History UsefulNotes / JuliusCaesar

After being stripped of his post as Flamen Dialis, Caesar was now able to seek a career in the army that would not have been open had it not been for Sulla. Caesar entered the army and wisely stayed out of the capital, returning only after Sulla's death (one year after he surrendered the dictatorship, and then serving a term after that as Consul). One of Sulla's restrictions, possibly ordered as a joke, only allowed him to ride a donkey into battle. Somehow, he still went on to attain distinction, winning the Civic Crown (equivalent of a medal) in a siege, which entitled him to automatic entry into the Senate[[note]]It was supposed to be attained for saving the life of a soldier from an enemy combatant. However, in practice Roman military decorations were awarded for more trivial deeds as well, in order for the commanders to win popularity among their soldiers; for example, in his ''Attic Nights'' Aulus Gellius quotes Cato the Elder criticizing Roman commander Marcus Fulvius Nobilior for awarding crowns to the soldiers for industry in building a rampart or in digging a well. Suetonius does not specify what Caesar was given the Civic Crown for[[/note]]. He also, during this time, was sent on a mission to Bithynia to secure the help of King Nicomedes, but his lengthy stay at court sprouted (probably false) rumours in Rome that the two were having a homosexual relationship, rumours that were to dog Caesar throughout his career.

Caesar is a controversial figure and historians to this day are divided about him. The Republic he overthrew was extremely corrupt and increasingly ineffective, while he provided strong, stable and popular leadership. He was merciful to his (Roman) enemies and widely respected for his many talents even by opponents like Creator/{{Cicero}}, who in his Philippi told Mark Antony that he was no Caesar. When he died he was either about to take personal power as the dictator, or possibly reform the Republic to accommodate its new responsibilities and peacefully and moderately end the spiral of factional wars that had gone on for a hundred years at that point. It it is one of the great [[WhatIf What Ifs]] of history as to what he would have done. The impact and importance of his legacy in Western civilization are indisputably immense: for the next two thousand years after his death, rulers would invoke and wear his name as a title and honorific.

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in the month [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} his successor]] would rename after him, July (then called ''Quintilis''), in the year 100 BC, to a minor aristocratic family that nonetheless traced its line back to the foundation of Rome, as well as the goddess Venus and the hero [[Literature/TheAeneid Aeneas]]. Caesar's father died when he was 16, making Caesar the head of the household (paterfamilias), and within a year he'd a attained the position of Flamen Dialis[[note]]High Priest of Jupiter, who lived under a series of religious injunctions, most famously being forbidden to ride a horse, touch iron, touch a corpse, spend the night outside the City, or become Consul; in compensation he got a unique hat and a seat in the Senate [[/note]], for which he had to break off his engagement to a plebeian girl and marry Cornelia, the daughter of four-time consul, the populare Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who at that time was allied with Caesar's uncle Marius in a nasty factional fight with the Optimate-backed Sullans. Marius had died about a year before Caesar became a high priest, but he did approve his nephew's nomination, though historians note that there is next to no evidence of any other connection or bond Caesar might have had with "The Third Founder of Rome". When Sulla returned and took over Rome, driving Cinna, Quintus Sertorius and others away (where they would eventually die ignominiously) he unleashed a round of [[ThePurge proscriptions]] in the capital. Anyone whose name was featured in the notices (which is what proscriptions means) was an {{Outlaw}}: they were denied rights and protections, their properties could be seized by the state, and their children and family were permanently barred from political office. This happened, unsurprisingly, to many of Cinna's associates and extended network. Sulla also tried to control and insinuate himself into political life by controlling and regulating the lives of others. He demanded that Julius divorce his wife Cornelia (daughter of the disgraced Cinna) and marry into his circle as a test of loyalty. Caesar refused to do so, and courageously (and some might say foolishly) defied the dictator. Sulla removed Caesar from the priesthood of Flamen Dialis, and Caesar actually went on the run as a NobleFugitive, living hand to mouth in the wild before being caught by Sulla's soldiers. He almost certainly would have died if not for the efforts of his mother Aurelia, who appealed to the Vestal Virgins and other friends to help persuade Sulla into sparing him. Sulla agreed, but not before gritting his teeth and saying, apocryphally, "In this Caesar, I see many Mariuses"[[note]]Roman historians writing after the First Century BCE tend to feature surprisingly prophetic statements and parallels, so that most modern historians see this as an invention by Livy, Plutarch and Appian either out of religious sentiment, or because it's a good story[[/note]].

** He will appear in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' set in Egypt during the reign of UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII.

The most famous Roman in history. Brilliant general, orator, politician and writer. Had nothing to do with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad the salad]] or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarean_section the surgical procedure]]. [[note]]Well, probably. The operation's name comes from the Latin word for 'to cut'; one theory is that the Caesar name, which as a cognomen was a family name, came from an ancestor who was indeed born by Caesarean section. Caesar himself, though, seems to have favoured the explanation that it was something to do with an ancestor who captured a number of war elephants in battle, with the name deriving from a contemporary North African word for 'elephant'. Also, in the Roman area, caesarean sections were only practised to remove a baby from the womb of a dead pregnant woman, which didn't happen here since [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelia_Cotta Caesar's mother]] died when he was in his forties...[[/note]]

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in the month [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} his successor]] would rename after him, July (then called ''Quintilis''), in the year 100 BC, to a minor aristocratic family that nonetheless traced its line back to the foundation of Rome, as well as the goddess Venus and the hero [[Literature/TheAeneid Aeneas]]. Caesar's father died when he was 16 and Caesar thus became head of the household (paterfamilias) and, within a year, the teenaged Flamen Dialis[[note]]High Priest of Jupiter, who lived under a series of religious injunctions, most famously being forbidden to ride a horse, touch iron, touch a corpse, spend the night outside the City, or become Consul; in compensation he got a unique hat and a seat in the Senate [[/note]], for which he had to break off his engagement to a plebeian girl and marry Cornelia, the daughter of four-time consul, the populare Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who at that time was allied with Caesar's uncle Marius in a nasty factional fight with the Optimate-backed Sullans. Marius had died a year or so before Caesar becoming priest, but he did approve his nephew's nomination, though historians note that there is next to no evidence of any other connection or bond Caesar might have had with "The Third Founder of Rome". When Sulla returned and took over Rome, driving Cinna, Quintus Sertorius and others away (where they would eventually die ignominiously) he unleashed a round of [[ThePurge proscriptions]] in the capital. Anyone whose name was featured in the notices (which is what proscriptions means) was an {{Outlaw}}, denied rights and protections, their properties could be seized by the state, and their children and family were permanently barred from political office. This happened, unsurprisingly, to many of Cinna's associates and extended network. Sulla also tried to control and insinuate himself into political life by controlling and regulating the lives of others. He demanded that Julius divorce his wife Cornelia (daughter of the disgraced Cinna) and marry into his circle as a test of loyalty. Caesar refused to do so, and courageously (and some might say foolishly) defied the dictator. Sulla removed Caesar from the priesthood of Flamen Dialis, and Caesar actually went on the run as a NobleFugitive, living hand to mouth in the wild before being caught by Sulla's soldiers. He would almost certainly have died, had it not been for his mother Aurelia, who appealed to the Vestal Virgins and other friends to leverage Sulla into sparing him. Sulla agreed but not before gritting his teeth, and saying, apocryphally, "In this Caesar, I see many Mariuses"[[note]]Roman historians writing after the First Century BCE tend to feature surprisingly prophetic statements and parallels, that most see this as {{Retcon}} inserted by Livy, Plutarch and Appian either out of religious sentiment, or because it's a good story[[/note]].

Caesar returned shortly before Sulla's death, during which time the dictator rescinded his order only allowing Caesar to ride a donkey, and gave him a present of a warhorse with toes instead of normal hooves. He was to ride this horse and its descendants into battle for the rest of his career. Despite these positive gains, his fortune was depleted, and he had to survive on a fairly low budget, and moved to a modest house in the plebian district of Subura. He took up legal advocacy (like most aspiring politicians of the time) and became famous for his oratory and ruthlessness in the courts. Shortly after he sought to improve his oratory further and sought out Cicero's teacher Appollonius in Rhodes. On the way, he was captured by pirates, and infamously acted high-handedly with his captors, demanding they ask for a higher ransom and promising to hunt them down and kill them all once he was freed. The pirates thought he was joking ([[DisproportionateRetribution they were wrong]]). After his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune[[note]]Despite the name, this wasn't a military equivalent to the Tribunes who protected the rights of the Roman people; by law, Roman soldiers had no rights to protect in the first place. "Military tribune" was a regular military rank that was, very roughly, equivalent to the rank of colonel in a modern army. It was the usual first step in a political career; Romans tended not to trust politicians who hadn't served a term in the army.[[/note]], and quaestor in 69 BC. That year, his first wife died. He served his quaestorship in Hispania, where he reportedly wept at a statue of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, realizing his achievements at the same age were rather less impressive. He married Sulla's granddaughter Pompeia later on and worked to undermine the regime the dead dictator set up, possibly being involved in two aborted coups. (Ironically, he was following in Sulla's footsteps in this regard, as the late dictator had done exactly the same to the previous Roman regime.) He also had several problems with moneylenders, taking many big loans and having trouble repaying them. During this time, he ended up in the debt of [[UsefulNotes/MarcusLiciniusCrassus Marcus Licinus Crassus]], future triumvir and richest man in Rome (much of his wealth having been plunder acquired during Sulla's proscriptions).

His real climb to power began in 63 BC. After arranging and presiding over a show trial of an elderly senator, probably just to show that he could (the defence had to fake an invasion to prevent the death penalty being passed, and Caesar seemingly chose to let the matter drop[[note]] The Senator, for the record, was guilty as hell- the crime being stoning a populare reformist to death; the issue was that ''dozens'' of other Senators were involved as well, and Caesar seemed only concerned with making an impression and picking on the most vulnerable of the bunch[[/note]]), he got himself elected Pontifex Maximus - chief priest of Rome - a huge gamble that would have ruined him if he failed, as he poured all his money into his campaign, whereas while in office he could not be prosecuted for his debts. As he told his mother before going to the polls, he would return as Pontifex Maximus or not at all. By this point he had become a major player in the Populares, a faction of a loose coalition of group that traced its legacy to the doomed Gracchi brothers and their policies of distributing land and grain to help the plight of the urban poor, the disenfranchised provinces and provide regular pay for the army whose low-level soldiers were from the same class as the Roman proletarii. Some of them were sincere reformers, others were ambitious careerists and opportunists, eager financiers interested in a system that allowed them more room to maximize gains from trade with Rome's colonies.

These policies were opposed on principle and by instinct by the Optimates, the conservative faction devoted to the civic order of Rome and its city-state foundations and who had formerly suppressed the Gracchi and supported Sulla. Caesar was far less radical and considerably more moderate than earlier populares, he would be able to hang out with firebrands but also get on well with the richest and most snobbish aristocrats, which often confused his friends and his enemies. He spoke for clemency during the Catiline conspiracy, which invited suspicion on his motives by Cato the Younger and Cicero. He ruthlessly divorced Pompeia after a sex scandal at his house; she was not involved, but he said that "The Chief Priest's wife must be above suspicion," which is usually taken to mean he didn't want this to hinder his career. ([[ValuesDissonance At the time, this was normal Roman behavior]].) The guy who ruined his marriage, Clodius Pulcher, became one of his associates, and more or less was the attack dog of the Populares, leading many street gangs across Rome, against rival street gangs put forth by Optimates. Caesar's third wife and future widow was Calpurnia, also of patrician stock. He was nonetheless a famous ladies man, and among his mistresses was Servilia, the half-sister of his ArchEnemy Cato the Younger and the mother of Marcus Junius Brutus. Plutarch was one among many historians to suppose that Brutus could have been Caesar's illegitimate son but historians point out that Caesar was 15 when Brutus was born and since this was before his nomination as Flamen Dialis and marriage to Cornelia, when he was still low on the totem pole, it's highly unlikely.

Soon after, he became governor of Spain, where he - completely without sanction from Rome - began attacking Roman allies and annexing their land, expanding the Republic throughout modern Spain. Again, he was partly motivated by the need to pay off his creditors, sending them loot to ease off his pressure. At this point, he allied with arch-rivals Crassus and UsefulNotes/{{Pompey}}, forming the First Triumvirate with himself as Consul, or head of state for a year, really a three-man dictatorship by which they would mutually enrich and benefit each other with governorships while nominating clients in various posts as tribunes and consuls, to safeguard legislation that benefited them. Both Crassus and Pompey were former supporters of Sulla and had profited from the dictator's proscriptions, judicial murder and purges. At the time, Caesar was the least powerful - a forty-year old politician whose only achievement was winning a few elections, compared to Pompey, a self-proclaimed military prodigy who expanded Rome into Judea, followed by Crassus, who suppressed the Spartacus Rebellion. Caesar shared the Consulship with Bibulus, whose ineffective attempts to oppose the Triumvirs' agenda led to their term being jokingly called the Year of Julius and Caesar (Romans referred to a year by the Consuls' names). After establishing their authority and passing agrarian reform laws that both helped themselves and benefited the poor, Caesar again went on military campaign as governor of Cis-and Transalpine Gaul and Illyria, conquering most of Gaul (France) and entering Germania across several years of campaigning, with a failed attempt to grab Britannia. While there his daughter Julia - Pompey's (very) young wife - died of illness. Simultaneously, Crassus had died on the campaign against the Parthians, and the Optimate (or Conservative) faction, allied with Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and declared his governorship over, at the same time refusing to allow him to stand for a second consulship. They then declared him [[{{Outlaw}} an enemy of the state]].

Caesar's only option was to surrender his career and become an exile, or risk dishonor, infamy and the future of Ancient Rome. He chose the latter and marched on Rome, using as an excuse the mistreatment of the tribunes of the people who had presented his case to the Senate, by crossing the Rubicon, the border of Italy where Roman armies are supposed to disband. Considering that Sulla had crossed the Pomerium (the boundary of Rome beyond which the army was not supposed to enter) twice and was rewarded by the Optimates with absolute power, Caesar undoubtedly saw his own actions of a comparatively milder nature. He campaigned through Italy, winning support along the way from many provincial nobles who were not big fans of the snooty Romans, while the Optimates banked everything on Pompey. Caesar eventually took the city unchallenged, even though he had only one legion, his enemies did not trust the newly-recruited troops raised in their defence and fled. This started the Roman Civil War, and after gathering the rest of his forces from Hispania, Caesar eventually fought and defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in 48 BC, despite being vastly outnumbered. Pompey fled to Egypt where he died in ignoble circumstances, likewise Caesar's ArchEnemy in the Senate, Cato the Younger committed suicide. While many Pompeyan remnants were hunted down, Caesar made a policy of sparing prominent backers of Pompey, and guarantees (which he honoured) that there would be no more proscriptions in reprisal in the manner of earlier Optimate-Populare dust-offs. Among the people Caesar gave clemency to are Brutus and Cassius.

The most famous Roman in history. Brilliant general, orator, politician and writer. Had nothing to do with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad the salad]] or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarean_section the surgical procedure]]. [[note]]Well, probably. The operation's name comes from the Latin word for 'to cut'; one theory is that the Caesar name, which as a cognomen was a family name, came from an ancestor who was indeed born by Caesarean section. Caesar himself, though, seems to have favoured the explanation that it was something to do with an ancestor who captured a number of war elephants in battle, with the name deriving from a contemporary North African word for 'elephant'.[[/note]]

Caesar returned shortly before Sulla's death, during which time the dictator rescinded his order only allowing Caesar to ride a donkey, and gave him a present of a warhorse with toes instead of normal hooves. He was to ride this horse and its descendants into battle for the rest of his career. Despite these positive gains, his fortune was depleted, and he had to survive on a fairly low budget, and moved to a modest house in the plebian district of Subura. He took up legal advocacy (like most aspiring politicians of the time) and became famous for his oratory and ruthlessness in the courts. Shortly after he sought to improve his oratory further and sought out Cicero's teacher Appollonius in Rhodes. On the way, he was captured by pirates, and infamously acted high-handedly with his captors, demanding they ask for a higher ransom and promising to hunt them down and kill them all once he was freed. The pirates thought he was joking ([[DisproportionateRetribution they were wrong]]). After his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune[[note]]Despite the name, this wasn't a military equivalent to the Tribunes who protected the rights of the Roman people; by law, Roman soldiers had no rights to protect in the first place. "Military tribune" was a regular military rank that was, very roughly, equivalent to the rank of colonel in a modern army. It was the usual first step in a political career; Romans tended not to trust politicians who hadn't served a term in the army.[[/note]], and quaestor in 69 BC. That year, his first wife died. He served his quaestorship in Hispania, where he reportedly wept at a statue of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, realizing his achievements at the same age were rather less impressive. He married Sulla's granddaughter Pompeia later on and worked to undermine the regime the dead dictator set up, possibly being involved in two aborted coups. (Ironically, he was following in Sulla's footsteps in this regard, as the late dictator had done exactly the same to the previous Roman regime.) He also had several problems with moneylenders, taking many big loans and having trouble repaying them. During this time, he ended up in the debt of Marcus Licinus Crassus, future triumvir and richest man in Rome (much of his wealth having been plunder acquired during Sulla's proscriptions).

* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'', the Scrolls of Romulus chronicle Brutus' plan to assassinate Caesar, with the equipment and knowledge provided to carry out the assassination provided by [[spoiler: a Piece of Eden hidden in a [[{{Precursors}} First Civilization]] bunker underneath Rome.]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'', Caesar is the main antagonist. He's always portrayed as an AntiVillain, due to being based on his image in the school-taught Commentaries. In the movies, he's been portrayed by Gottfried John, [[DirectedByCastMember director]] Alain Chabat in [[WesternAnimation/AsterixAndCleopatra Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra]], Creator/AlainDelon, and Fabrice Luchini ([[FakeNationality the first is German, the other three French]]).

* In ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'', Caesar is the main antagonist (always portrayed as an AntiVillain, due to being based on his image in the school-taught Commentaries). In the movies, he's been portrayed by Gottfried John, [[DirectedByCastMember director Alain Chabat]], Creator/AlainDelon, and Fabrice Luchini ([[FakeNationality the first is German, the other three French]]).

* Appears as a summonable Servant in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' and a member of the Saber class, and is depicted as, for some reason a lazy, sarcastic fat guy. That being said, his stout build hides a deceptively high strength and speed; and under his lazy attitude and weird speech patterns, [[HiddenDepths he's actually a brilliant thinker and highly charismatic leader]], complete with C-rank Charisma and EX-rank Incitement (effectively meaning he's impossibly good at speeches) skills.

After being stripped of his post as Flamen Dialis, Caesar was now able to seek a career in the army that would not have been open had it not been for Sulla. Caesar entered the army and wisely stayed out of the capital, returning only after Sulla's death (one year after he surrendered the dictatorship, and then serving a term after that as Consul). One of Sulla's restrictions, possibly ordered as a joke, only allowed him to ride a donkey into battle. Somehow, he still went on to attain distinction, winning the Civic Crown (equivalent of a medal) in a siege, which entitled him to automatic entry into the Senate[[note]]It was supposed to be attained for saving the life of a soldier from an enemy combatant but in practice it was awarded for more trivial deeds as well; for example, in his ''Attic Nights'' Aulus Gellius quotes Cato the Elder criticizing Roman commander Marcus Fulvius Nobilior for awarding Civic Crowns to the soldiers for industry in building a rampart or in digging a well. Suetonius does not specify what Caesar was given the Civic Crown for[[/note]]. He also, during this time, was sent on a mission to Bithynia to secure the help of King Nicomedes, but his lengthy stay at court sprouted (probably false) rumours in Rome that the two were having a homosexual relationship, rumours that were to dog Caesar throughout his career.

He was a man driven mainly by personal ambition (It was basically the Roman way, at least if you were an aristocrat, but it was a handy putdown by enemies who wanted to prove ''they weren't''), and was perfectly capable of ruthlessness to get what he wanted. His campaigns were extremely brutal, possibly claiming as many as a million lives in total, with much rampant looting and slave trading. He is usually regarded by his critics as the man principally responsible for the death of the Roman Republic, though his admirers feel that by that point Rome was a republic in name only, and that Caesar did more for the common man of Rome than anyone else who could plausibly have taken power would have. He was also known to [[TheDandy be very vain about his personal appearance]], and could and would go to extreme lengths to get revenge. The debate, then, is largely if his many accomplishments can justify or condone his misdeeds and personal failings. Whether he was merely an above-average adventurer who came ahead of rivals and opponents who were no better than him, or the last true Roman who could have truly reformed the Republic's obsolete institutions and brutally murderous political culture. Likewise, whether there is continuity between him and his nephew Augustus. There is no evidence of him planning to become a dictator prior to the civil war or of attempting to institutionalize despotism (that was more Augustus's thing). He named Octavian (later known as Augustus) as his heir, but he didn't specifically entitle him to inherit the dictatorship and it was probably a consequence of his brief break with Antony and perhaps a temporary stopgap. He clearly did not expect to be assassinated, and Cleopatra and Caesarion were in Rome, so it might have been a temporary thing until he could work legal status for the latter. Augustus in time defeated Antony and murdered Caesarion ("Two caesars is one too many!") so the latter clearly saw him as a threat.

* SignatureLine: See top of the page for two. And of course his FamousLastWords.

* He's played by John Gavin in Creator/StanleyKubrick's ''Film/{{Spartacus}}''.
* He's highly likely to pop up in any version of the life of [[UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII Cleopatra]]. Played by Warren William in the 1934 ''[[Film/{{Cleopatra 1934}} Cleopatra]]'' (with Cleo played by Creator/ClaudetteColbert) and played by Creator/RexHarrison in the better-known 1963 film ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'' (Cleo played by Creator/ElizabethTaylor).

* Karl Urban played Caesar in a recurring role on ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' and a one-off episode of ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys''. Having been Xena's one time ally, and lover, his betrayal (and crucifixion) of her led to Xena's warlord days, the time of her life which she spent the series atoning for. Notably, Xena was the leader of the pirates who ransomed him.
* The first season of the {{Creator/HBO}} series ''Series/{{Rome}}'' is about Caesar's rise and fall. He's portrayed by Creator/CiaranHinds.

* Caesar is a regular character in ''[[Series/{{Spartacus}} Spartacus: War of the Damned]]'', where he fights in the army of Marcus Crassus against Spartacus' slave uprising. He's introduced as a low-ranking politician with a famous name, as well as a cunning soldier, favors AnythingThatMoves, and a rival both of Crassus' son, Tiberius and the rebel Gannicus. [[DoomedByCanon Which was unfortunate for them.]]

Abandoning the post of Flamen Dialis caused him to lose his position in the Senate, but enabled him to join the Military, which he did. However one of Sulla's restrictions, possibly ordered as a joke, only allowed him to ride a donkey into battle. Despite these setbacks, he went on to win glory for himself by winning the Civic Crown in a siege, which entitled him to automatic entry into the Senate (ironically, one of Sulla's reforms- in fact, Caesar couldn't have joined the army either if Sulla hadn't stripped him of his priesthood)[[note]]The Crown was a reward for saving the life of a fellow citizen, ''vis a vis'' killing an enemy on the spot. Or at least it was in theory, but in practice it was awarded for more trivial deeds as well; for example, in his ''Attic Nights'' Aulus Gellius quotes Cato the Elder criticizing Roman commander Marcus Fulvius Nobilior for awarding Civic Crowns to the soldiers for industry in building a rampart or in digging a well. Suetonius does not specify what Caesar was given the Civic Crown for.[[/note]]. He also, during this time, was sent on a mission to Bithynia to secure the help of King Nicomedes, but his lengthy stay at court sprouted (probably false) rumours in Rome that the two were having a homosexual relationship, rumours that were to dog Caesar throughout his career.

Caesar returned shortly before Sulla's death, during which time the dictator rescinded his order only allowing Caesar to ride a donkey, and gave him a present of a warhorse with toes instead of normal hooves. He was to ride this horse and its descendants into battle for the rest of his career. Despite these positive gains, his fortune was depleted, and he had to survive on a fairly low budget, and moved to a modest house in a plebian district. Henceforth he would have several problems with moneylenders, taking many big loans and having trouble repaying them. He took up legal advocacy (like most aspiring politicians of the time) and became famous for his oratory and ruthlessness in the courts. Shortly after he sought to improve his oratory further and sought out Cicero's teacher Appollonius in Rhodes. On the way, he was captured by pirates, and infamously acted high-handedly with his captors, demanding they ask for a higher ransom and promising to hunt them down and kill them all once he was freed. The pirates thought he was joking ([[DisproportionateRetribution they were wrong]]). After his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune[[note]]Despite the name, this wasn't a military equivalent to the Tribunes who protected the rights of the Roman people; by law, Roman soldiers had no rights to protect in the first place. "Military tribune" was a regular military rank that was, very roughly, equivalent to the rank of colonel in a modern army. It was the usual first step in a political career; Romans tended not to trust politicians who hadn't served a term in the army.[[/note]], and quaestor in 69 BC. That year, his first wife died. He served his quaestorship in Hispania, where he reportedly wept at a statue of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, realizing his achievements at the same age were rather less impressive. He married Sulla's granddaughter Pompeia later on and worked to undermine the regime the dead dictator set up, possibly being involved in two aborted coups. (Ironically, he was following in Sulla's footsteps in this regard, as the late dictator had done exactly the same to the previous Roman regime.)

His real climb to power began in 63 BC. After arranging and presiding over a show trial of an elderly senator, probably just to show that he could (the defence had to fake an invasion to prevent the death penalty being passed, and Caesar seemingly chose to let the matter drop[[note]] The Senator, for the record, was guilty as hell- the crime being stoning a populare reformist to death; the issue was that ''dozens'' of other Senators were involved as well, and Caesar seemed only concerned with making an impression and picking on the most vulnerable of the bunch[[/note]]), he got himself elected Pontifex Maximus - chief priest of Rome - a huge gamble that would have ruined him if he failed, as he poured all his money into his campaign, whereas while in office he could not be prosecuted for his debts. As he told his mother before going to the polls, he would return as Pontifex Maximus or not at all.

By this point he had become a major player in the Populares, a faction of a loose coalition of group that traced its legacy to the doomed Gracchi brothers and their policies of distributing land and grain to help the plight of the urban poor, the disenfranchised provinces and provide regular pay for the army whose low-level soldiers were from the same class as the Roman proletarii. Some of them were sincere reformers, others were ambitious careerists and opportunists, eager financiers interested in a system that allowed them more room to maximize gains from trade with Rome's colonies. These policies were opposed on principle and by instinct by the Optimates, the conservative faction devoted to the civic order of Rome and its city-state foundations and who had formerly suppressed the Gracchi and supported Sulla. The Populares were a coalition and Caesar became a speaker for that, albeit one who was more moderate and less extreme than others, albeit not one willing to cut off the bad apples from the good and willing to use the former for his own uses. Caesar spoke for clemency during the Catiline conspiracy, which invited suspicion on his motives by Cato the Younger and Cicero. He ruthlessly divorced Pompeia after a sex scandal at his house; she was not involved, but he said that "The Chief Priest's wife must be above suspicion," which is usually taken to mean he didn't want this to hinder his career. ([[ValuesDissonance At the time, this was normal Roman behavior]].) The guy who ruined his marriage, Clodius Pulcher, became one of his associates. Make of that what you will.

Soon after, he became governor of Spain, where he - completely without sanction from Rome - began attacking Roman allies and annexing their land, expanding the Republic throughout modern Spain. Again, he was partly motivated by the need to pay off his creditors, sending them loot to ease off his pressure. At this point, he allied with arch-rivals Crassus and UsefulNotes/{{Pompey}}, forming the First Triumvirate with himself as Consul, or head of state for a year, really a three-man dictatorship. Both Crassus and Pompey were former supporters of Sulla and had profited from the dictator's proscriptions, judicial murder and purges. Pompey, a military leader, was without doubt the most powerful in the Triumvirate, followed by the famously wealthy Crassus. At the time, Caesar was the least powerful - a forty-year old politician whose only achievement was winning a few elections. Caesar shared the Consulship with Bibulus, whose ineffective attempts to oppose the Triumvirs' agenda led to their term being jokingly called the Year of Julius and Caesar (Romans referred to a year by the Consuls' names). After establishing their authority and passing agrarian reform laws at least allegedly designed to help the poor, Caesar again went on military campaign as governor of Cis-and Transalpine Gaul and Illyria, conquering most of Gaul (France) and entering Germania across several years of campaigning, with a failed attempt to grab Britannia. While there his daughter Julia - Pompey's (very) young wife - died of illness.

Crassus had died on the campaign against the Parthians, and the Optimate (or Conservative) faction, allied with Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and declared his governorship over, at the same time refusing to allow him to stand for a second consulship. They then declared him an enemy of the state. Caesar's only option was to surrender his career and become an exile, or risk dishonor, infamy and the future of Ancient Rome. He chose the latter and marched on Rome, using as an excuse the mistreatment of the tribunes of the people who had presented his case to the Senate, by crossing the Rubicon, the border of Italy where Roman armies are supposed to disband. He campaigned through Italy, winning support along the way from many provincial nobles who were not big fans of the snooty Romans, while the Optimates banked everything on Pompey. Caesar eventually took the city unchallenged, even though he had only one legion, his enemies did not trust the newly-recruited troops raised in their defence and fled. This started the Roman Civil War, and after gathering the rest of his forces from Hispania, Caesar eventually fought and defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in 48 BC, despite being vastly outnumbered. Pompey fled to Egypt where he died in ignoble circumstances, likewise Caesar's ArchEnemy in the Senate, Cato the Younger committed suicide. While many Pompeyan remnants were hunted down, Caesar made a policy of sparing prominent backers of Pompey, and guarantees (which he honoured) that there would be no more proscriptions in reprisal in the manner of earlier Optimate-Populare dust-offs. Among the people Caesar gave clemency to are Brutus and Cassius. The former was the son of Caesar's mistress Servilia (who was also Cato's half-sister).

As dictator he chased Pompey to Egypt, where Caesar was horrified at his enemy and ex-Son-in-Law's fate. Citing a treaty by the old Ptolemaic King that made Egypt a client of Rome, Caesar saw fit to interfere in an ongoing civil war in favor of UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII Philopator. They became lovers until his death and she claimed him as the father of her son Caesarion. During the Civil War in Egypt, Caesar's forces accidentally sparked a fire that burnt the Library of Alexandria. On the plus side, while hanging out with Egyptian astronomers, Caesar finally formulated an improvement on the cumbersome Roman calendar based on lunar cycles. This became the Julian Calendar, which after modification by Pope Gregory, [[HitSoHardTheCalendarFeltIt is the calendar that has become the international standard]]. Caesar also made plans for all kinds of ambitious projects to bring back to Rome based on his experiences in Egypt, this included a modern bureaucracy as well as an institution of census and other reforms. The Senate bestowed unto Caesar a series of honours, partly because he was so merciful -- unlike Sulla, almost none of his enemies were proscribed, indeed most were pardoned, and Caesar restricted violence and denial of quarter to non-Roman barbarians like the Gauls (who were AcceptableTargets). He began a series of reforms to alleviate the plight of the poor, built many famous buildings, while also reviving an old project of Gaius Gracchus, the rebuilding of Carthage, together with Corinth, both destroyed and famously salted a century before.

Caesar was popular, intelligent, merciful and a military genius who had military honours of the likes no one ever had since the death of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat. Near his final months, he planned an invasion of the Parthian empire. The prospect of a Caesarian success against the Parthians who had repelled all earlier Roman campaigns made many senators panicked. While Caesar was moving at a far more moderate pace with his reforms to the liking of fellow populares, [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids and irritated others for his refusal of proscription]], this to the eyes of the optimates, only made it harder for the latter to deny consensual support to reform and rebuild Rome to a permanent populare foundation. A military victory in Parthia would simply reinforce that. In addition there was a suspicion that Caesar wanted to be King (which led Caesar and Antony to stage public ceremonies of the former ostentatiously denying a diadem, either in sincerity, [[{{Troll}} in jest]] or SarcasticConfession, no one knows), which his relationship with the Eastern foreign Queen of Egypt only reinforced. All this led to the most famous and momentous of all assassinations in the Ancient World.

Caesar was killed in 44 BC by a group of rebellious senators, led by Brutus, being stabbed [[TwentyThree 23]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill times]] [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor in the senate]]; though all told the senate brandished a total of 27 wounds[[note]]Given that up to 60 people are said ambushed him, neither is a particularly good batting average[[/note]]. The line ''EtTuBrute'' is from Shakespeare, and he never said it, though he does appear to have expressed shock once he saw Brutus was one of his killers and may have instead said "''Kai su, teknon'' (You too, my son)?" as he always did prefer Greek to sound smarter. The exact site of Caesar's death, in a touch of historical irony, was right under the statue of his old friend and rival Pompey. The conspirators called themselves the "Liberators" and hoped that Caesar's death would resolve the cycle of CivilWar and restore the Republic under the Optimate hegemony. The small matter of Caesar's great personal popularity and the mobilization by his supporters dispelled this notion, and the conspirators were chased out of Rome, leading to decades of civil war, with Caesar's faction led by his general Marc Antony, his appointed heir, [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Octavian]] with support from Cleopatra. They eventually won, while his nephew Augustus eventually pulled a coup on his fellow conspirators and learning from his Uncle's failures, used a combination of proscriptions and savvy political engineering to permanently transform TheRepublic into TheEmpire.

Caesar is a controversial figure and historians to this day are divided about him. The Republic he overthrew was extremely corrupt and increasingly ineffective, while he provided strong, stable and popular leadership. He was merciful to his (Roman) enemies and widely respected for his many talents. When he died he was either about to take personal power as the dictator, or possibly ensure reform efforts after denying the crown several times [[note]] though, in context, it's possible that he didn't ''plan'' on denying it, as the Roman citizens booed when he tried to take it and cheered whenever he turned it down[[/note]]; it is one of the great [[WhatIf What Ifs]] of history as to what he would have done. The impact and importance of his legacy in Western civilization are indisputably immense: for the next two thousand years after his death, rulers would invoke and wear his name as a title and honorific.

He was a man driven mainly by personal ambition (It was basically the Roman way, at least if you were an aristocrat, but it was a handy putdown by enemies who wanted to prove ''they weren't''), and was perfectly capable of ruthlessness to get what he wanted. His campaigns were extremely brutal, possibly claiming as many as a million lives in total, with much rampant looting and slave trading. He is usually regarded by his critics as the man principally responsible for the death of the Roman Republic, though his admirers feel that by that point Rome was a republic in name only, and that Caesar did more for the common man of Rome than anyone else who could plausibly have taken power would have. He was also known to [[TheDandy be very vain about his personal appearance]], was notoriously promiscuous before, during and after his marriages, and could and would go to extreme lengths to get revenge. The debate, then, is largely if his many accomplishments can justify or condone his misdeeds and personal failings. Whether he was merely an above-average adventurer who came ahead of rivals and opponents who were no better than him, or the last true Roman who could have truly reformed the Republic in a way to better meet his glaring needs that its obsolete institutions and decadent political tradition could no longer satisfy. Likewise, whether there is continuity between him and his nephew Augustus. There is no evidence of him planning to become a dictator prior to the civil war or of attempting to institutionalise despotism (that was more Augustus's thing). He named Octavian (later known as Augustus) as his heir, but he didn't specifically entitle him to inherit the dictatorship. It seems more probable that he thought that his dictatorship was a personal special position and Octavian was the heir to his property and name (along with, of course, the prestige of name) only.

->''Alea iacta est! [[labelnote:translation]]The die has been cast![[/labelnote]]''

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in the month [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} his successor]] would rename after him, July (then called ''Quintilis''), in the year 100 BC, to a minor aristocratic family that nonetheless traced its line back to the foundation of Rome, as well as the goddess Venus and the hero [[Literature/TheAeneid Aeneas]]. Caesar's father died when he was 16 and Caesar thus became head of the household and, within a year, the teenaged Flamen Dialis[[note]]High Priest of Jupiter, who lived under a series of religious injunctions, most famously being forbidden to ride a horse, touch iron, touch a corpse, spend the night outside the City, or become Consul; in compensation he got a unique hat and a seat in the Senate [[/note]], for which he had to break off his engagement to a plebeian girl and marry Cornelia, the daughter of four-time consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna. His family connections made Caesar a target of the dictator Sulla, who forced him to spend much of his inheritance in elaborate ceremonies, as well as removing his priesthood at the pleas of his mother Aurelia and others, and had toyed with having Caesar killed when he refused to divorce his wife after one of Sulla's proscriptions stripped her of her noble status.

Caesar returned shortly before Sulla's death, during which time the dictator rescinded his order only allowing Caesar to ride a donkey, and gave him a present of a warhorse with toes instead of normal hooves. He was to ride this horse and its descendants into battle for the rest of his career. Despite these positive gains, his fortune was depleted, and he had to survive on a fairly low budget, and moved to a modest house in a plebian district. Henceforth he would have several problems with moneylenders, taking many big loans and having trouble repaying them. He took up legal advocacy (like most aspiring politicians of the time) and became famous for his oratory and ruthlessness in the courts. Shortly after he sought to improve his oratory further and sought out Cicero's teacher Appollonius in Rhodes. On the way, he was captured by pirates, and infamously acted high-handedly with his captors, demanding they ask for a higher ransom and promising to hunt them down and kill them all once he was freed. The pirates thought he was joking ([[DisproportionateRetribution they were wrong]]).

After his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune[[note]]Despite the name, this wasn't a military equivalent to the Tribunes who protected the rights of the Roman people; by law, Roman soldiers had no rights to protect in the first place. "Military tribune" was a regular military rank that was, very roughly, equivalent to the rank of colonel in a modern army. It was the usual first step in a political career; Romans tended not to trust politicians who hadn't served a term in the army.[[/note]], and quaestor in 69 BC. That year, his first wife died. He served his quaestorship in Hispania, where he reportedly wept at a statue of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, realizing his achievements at the same age were rather less impressive. He married Sulla's granddaughter Pompeia later on and worked to undermine the regime the dead dictator set up, possibly being involved in two aborted coups. (Ironically, he was following in Sulla's footsteps in this regard, as the late dictator had done exactly the same to the previous Roman regime.)

His real climb to power began in 63 BC. After arranging and presiding over a show trial of an elderly senator, probably just to show that he could (the defence had to fake an invasion to prevent the death penalty being passed, and Caesar seemingly chose to let the matter drop[[note]] The Senator, for the record, was guilty as hell- the crime being stoning a reformist to death; the issue was that ''dozens'' of other Senators were involved as well, and Caesar seemed only concerned with making an impression and picking on the most vulnerable of the bunch[[/note]]), he got himself elected Pontifex Maximus - chief priest of Rome - a huge gamble that would have ruined him if he failed, as he poured all his money into his campaign, whereas while in office he could not be prosecuted for his debts. As he told his mother before going to the polls, he would return as Pontifex Maximus or not at all.

By this point he had become a major player in the Popularist faction, which included many figures who publicly supported the plight of the poor but privately just wanted to advance their own careers, and was probably involved in the Catiline conspiracy, though he avoided prosecution. He ruthlessly divorced Pompeia after a sex scandal at his house; she was not involved, but he said that "The Chief Priest's wife must be above suspicion," which is usually taken to mean he didn't want this to hinder his career. ([[ValuesDissonance At the time, this was normal Roman behavior]].)

Soon after, he became governor of Spain, where he - completely without sanction from Rome - began attacking Roman allies and annexing their land, expanding the Republic throughout modern Spain. Again, he was partly motivated by the need to pay off his creditors, sending them loot to ease off his pressure.

At this point, he allied with arch-rivals Crassus and UsefulNotes/{{Pompey}}, forming the First Triumvirate with himself as Consul, or head of state for a year, really a three-man dictatorship. Pompey, a military leader, was without doubt the most powerful in the Triumvirate, followed by the famously wealthy Crassus. At the time, Caesar was the least powerful - a forty-year old politician whose only achievement was winning a few elections. Caesar shared the Consulship with Bibulus, whose ineffective attempts to oppose the Triumvirs' agenda led to their term being jokingly called the Year of Julius and Caesar (Romans referred to a year by the Consuls' names). After establishing their authority and passing agrarian reform laws at least allegedly designed to help the poor, Caesar again went on military campaign as governor of Cis-and Transalpine Gaul and Illyria, conquering most of Gaul (France) and entering Germania across several years of campaigning, with a failed attempt to grab Britannia. While there his daughter Julia - Pompey's (very) young wife - died of illness.

Crassus had died on the campaign against the Parthians, and the Optimate (or Conservative) faction, allied with Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and declared his governorship over, at the same time refusing to allow him to stand for a second consulship. They then declared him an enemy of the state. He marched on Rome, using as an excuse the mistreatment of the tribunes of the people who had presented his case to the Senate. He crossed the Rubicon, the border of Italy where Roman armies are supposed to disband (uttering the page quote), and took the city unchallenged; though he had only one legion, his enemies did not trust the newly-recruited troops raised in their defence and fled. This started the Roman Civil War, and after gathering the rest of his forces from Hispania, Caesar eventually fought and defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in 48 BC, despite being vastly outnumbered.

Caesar became dictator (a Consul with emergency powers) in Rome and chased Pompey to Egypt, where to Caesar's horror the Egyptians had had him murdered and presented Caesar with his head. In response he allied with Princess Cleopatra and overthrew the Pharaoh, her younger brother, putting her on the throne as a Roman ally. They were lovers until his death and she claimed him as the father of her son Caesarion. Caesar began defeating his remaining enemies, including the Optimate leader Cato who committed suicide - to which Caesar remarked that he would have let him live. As this was [[TheStoic Cato]], however, that's probably why he killed himself in the first place, and given how little the two liked each other, it's plausible Caesar was mocking him.

In his absence, the Senate bestowed unto Caesar a series of honours, partly because he was so merciful - unlike Sulla, almost none of his enemies were proscribed, indeed most were pardoned (his behavior in Gaul was...less so, being extremely brutal to tribes who put up too much resistance). He began a series of reforms to alleviate the plight of the poor, overhauled the Roman calendar, and built many famous buildings. He also revived an old project of Gaius Gracchus, the rebuilding of Carthage, together with Corinth, both destroyed and famously salted a century before.

Caesar was assassinated in spectacular fashion in 44 BC by a group of rebellious senators, including his young friend Brutus, being stabbed [[TwentyThree 23]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill times]] [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor in the senate]]; though all told the senate brandished a total of 27 wounds[[note]]Given that up to 60 people are said ambushed him, neither is a particularly good batting average[[/note]]. The line ''EtTuBrute'' is from Shakespeare, and he never said it, though he does appear to have expressed shock once he saw Brutus was one of his killers and may have instead said "''Kai su, teknon'' (You too, my son)?" as he always did prefer Greek to sound smarter. The exact site of Caesar's death, in a touch of historical irony, was right under the statue of his old friend and rival Pompey. This was followed by decades of civil war, mainly between his general Marc Antony and his appointed heir, [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Octavian]]. The latter won, and TheRepublic became TheEmpire.

Yet, despite this, he was a man driven mainly by personal ambition (though he was far from the only Roman like this; on the contrary, it was basically the Roman way, at least if you were an aristocrat), and was perfectly capable of ruthlessness to get what he wanted. His campaigns were extremely brutal, possibly claiming as many as a million lives in total, with much rampant looting and slave trading. He is usually regarded by his critics as the man principally responsible for the death of the Roman Republic, though his admirers feel that by that point Rome was a republic in name only, and that Caesar did more for the common man of Rome than anyone else who could plausibly have taken power would have. He was also known to be very vain about his personal appearance, was notoriously promiscuous before, during and after his marriages, and could and would go to extreme lengths to get revenge.

The debate, then, is largely about whether his personal failings - and boy were there many - outweigh his many accomplishments, and whether or not his quest for greatness ultimately saved Rome from a corrupt aristocracy....or doomed it to centuries of tyranny. It is noteworthy that there is no evidence of him planning to become a dictator prior to the civil war or of attempting to institutionalise despotism (that was more Augustus's thing). He named Octavian (later known as Augustus) as his heir, but he didn't specifically entitle him to inherit the dictatorship. It seems more probable that he thought that his dictatorship was a personal special position and Octavian was the heir to his property and name (along with, of course, the prestige of name) only.

Recommended reading: ''Caesar: The Life of a Colossus'' by Adrian Goldsworthy.

* He is the leader of the Roman civilization in the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series of games, though he's notably absent in the fifth one (where he is replaced by Augustus).

* He appears in ''Literature/{{Imperium}}'' and ''Literature/{{Lustrum}}'', Robert Harris's novels about Cicero.

Gaius was born in the month [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} his successor]] would rename after him, July (then called ''Quintilis''), in the year 100 BC, to a minor aristocratic family that nonetheless traced its line back to the foundation of Rome, as well as the goddess Venus and the hero [[Literature/TheAeneid Aeneas]]. Caesar's father died when he was 16 and Caesar thus became head of the household and, within a year, the teenaged Flamen Dialis[[note]]High Priest of Jupiter, who lived under a series of religious injunctions, most famously being forbidden to ride a horse, touch iron, touch a corpse, spend the night outside the City, or become Consul; in compensation he got a unique hat and a seat in the Senate [[/note]], for which he had to break off his engagement to a plebeian girl and marry Cornelia, the daughter of four-time consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna. His family connections made Caesar a target of the dictator Sulla, who forced him to spend much of his inheritance in elaborate ceremonies, as well as removing his priesthood at the pleas of his mother Aurelia and others, and had toyed with having Caesar killed when he refused to divorce his wife after one of Sulla's proscriptions stripped her of her noble status.

Soon after, he became governor of Spain, where he - completely without sanction from Rome - began attacking Roman allies and annexing their land, expanding the Republic throughout modern Spain. Again, he was partly motivated by the need to pay off his debtors, sending them loot to ease off his pressure.

The most famous Roman in history. Brilliant general, orator, politician and writer. Had nothing to do with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad the salad]] or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarean_section the surgical procedure]] [[note]]Well, probably. The operation's name comes from the Latin word for 'to cut'; one theory is that the Caesar name, which as a cognomen was a family name, came from an ancestor who was indeed born by Caesarean section. Caesar himself, though, seems to have favoured the explanation that it was something to do with an ancestor who captured a number of war elephants in battle, with the name deriving from a contemporary North African word for 'elephant'.[[/note]].

* He's played by Rex Harrison in the 1963 film ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}''.

** The "You too" line is now thought not to be a question the way Shakespeare spun it, but more along the lines of "May the same thing happen to you."

->''Alea iacta est! [[labelnote:translation]][[YouAreTheTranslatedForeignWord The die has been cast!]][[/labelnote]]''

[[redirect:Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar]]