Gaius Julius Caesar

Robert Chase

            July 12, 100BC Gaius Julius Caesar was born into a noble family in the flourishing city of Rome. His mother was of the Aurelia clan and his father was of the Julian clan, of which could be traced back to Anease. Gaius Julius Caesar’s mother was his first teacher. She taught him about endurance, frugality, simplicity, religious devotion, upright dealings, and how to avoid wrongdoing. At the age of seven young Caesar started attending a traditional school. Julius was required to recite Roman codes of laws and perfect the art of making social contracts.

            In the year 93BC Julius’s father was elected praetor, which is equivalent to a state judge in our society. All the things that his parents taught him they told him that they would help him later in his life, though it happens it wasn’t much later in his life that they came into play. In the year 85BC Julius’s father died, Julius was now a 15-year-old boy who was the head of the house and faced many decisions. Julius’s clan had wanted him to have a religious career as a priest of Jupiter. Julius however had other plans, if he had chosen to become a priest of Jupiter he wouldn’t have had much contact with the outside world, so he chose to dive head first into a career in politics. Julius’s clan had also arranged for him to marry Cossutia, from an Equestrian family, he refused. Instead, he married Cornelia the daughter of Cinna, in 84BC.

            In 83-82BC Sulla a former consul returned from battle and made himself dictator of Rome. Once he was dictator he went around and killed all of his political enemies, one of which was Julius’s father-in-law. Though he himself narrowly escaped being killed, he was spared because of his youth and inexperience. Sulla then told Julius that he had to divorce Cornelia and break his ties with Cinna’s clan. Julius refused and fled for the hills were he lived for some time as a fugitive. His mother soon was able to get assurance that Julius could return safely to Rome, though there was one condition, that Sulla would have an interview with Julius. Sulla kept his promise and let Julius return.

            Julius still a bit weary of Sulla decided he should stay out of the way. Julius was soon appointed to the staff of the governor of Asia. He arrived in Asia and was given the task of traveling to Bythania to bring back a fleet of ships. The ships were needed for the war against the Mithridates. While on this task Julius made a diplomatic mistake of serving a king, a mere subject of Rome and because Julius was the son of a senator it wasn’t right for him to have served a subject. There was also another thing that come from this mistake, the kings cupbearers were know to be the kings homosexual partners and because of that people made the accusation that Julius might be one of the kings partners. Julius’s next task was much more successful. He was sent to help overtake the capital city of the island of Lesbos on which he won the civic crow for his courage.

            In 78BC Julius got word that Sulla had died so he headed for Rome again. In Rome it was a normal practice for rising young politicians to perform prosecution. Where the young politician would bring someone into court and argue a case against him. This was the best way for them to become know. Julius decided to prosecute the former governor of Macedonia on extortion of money from his provincial subjects. Julius fought a good case but his credibility was lost when the governor brought up Julius’ possible homosexuality and the case was then acquitted. In the year 75BC Julius left Rome to find the same scholar that taught Cicero, who lived in Rhodes. On his way to Rhodes Julius’ ship was captured by pirates and he was taken hostage.

The pirates now had a noble man in their hands and decided to hold a ransom on his life for 12,000 gold pieces. Though these pirates were “blood thirsty” vicious men, Julius, as if the pirates were the prisoners and he the captor, joked with them saying that their ransom was too little. He also told them that when the ransom was paid and they let him go he would come back and crucify each and every one of them. Julius soon was able to convince nearby communities to raise the ransom money for him. Soon after the pirates were paid the ransom money Julius hired ships with seamen to go and arrest the pirates on the island that he had been held captive. He brought them to the Governor, though he did nothing so Julius decided to keep his promise to the pirates and he crucified each and every one of them. Julius then continued his journey to Rhodes.

 In the following years Julius would create a large debt for himself by hiring and by bribing people to secure a position within Roman politics. A few months later the Mithridates in Asia were revolting against the Romans. So Julius raised his own army without the government’s permission, they went to help the Roman troops. By the year 73BC the young Julius Caesar was a tough leader capable of making decisive actions. Within this same year his mother’s cousin had died and his position was being held for Julius in Rome, so he left to return to Rome. Years later in 69BC Cornelia, Julius’s wife died and around the same time of Cornelia’s death Julius was elected as quaestar, which had a term of two years. After serving his term as quaestar, in 67BC, Julius was remarried. In 65BC Julius won the rank of curule aedile, which is an official who is in charge of the buildings, streets, sanitation, and setting up public games. As curule aedile, Julius setup many chariot races and gladiator tournaments. Three years later in 62BC Julius was elected preator, which was a very respected and important position with the term of one year. After his term as preator Julius was elected as the governor of Further Spain, in 61BC. In the year 60BC, Julius returned to Rome from Further Spain to try and run for the consulship. In the year 59BC, Julius was elected as consul.

In March of 58BC, Julius mobilized his troops in Gaul. The first tribe his troops ran into were the Helvetii, who were easily defeated. Through many hard battles in Gaul Julius began to dominate most of the area. In 57BC, The Roman senate declared a Thanksgiving that lasted fifteen days long to celebrate Julius’s conquests in Gaul. Julius was able to defeat most of the tribes living below the Rhine River, below where the Germanic tribes lived. He also made a conquest to Great Britain and was unsuccessful the first try but when they came back they were quite successful. Though they were successful they had to leave the island because they were running out of food and the rough English Channel was destroying their ships. In 54BC, Julius’s daughter died while in childbirth. In 51BC, Julius Caesar had finally defeated the Germanic tribes and had control of Gaul.

On January 10^th, 49BC, Julius Caesar lead two of his legions towards Italy. This was committing treason according to the laws set in place by the former dictator Sulla. As Julius’s troops marched into Italy they were heard muttering the immoral phrase, “The die is cast.” When Pompey, a former ally of Julius’s, heard that Julius was coming he fled for Greece. When Julius reached Rome he made himself temporary dictator. Now that he was dictator he had all of the Roman troops at his disposal. He started to build ships to go after Pompey. Julius ended up leaving before all the ships were completed and some of his men had to stay behind. Julius then sailed to Spain to take over Pompey’s troops; his troops surrendered and joined Julius’s forces with little effort. Julius then sailed toward Greece to find Pompey, the general without an army. When Julius reached Greece he found that Pompey had gathered a small army but Pompey and his men were caught by surprise because Julius had left Rome earlier than they had expected. Pompey narrowly escaped being killed and some of his men were spared because Julius thought he would need them later on when he ran for consul. Pompey and his men fled to Egypt. When Pompey arrived Egypt’s ruler beheaded him because Egypt was going through their own turmoil between he and his sister, Cleopatra, and thought that by beheading one of Caesars enemies he could have Rome on his side. Julius arrived soon after in Egypt and was disappointed to hear that they had beheaded Pompey.

Julius then returned to Rome a couple months later. In 48BC Julius was elected as consul for his second term. In August of 49BC, Julius suppressed a revolt by the Mithridates, who were trying to enlarge their kingdom. After defeating the Mithridates Julius said his most famous phase, “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, which means we came, we saw, we conquered. Julius then returned to Rome after a small skirmish with some of the last Pompeian followers in North Africa. Some time after Julius returned to Rome the Senate decided to have a ten-day celebration with a parade to celebrate all of Julius’s military accomplishments.

Julius Caesar only had to leave Rome for one last battle with the Pompeian’s. He left to fight them in November of 46BC. By March 15, 45BC Julius had defeated the last of the Pompeian’s. When Julius returned he was made dictator for life.

As March of 44BC approached, there was a conspiracy brewing that included sixty men in a plot to kill Caesar. The leaders of this conspiracy were Gaius Cassius Longinus and his brother-in-law Marcus Junius Brutus, who was suspected to actually be Julius’s son. Julius Caesar was murdered on March 15^th, 44BC, ironically at the foot of a statue of Pompey. This became to be known as the Ides of March. Some say that when Marcus Brutus, who Julius had spared in Greece, came over to give the second blow with a dagger and Julius said, “You, too, my child?”

Gaius Julius Caesar was a very powerful man in his lifetime; he was very persuasive in making alliances, a spirited general, and a powerful dictator. Julius Caesar had many achievements in his lifetime; he brought the end to the Roman Republic and built a great empire. Some say that Caesar was an unscrupulous tyrant, and destroyed the Roman Republic, though, I agree with the others in saying that the Roman Republic was already being destroyed, self destructing. Julius Caesar made reforms and introduced a new form of government to save the Roman world from extreme chaos. “Among ancient military commanders, he may be second only to Alexander the Great”(Microsoft Encarta 2000). There have been dozens of great military leaders, dozens of great political leaders, and many Powerful leaders, though, in my learning never have I heard of a great leader who was a great politician and also  powerful military leader who was loved by so many people yet at the same time have so many enemies.