, pp. 229–230.
↑ Goldsworthy, Adrian, Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, p. 215.
↑ ^64.0 ^64.1 Goldsworthy, Adrian Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, p. 215.
↑ ^65.0 ^65.1 ^65.2 Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 224–227.
↑ Suetonius Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 20. There was apparently a popular verse on this subject, which said "Non Bibulo quidquam nuper, sed Cesare factum est: Non Bibulo fieri consulte nil memini", that is, "Nothing is Bibulus's; everything is Caesar's, for no one remembers what the former did".
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 256–257.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 267.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 347 ff..
↑ ^70.0 ^70.1 Caesar, Julius Commentaries on the Gallic War, passim.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 439.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 456.
↑ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Caesar", 15
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 336.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 337–338.
↑ ^76.0 ^76.1 Montanelli 2003, p. 243.
↑ Montanelli 2003, pp. 243–244.
↑ ^78.0 ^78.1 Montanelli 2003, p. 244.
↑ Caesar, Julius. Bellum Civile. Book I, pp. 69, 7.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 485 proposes this date (January 10) as the most probable, although in his biography of Caesar he states that it is impossible to know the exact day on which this event took place; however, in the book by the same author Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, he opts for January 11. Kovaliov, S.I. (Historia de Roma, p. 506, note 201) proposes the 7th as the date, the same day on which the laws were promulgated in the senate, although given the distances between the two cities, this seems unlikely. Kovaliov says:
The real historical circumstances of the crossing are unknown. It cannot be ruled out that Caesar crossed the Rubicon before January 7 and that the tribunes of the plebs found him in Rimini, because it was important for Caesar to show that it was not he who started the civil war. That is why the tradition, which has been favorable to him, presents the events as if the crossing of the boundary had happened after January 7.

In any case, it must be borne in mind that Kovaliov is a historical materialist. The only conclusion is that the date of the crossing of the Rubicon is not definitively established.
↑ Alea iacta est ("The die is cast"). It is commonly believed that Caesar uttered this phrase in Latin. Originally it is a phrase of the Athenian playwright Menander, one of Caesar's favorite authors, and he uttered it in Greek. Suetonius, op.cit. Pompey, 60 and Caesar 32.
↑ ^82.0 ^82.1 Montanelli 2003, p. 245.
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 34
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35.
↑ Montanelli 2003, p. 248.
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35.
↑ ^87.0 ^87.1 "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). Phrase uttered by Caesar in the Roman Senate referring to the ease of his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus. Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35, and regarding the phrase Veni, Vidi, Vici, op. cit., 37
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35 in fine
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 601.
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 24.
↑ Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 38.
↑ ^92.0 ^92.1 ^92.2 ^92.3 Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 39.
↑ Pliny, Naturalis Historia XXXIV, 18.
↑ Goldsworthy 2007, p. 641.
↑ Walter 1970, p. 482.
↑ ^96.0 ^96.1 ^96.2 ^96.3 Walter 1970, p. 483.
↑ Walter 1970, p. 484.
↑ ^98.0 ^98.1 ^98.2 Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 79.
↑ Walter 1970, p. 485.
↑ Walter 1970, p. 486.
↑ Walter 1970, p. 487.
↑ ^102.0 ^102.1 Cassius Dio. Roman History. Book XLIII, 51, 1.
↑ Marcus Tullius Cicero. Letters to Atticus. Book XIV, 9, 3.
↑ Cassius Dio. 47, 27, 2-5.
↑ Horst, Eberhard (1982). Cesare, a cura di Agusto di Guida (in italiano). Milan: Rizzoli. p. 269.
↑ Plutarch. Parallel Lives. "Julius Caesar", 58.
↑ ^107.0 ^107.1 Appian. Roman History. Book XIV. History of the civil wars of the Romans II, 110.
↑ Marcus Tullius Cicero. Letters to Atticus. Book XIII, 31, 3.
↑ Cassius Dio. Roman History. Book XLIII, 47.
↑ Cassius Dio. Roman History. Book XLIII, 49.
↑ McLynn, Frank (2009). Marcus Aurelius: a life. De Capo Press, pp. 349. ISBN 9780786745807.
↑ ^112.0 ^112.1 Montanelli (2003), p. 255.
↑ Walter (1970), p. 491.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 80
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 82 in fine
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), pp. 643–646.
↑ Montanelli (2003), p. 254.
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), p. 650.
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), p. 651.
↑ ^120.0 ^120.1 ^120.2 ^120.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 82
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), p. 652.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 80
↑ Shakespeare, William La Tragedia de Julio César. Act III, scene I
↑ Plutarch, Vidas Paralelas, César, 66
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 84-85.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 81
↑ See the etymology of the word Käiser in the DRAE; as for the etymology of Tsar, it comes from the Russian царь, in turn from the Slavonic цѣсарь, which derives from the Latin caesar, as can be seen on this website
↑ Carcopino, Jerôme (2004): Julio César. El proceso clásico de la concentración del poder, p. 257 seqq.
↑ ^129.0 ^129.1 ^129.2 ^129.3 ^129.4 ^129.5 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 44.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 88
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, Vespasiano, 23.4
↑ ^132.0 ^132.1 ^132.2 ^132.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 50.
↑ Plutarch, Vidas paralelas, Bruto, 5.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 51
↑ ^135.0 ^135.1 ^135.2 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 52.
↑ ^136.0 ^136.1 ^136.2 Pina Polo, Francisco (1999). La crisis de la República (133-44 a.C.) (in español). Madrid: Síntesis. ISBN 9788477386735. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), p. 606.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 40.
↑ Syme, Ronald (1989). La revolución romana (in español). pp. 112–134.
↑ ^140.0 ^140.1 ^140.2 ^140.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 41
↑ ^141.0 ^141.1 ^141.2 ^141.3 ^141.4 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 42.
↑ ^142.0 ^142.1 ^142.2 ^142.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 43.
↑ Suetonius, César, 76.
↑ ^144.0 ^144.1 Suetonius, César, 54.
↑ Harl, Kenneth (): Coinage in the Roman Economy, 53.
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), p. 633.
↑ Burnett, Andrew (1987): Coinage in the Roman World, p. 36.
↑ (Burnett 1987: 197).
↑ Meliani, Chiara et alii, Atlas Ilustrado de la Antigua Roma, p. 111
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 64, says:
Caesar was very skilled in the handling of arms and horses and endured fatigue to an incredible degree; on the march he went ahead of the army, sometimes on horseback, and more often on foot, bareheaded in spite of sun and rain. He covered long distances with incredible speed, without baggage, in a hired carriage, traveling in this way up to a hundred miles a day. If rivers held him up, he crossed them by swimming or on inflated skins, and he often arrived ahead of his messengers.
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 53-54, relates for example:
In Alexandria he attacked a bridge, but an unexpected sortie by the enemy forced him to leap into a boat, pursued by a great number of enemies; he threw himself into the sea and swam the distance of two hundred paces to another ship, holding his right hand out of the water so that the writings he carried would not get wet, and holding his general's cloak in his teeth so as not to leave that garment to the enemy.
↑ Suetonius, op. cit., 62-65
↑ Suetonius, op. cit, 66-75
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 61
↑ Cowan (2007), p. 25.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 1-24-26
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 69-70.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 70-2.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 71-4.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 79-80.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 82-83.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 87-88.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 88-6.
↑ Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 89.
↑ ^165.0 ^165.1 ^165.2 Cowan (2007), pp. 26–27.
↑ ^166.0 ^166.1 Julius Caesar, Comentarios de la guerra civil, 3 84-99.
↑ Plutarch, Vidas paralelas, Pompeyo, 69-72.
↑ ^168.0 ^168.1 Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 12-3.
↑ Cowan (2007), p. 15.
↑ Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 13-2.
↑ ^171.0 ^171.1 Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 15-2.
↑ Frontinus, Strategicon, 12-b-17.
↑ Cowan (2007), p. 17.
↑ ^174.0 ^174.1 Cowan (2007), p. 18.
↑ Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 18-4-5
↑ Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 70-78
↑ ^177.0 ^177.1 Cowan (2007), p. 30.
↑ ^178.0 ^178.1 Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 81.
↑ ^179.0 ^179.1 ^179.2 Cowan (2007), p. 31.
↑ Anonymous, Guerra de África, 81-84
↑ Cowan (2007), p. 32.
↑ César, Gayo Julio y Autores del Corpus Cesariano, Guerra Civil; Guerra de Alejandría; Guerra de África; Guerra de Hispania, Introduction
↑ ^183.0 ^183.1 César, Gayo Julio y Autores del Corpus Cesariano, Guerra Civil; Guerra de Alejandría; Guerra de África; Guerra de Hispania
↑ ^184.0 ^184.1 César, Gayo Julio, Guerra de las Galias
↑ César, Gayo Julio, Guerra de las Galias, 6.24.2, 25.1
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 56
↑ Suetonius, op. cit., 56 in fine
↑ Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 55
↑ Caerols, José Joaquín (2002). Introducción a los Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias (in español). Col. Bibiblioteca temática. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1..
↑ Caerols, José Joaquín (2002). op. cit. (in español). Col.Biblioteca temática. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. pp. 24–26. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1..
↑ Caerols, José Joaquín (2002). op. cit. (in español). Col.Biblioteca temática. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1..
↑ Goldsworthy (2007).
↑ Wilder, Thornton Los idus de marzo. Editorial Edhasa, 2005, in whose introduction one reads: "in the case of The Ides of March, besides success, it received the admiration of Jorge Luis Borges".
↑ Borges, Jorge Luis. Los conjurados, in "Obras completas 3 (1975-1985)", 1st edition. ISBN 978-950-07-3451-6. Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 2011, p. 498.
↑ Goldsworthy (2007), p. 666.
↑ Alighieri, Dante. La Divina Comedia. Editorial Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1994, pp. 44 and 110 (commentary).
↑ It was nominated for the Oscars for Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Original Score, Best Picture, Best Black-and-White Cinematography and Best Art Direction, and won only the last of these.
↑ It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Original Score, Best Color Costume Design and Best Special Effects, and won those for Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Color Costume Design and Best Special Effects.
↑ Web page of the series Roman Empire, on Netflix (Accessed Monday, May 6, 2019)

Bibliography

Classical sources

César, Gayo Julio (1798). Guerra de las Galias (in español). Complete work. Translated by Valentín García Yebra, 3 bilingual Latin volumes. Madrid: Editorial Gredos.

Volumen I: Libros I-II-III (in español). 2nd revised ed. 2nd reprint, 1996. ISBN 978-84-249-3547-4.
Volumen II: Libros IV-V-VI (in español). 2nd edition, 1996. ISBN 978-84-249-1020-4.
Volumen III: Libro VII (in español). 2nd edition, 1989. ISBN 978-84-249-1021-1.

–. Guerra de las Galias (in español). Complete work. Translated by Valentín García Yebra, 2 annotated Latin volumes. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. {{cite book}}: |author= has numeric name (help)

Volumen I: Libros I-II-III-IV (in español). 9th revised edition, 1999. ISBN 978-84-249-3388-3.
Volumen II: Libros V-VI-VII (in español). 9th edition, 1997. ISBN 978-84-249-3389-0.

–. Guerra de las Galias (in español). Complete work. Translated by José Joaquín Caerols. Madrid: Alianza editorial, Colección Clásicos de Grecia y Roma. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1. {{cite book}}: |author= has numeric name (help)
– & Autores del Corpus Cesariano. Guerra Civil; Guerra de Alejandría; Guerra de África; Guerra de Hispania (in español). 2005. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. ISBN 978-84-249-2781-3.
– (1984). Guerra Civil (in español). Complete work. Translated by J. Calonge, 2 bilingual Latin volumes. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. {{cite book}}: |author= has numeric name (help)

Volumen I: Libros I-II (in español). 2nd edition, 1994. ISBN 978-84-249-3530-6.
Volumen II: Libro III (in español). 2nd edition, 1989. ISBN 978-84-249-3531-3.

– (1985). Guerra Civil (in español). Translated by J. Calonge, one annotated Latin volume, 6th revised edition, 1995. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. ISBN 978-84-249-3393-7. {{cite book}}: |author= has numeric name (help)
Frontino, Sexto Julio (2005). Los Cuatro Libros de los Exemplos, Consejos e Avisos de la Guerra (Strategematon) (in español). Ministerio de Defensa. Centro de Publicaciones. ISBN 978-84-9781-169-9.
Apiano. Historia romana (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. ISBN 978-84-249-1661-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

Volumen I: Historia romana I (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 1994. ISBN 978-84-249-3550-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Volumen II: Historia romana II: Guerras civiles. Libros I-II (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 1985. ISBN 978-84-249-3551-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Volumen III: Historia romana III: Guerras civiles. Libros III-V (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. 1985. ISBN 978-84-249-3552-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

Eutropio, Flavio y Aurelio Víctor, Sexto (1999). Breviario/ Libro de los Césares (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. ISBN 978-84-249-1993-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Plutarco (2007). Vidas paralelas: Obra Completa, Volumen VI: Alejandro & César; Agesilao & Pompeyo; Sertorio & Eúmenes (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. ISBN 978-84-249-2881-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Suetonio Tranquilo, Gayo. Vida de los doce césares (in español). Complete work. Madrid: Editorial Gredos.

Volumen I: Libros I-III (in español). 1992 [1st edition, 2nd printing]. ISBN 978-84-249-1492-9.
Volumen II: Libros IV-VIII (in español). 1992 [1st edition, 2nd printing]. ISBN 978-84-249-1494-3.

Veleyo Patérculo y otros autores (2000). Historia Romana (in español). Madrid: Editorial Gredos. Col. Biblioteca Clásica. ISBN 978-84-249-2284-9.

Historiography

Badian, E. (2009). "From the Iulii to Caesar". In Griffin, M. (ed.). A Companion to Julius Caesar. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781405149235.
Billows, R. (2011). Julio César. El coloso de Roma (in español). Translated by José Luis Gil Aristu. Editorial Gredos. ISBN 9788424920036.
Cabrero Piquero, Javier (2004). Julio César. El hombre y su época (in español). Dastin Export S.L. ISBN 84-96249-60-3.
Canfora, L. (2007). Julio César. Un dictador democrático (in español). Translated by Xavier Garí de Barbará y Alida Ares. Editorial Ariel. ISBN 9788434452282.
Carcopino, J. (2004). Julio César, el proceso clásico de la concentración del poder (in español). Translated by Juan Antonio Campuzano. Círculo de Lectores. ISBN 9788467204966. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
Cowan, Ross (2007). Roman Battle Tactics. 109 BC-AD 313. Illustrations by Adam Hook. Osprey Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84603-184-7.
Southern, P. (2013). Augusto (in español). Translated by José Luis Gil Aristu. Editorial Gredos. ISBN 9788424936723.
Goldsworthy, Adrian (2007). Grandes Generales del Ejército romano (in español) (3rd reprint, March 2007 ed.). Ed. Ariel S.A. ISBN 978-84-344-6770-5.
Goldsworthy, A. (2007). César. La biografía definitiva (in español). Translated by Teresa Martín Lorenzo. La Esfera de los Libros. ISBN 9788497346580.
Gruen, E. S. (1995). The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520201531. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
Kamm, A. (2006). Julius Caesar. A Life. Routledge. ISBN 9780203015346.
Kovaliov, Serguei Ivanovich (1998). Historia de Roma (in español). Translated by Domingo Plácido. Madrid: Akal Ediciones. ISBN 978-84-460-2822-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Mommsen, Theodor (2003). Historia de Roma. Vol V: Fundación de la Monarquía Militar (in español). Ediciones Turner, S.L. ISBN 978-84-7506-608-0.
Montanelli, Indro (2003). Historia de Roma (in español). Barcelona: Debolsillo. ISBN 978-84-9759-315-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Roldán, José Manuel (2008). Césares: Julio César, Augusto, Tiberio, Calígula, Claudio y Nerón (in español). La Esfera de los Libros. ISBN 978-84-9734-721-1.
Simkins, Michael (1984). The Roman Army. From Cesar to Trajan. Illustrations by Ron Embleton. Osprey Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-85045-528-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
Walter, Gerard (1970). César: Obra completa (in español). La Habana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales. ISBN 956-06-0465-X. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

External links

Works by or about Julius Caesar on Spanish Wikisource.
Works by or about Julius Caesar on Latin Wikisource.
Works of Julius Caesar in Latin, on the website The Latin Library.
SUETONIUS: Lives of the Twelve Caesars, I: Life of the Divine Julius (Vita divi Iuli).
- Latin text on Wikisource.
- Latin text on The Latin Library.
- English-Latin text at the Perseus Project; use the "focus" options to switch to Latin and "load" for the bilingual text.
- Spanish text on Wikisource.
- Spanish text in the Biblioteca de Clásicos Grecolatinos.
- Spanish text in the Biblioteca Tercer Milenio.
- Spanish text on Webhistoria: part 1; part 2.

PLUTARCH: Parallel Lives: Caesar.
- Greek text on Wikisource.
- Spanish text on Wikisource.
- English text at the Perseus Project

APPIAN: The Civil Wars; II, 149-154: Comparison between Caesar and Alexander.
- Greek and French texts on the website of Philippe Remacle (1944-2011).

NICOLAUS OF DAMASCUS: The Death of Julius Caesar.
- Text in French, with introduction and notes in that language, on the website of Philippe Remacle (1944-2011); 1865 ed.

OVID: Metamorphoses XV, 745-870: The apotheosis of Julius Caesar.
- Latin text on Wikisource.
- Spanish text on Wikisource.

FERRERO, Guglielmo: The Greatness and Decline of Rome (1901-1907), in 6 volumes; Spanish text in the Biblioteca Tercer Milenio.
- Vol. I: The Conquest.
  - I, 14: How Caesar came to be a demagogue.
- Vol. III: End of an Aristocracy.
  - III, 1: Three Days of Storm.
  - III, 2: The Funeral of Caesar.

Works of JULIUS CAESAR, on Intratext, with word search and frequency lists.

Julius Caesar at the Perseus Project.

Julius Caesar in the Bibliotheca Augustana (Augsburg).

Commentary on De bello civile, 3, 88, 3, in Revistas.um.

[2] In the Latin records: C. Iulius C. f. C. n. Caesar.^[1]

[4] Probably in the electoral campaign of 71 BC.^[2]

[18] A first marriage to a certain Cossutia, probably arranged by his father with a wealthy Italic family of equestrian rank, may never have taken place.^[15]

[33] So, for example, Ernst Badian,^[25] Richard Billows,^[26] Luciano Canfora,^[27] Adrian Goldsworthy^[28] or Antony Kamm.^[29]

[52] In reality, Caesar's phrase was not as it is usually quoted, but rather "My wife must not even be an object of suspicion", in Plutarch, Life of Caesar, XI. Even less well known is that the real origin of the famous saying is not that quotation either, but the one that Plutarch repeats in a similar form, but in the 3rd person, in the Life of Cicero, XXIX: "I repudiated her because Caesar's wife must be free not only of any shameful act, but even of any suspicion of one".

[54] Apparently, he received a message. Cato, thinking it was some incriminating document, forced him to read it in public; it turned out to be a love letter from Cato's own sister.

[78] For example, the city of Avaricum, in which, of the forty thousand defenders, only eight hundred remained.

[126] The Romans did not write on paper, but on wooden tablets coated with wax. They used a stylus to inscribe the characters.

[1] Groebe, P.; Klotz, A. (1918). "Iulius (131)". Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band X, 1 (in Deutsch).

[FOOTNOTECanfora200730-3] Canfora 2007, p. 30.

[5] Badian 2009, p. 14; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 51.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy200751-6] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 51.

[FOOTNOTEBadian200915-7] 5.0 ^5.1 Badian 2009, p. 15.

[FOOTNOTEBadian200915–16-8] Badian 2009, pp. 15–16.

[9] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 53; Gruen 1995, p. 76.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy200753-10] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 53.

[FOOTNOTEGruen199576-11] Gruen 1995, p. 76.

[12] Billows 2011, pp. 77–78; Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 51–52.

[FOOTNOTEBillows2011405-13] Billows 2011, p. 405.

[14] Billows 2011, p. 405; Kamm 2006, p. 150.

[15] Billows 2011, p. 405; Southern 2013, p. 21.

[16] Billows 2011, p. 405; Kamm 2006, p. 150.

[17] Billows 2011, p. 99; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 72.

[19] Billows 2011, pp. 99–100; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 72.

[20] Billows 2011, p. 149; Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 136–137.

[21] Billows 2011, pp. 179–180; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 193.

[22] Billows 2011, p. 206; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 228.

[23] Billows 2011, p. 100; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 113.

[24] Billows 2011, pp. 205–206; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 229.

[25] Billows 2011, p. 294; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 377.

[FOOTNOTEBillows2011404–406-26] Billows 2011, pp. 404–406.

[FOOTNOTECarcopino200414-27] Carcopino 2004, p. 14.

[FOOTNOTEBadian200916-28] 25.0 ^25.1 ^25.2 ^25.3 ^25.4 ^25.5 ^25.6 Badian 2009, p. 16.

[FOOTNOTEBillows201171-29] Billows 2011, p. 71.

[FOOTNOTECanfora2007383-30] 27.0 ^27.1 Canfora 2007, p. 383.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy200749-31] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 49.

[FOOTNOTEKamm200620-32] 29.0 ^29.1 Kamm 2006, p. 20.

[34] Badian 2009, p. 16; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 49.

[35] Billows 2011, p. 71; Goldsworthy 2007, p. 49.

[FOOTNOTEBadian200916–17-36] Badian 2009, pp. 16–17.

[FOOTNOTEBadian200917-37] Badian 2009, p. 17.

[38] Plutarch, Parallel Lives. "Caesar", 1; Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars. "Caesar", 1.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy200795-39] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 95.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy200794-40] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 94.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy200799–108-41] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 99–108.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007103-42] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 103.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003228-43] Montanelli 2003, p. 228.

[44] Goldsworthy, Adrian Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, p. 213.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007133-45] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 133.

[46] Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Alexander and Caesar". 24, 5.

[47] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar" 1, 7

[48] Antonio Blanco Freijeiro (1992). "La Sevilla antigua". In Francisco Morales Padrón (ed.). Historia de Sevilla (in español). Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla. pp. 19–86. ISBN 84-7405-818-X.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007142–143-49] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 142–143.

[50] In the election that was held in the Comitia. He had the support, among others, of Titus Labienus, who proposed him in his capacity as tribune.

[autogenerated9-51] 47.0 ^47.1 Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 13.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003221–223-53] 48.0 ^48.1 Montanelli 2003, pp. 221–223.

[55] Mommsen, Theodor, Historia de Roma, vol. 4., p. 201.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007198–199-56] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 198–199.

[57] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 199. He probably left his quaestor in charge of the province.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007210-58] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 210.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy20072012-59] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 2012.

[60] Cassius Dio, op. cit., 37.54.1-2.

[61] Holland, Tom Rubicón, p. 246.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007215-62] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 215.

[63] Holland, Tom Rubicón, p. 247.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007210–211-64] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 210–211.

[65] Cassius Dio, op. cit. 38.3

[66] Appian, 2.9.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007227–229-67] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 227–229.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003229–230-68] Montanelli 2003, pp. 229–230.

[69] Goldsworthy, Adrian, Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, p. 215.

[autogenerated3-70] 64.0 ^64.1 Goldsworthy, Adrian Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, p. 215.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007224–227-71] 65.0 ^65.1 ^65.2 Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 224–227.

[72] Suetonius Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 20. There was apparently a popular verse on this subject, which said "Non Bibulo quidquam nuper, sed Cesare factum est: Non Bibulo fieri consulte nil memini", that is, "Nothing is Bibulus's; everything is Caesar's, for no one remembers what the former did".

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007256–257-73] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 256–257.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007267-74] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 267.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007347_ff.-75] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 347 ff..

[autogenerated1-76] 70.0 ^70.1 Caesar, Julius Commentaries on the Gallic War, passim.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007439-77] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 439.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007456-79] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 456.

[80] Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Caesar", 15

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007336-81] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 336.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007337–338-82] Goldsworthy 2007, pp. 337–338.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003243-83] 76.0 ^76.1 Montanelli 2003, p. 243.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003243–244-84] Montanelli 2003, pp. 243–244.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003244-85] 78.0 ^78.1 Montanelli 2003, p. 244.

[86] Caesar, Julius. Bellum Civile. Book I, pp. 69, 7.

[87] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 485 proposes this date (January 10) as the most probable, although in his biography of Caesar he states that it is impossible to know the exact day on which this event took place; however, in the book by the same author Grandes Generales del Ejército Romano, he opts for January 11. Kovaliov, S.I. (Historia de Roma, p. 506, note 201) proposes the 7th as the date, the same day on which the laws were promulgated in the senate, although given the distances between the two cities, this seems unlikely. Kovaliov says:
The real historical circumstances of the crossing are unknown. It cannot be ruled out that Caesar crossed the Rubicon before January 7 and that the tribunes of the plebs found him in Rimini, because it was important for Caesar to show that it was not he who started the civil war. That is why the tradition, which has been favorable to him, presents the events as if the crossing of the boundary had happened after January 7.

In any case, it must be borne in mind that Kovaliov is a historical materialist. The only conclusion is that the date of the crossing of the Rubicon is not definitively established.

[88] Alea iacta est ("The die is cast"). It is commonly believed that Caesar uttered this phrase in Latin. Originally it is a phrase of the Athenian playwright Menander, one of Caesar's favorite authors, and he uttered it in Greek. Suetonius, op.cit. Pompey, 60 and Caesar 32.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003245-89] 82.0 ^82.1 Montanelli 2003, p. 245.

[90] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 34

[91] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003248-92] Montanelli 2003, p. 248.

[93] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35.

[veni-94] 87.0 ^87.1 "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). Phrase uttered by Caesar in the Roman Senate referring to the ease of his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus. Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35, and regarding the phrase Veni, Vidi, Vici, op. cit., 37

[95] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 35 in fine

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007601-96] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 601.

[97] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 24.

[pag24-98] Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 38.

[Suetonio39-99] 92.0 ^92.1 ^92.2 ^92.3 Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 39.

[100] Pliny, Naturalis Historia XXXIV, 18.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007641-101] Goldsworthy 2007, p. 641.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970482-102] Walter 1970, p. 482.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970483-103] 96.0 ^96.1 ^96.2 ^96.3 Walter 1970, p. 483.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970484-104] Walter 1970, p. 484.

[Suetonio79-105] 98.0 ^98.1 ^98.2 Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, "Caesar", 79.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970485-106] Walter 1970, p. 485.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970486-107] Walter 1970, p. 486.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970487-108] Walter 1970, p. 487.

[Casio1-109] 102.0 ^102.1 Cassius Dio. Roman History. Book XLIII, 51, 1.

[110] Marcus Tullius Cicero. Letters to Atticus. Book XIV, 9, 3.

[111] Cassius Dio. 47, 27, 2-5.

[112] Horst, Eberhard (1982). Cesare, a cura di Agusto di Guida (in italiano). Milan: Rizzoli. p. 269.

[113] Plutarch. Parallel Lives. "Julius Caesar", 58.

[Apiano110-114] 107.0 ^107.1 Appian. Roman History. Book XIV. History of the civil wars of the Romans II, 110.

[115] Marcus Tullius Cicero. Letters to Atticus. Book XIII, 31, 3.

[116] Cassius Dio. Roman History. Book XLIII, 47.

[117] Cassius Dio. Roman History. Book XLIII, 49.

[118] McLynn, Frank (2009). Marcus Aurelius: a life. De Capo Press, pp. 349. ISBN 9780786745807.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003255-119] 112.0 ^112.1 Montanelli (2003), p. 255.

[FOOTNOTEWalter1970491-120] Walter (1970), p. 491.

[121] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 80

[122] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 82 in fine

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007643–646-123] Goldsworthy (2007), pp. 643–646.

[FOOTNOTEMontanelli2003254-124] Montanelli (2003), p. 254.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007650-125] Goldsworthy (2007), p. 650.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007651-127] Goldsworthy (2007), p. 651.

[Suetonio82-128] 120.0 ^120.1 ^120.2 ^120.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 82

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007652-129] Goldsworthy (2007), p. 652.

[130] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 80

[131] Shakespeare, William La Tragedia de Julio César. Act III, scene I

[132] Plutarch, Vidas Paralelas, César, 66

[133] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 84-85.

[134] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 81

[135] See the etymology of the word Käiser in the DRAE; as for the etymology of Tsar, it comes from the Russian царь, in turn from the Slavonic цѣсарь, which derives from the Latin caesar, as can be seen on this website

[136] Carcopino, Jerôme (2004): Julio César. El proceso clásico de la concentración del poder, p. 257 seqq.

[su44-137] 129.0 ^129.1 ^129.2 ^129.3 ^129.4 ^129.5 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 44.

[138] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 88

[139] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, Vespasiano, 23.4

[su50-140] 132.0 ^132.1 ^132.2 ^132.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 50.

[141] Plutarch, Vidas paralelas, Bruto, 5.

[142] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 51

[su52-143] 135.0 ^135.1 ^135.2 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 52.

[pinapolo-144] 136.0 ^136.1 ^136.2 Pina Polo, Francisco (1999). La crisis de la República (133-44 a.C.) (in español). Madrid: Síntesis. ISBN 9788477386735. Retrieved February 6, 2016.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007606-145] Goldsworthy (2007), p. 606.

[146] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 40.

[147] Syme, Ronald (1989). La revolución romana (in español). pp. 112–134.

[su41-148] 140.0 ^140.1 ^140.2 ^140.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 41

[su42-149] 141.0 ^141.1 ^141.2 ^141.3 ^141.4 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 42.

[su43-150] 142.0 ^142.1 ^142.2 ^142.3 Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 43.

[151] Suetonius, César, 76.

[autogenerated6-152] 144.0 ^144.1 Suetonius, César, 54.

[153] Harl, Kenneth (): Coinage in the Roman Economy, 53.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007633-154] Goldsworthy (2007), p. 633.

[155] Burnett, Andrew (1987): Coinage in the Roman World, p. 36.

[156] (Burnett 1987: 197).

[157] Meliani, Chiara et alii, Atlas Ilustrado de la Antigua Roma, p. 111

[158] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 64, says:
Caesar was very skilled in the handling of arms and horses and endured fatigue to an incredible degree; on the march he went ahead of the army, sometimes on horseback, and more often on foot, bareheaded in spite of sun and rain. He covered long distances with incredible speed, without baggage, in a hired carriage, traveling in this way up to a hundred miles a day. If rivers held him up, he crossed them by swimming or on inflated skins, and he often arrived ahead of his messengers.

[159] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 53-54, relates for example:
In Alexandria he attacked a bridge, but an unexpected sortie by the enemy forced him to leap into a boat, pursued by a great number of enemies; he threw himself into the sea and swam the distance of two hundred paces to another ship, holding his right hand out of the water so that the writings he carried would not get wet, and holding his general's cloak in his teeth so as not to leave that garment to the enemy.

[160] Suetonius, op. cit., 62-65

[161] Suetonius, op. cit, 66-75

[162] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 61

[FOOTNOTECowan200725-163] Cowan (2007), p. 25.

[164] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 1-24-26

[165] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 69-70.

[166] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 70-2.

[167] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 71-4.

[168] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 79-80.

[169] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 82-83.

[170] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 87-88.

[171] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 88-6.

[172] Caesar, Julius Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias, 89.

[FOOTNOTECowan200726–27-173] 165.0 ^165.1 ^165.2 Cowan (2007), pp. 26–27.

[77c721e7-174] 166.0 ^166.1 Julius Caesar, Comentarios de la guerra civil, 3 84-99.

[175] Plutarch, Vidas paralelas, Pompeyo, 69-72.

[Tria12-176] 168.0 ^168.1 Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 12-3.

[FOOTNOTECowan200715-177] Cowan (2007), p. 15.

[178] Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 13-2.

[autogenerated7-179] 171.0 ^171.1 Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 15-2.

[180] Frontinus, Strategicon, 12-b-17.

[FOOTNOTECowan200717-181] Cowan (2007), p. 17.

[FOOTNOTECowan200718-182] 174.0 ^174.1 Cowan (2007), p. 18.

[183] Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 18-4-5

[184] Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 70-78

[FOOTNOTECowan200730-185] 177.0 ^177.1 Cowan (2007), p. 30.

[Tria81-186] 178.0 ^178.1 Anonymous, Tria Bella, Guerra de África, 81.

[FOOTNOTECowan200731-187] 179.0 ^179.1 ^179.2 Cowan (2007), p. 31.

[188] Anonymous, Guerra de África, 81-84

[FOOTNOTECowan200732-189] Cowan (2007), p. 32.

[190] César, Gayo Julio y Autores del Corpus Cesariano, Guerra Civil; Guerra de Alejandría; Guerra de África; Guerra de Hispania, Introduction

[autogenerated4-191] 183.0 ^183.1 César, Gayo Julio y Autores del Corpus Cesariano, Guerra Civil; Guerra de Alejandría; Guerra de África; Guerra de Hispania

[autogenerated5-192] 184.0 ^184.1 César, Gayo Julio, Guerra de las Galias

[193] César, Gayo Julio, Guerra de las Galias, 6.24.2, 25.1

[194] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 56

[195] Suetonius, op. cit., 56 in fine

[196] Suetonius, Vida de los doce Césares, César, 55

[197] Caerols, José Joaquín (2002). Introducción a los Comentarios a la Guerra de las Galias (in español). Col. Bibiblioteca temática. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1..

[198] Caerols, José Joaquín (2002). op. cit. (in español). Col.Biblioteca temática. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. pp. 24–26. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1..

[199] Caerols, José Joaquín (2002). op. cit. (in español). Col.Biblioteca temática. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-84-206-4092-1..

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007-200] Goldsworthy (2007).

[201] Wilder, Thornton Los idus de marzo. Editorial Edhasa, 2005, in whose introduction one reads: "in the case of The Ides of March, besides success, it received the admiration of Jorge Luis Borges".

[202] Borges, Jorge Luis. Los conjurados, in "Obras completas 3 (1975-1985)", 1st edition. ISBN 978-950-07-3451-6. Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 2011, p. 498.

[FOOTNOTEGoldsworthy2007666-203] Goldsworthy (2007), p. 666.

[204] Alighieri, Dante. La Divina Comedia. Editorial Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1994, pp. 44 and 110 (commentary).

[205] It was nominated for the Oscars for Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Original Score, Best Picture, Best Black-and-White Cinematography and Best Art Direction, and won only the last of these.

[206] It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Original Score, Best Color Costume Design and Best Special Effects, and won those for Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Color Costume Design and Best Special Effects.

[207] Web page of the series Roman Empire, on Netflix (Accessed Monday, May 6, 2019)

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Gaius Julius Caesar
Bust of Julius Caesar in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
Born	Gaius Iulius Caesar July 12 or 13, 100 BC Rome, Roman Republic
Died	March 15, 44 BC (aged 55) Rome, Roman Republic
Title	Dictator of the Roman Republic
Spouse(s)	Cornelia (84 BC–68 BC) Pompeia (68 BC–63 BC) Calpurnia (59 BC–44 BC)
Children	Julia Caesarion (illegitimate) Augustus (adopted)
Parents	Gaius Julius Caesar (father) Aurelia (mother)

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Julius Caesar

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