Cease
Caesar , also called Julius Caesar or Gaius Julius Caesar ( Rome , 100 – 44 BC ) was a Roman general and politician whose dictatorship ended the Republic in Rome, establishing the foundations of the later Roman Empire . Coming from one of the oldest families of the Roman patriciate, the Julius, Gaius Julius Caesar was carefully educated with Greek teachers. He was also a notable writer; his comments on the Gallic War, published under the title Commentaries on the Gallic War, are famous .
Summary
[ disguise ]
- 1 Life
- 1 Childhood and youth
- 2 Conflict with Sulla
- 3 Ambassador in Bithynia
- 4 Rise to power
- 5 Triumvirate
- 5.1 The Gallic War
- 5.2 The civil war
- 6 Caesar in Egypt
- 7 Last battles
- 8 Murder
- 2 Legacy
- 1 The reform of the state
- 2 Literary work
- 3 Quotes in Latin
- 4 Filmography
- 5 References
- 6 Sources
Life
Childhood and youth
Gaius Julius Caesar was born in Rome on July 13 , 100 BC . n. and. (according to the most commonly accepted date) in a not very aristocratic neighborhood of Rome, close to the current Via Cavour . Little is known about his childhood, spent within a patrician family, the gens Julia, who claimed descent from Aeneas (who was considered the son of Venus), and in which, at some point, a branch had been inserted that added Caesar’s name. The family members had lived on the margins of the continuous struggle for positions that allowed them to pursue a public career until reaching the consulate, the highest aspiration.
Childhood and early youth were brief in those times. From the age of ten, Caesar was placed in the care of Marcus Antonius Gnifón , an illustrious teacher, specialist in Greek and Roman literature, to take care of his education. He learned to read and write in Livy Andronicus’s translation of the Odyssey . Surely his natural gifts allowed him to take full advantage of the teachings of his teacher, so that he perfected his language and learned the rudiments of oratory, fundamental for a political career.
Although the family had not held high positions, the group’s inclinations were toward the popular party. Julia, a sister of Caesar’s father, had married Gaius Marius , a commoner by origin but a very powerful man due to his military ability. The family entered, probably through Mario, into the circles of the popular party. Caesar’s father could not help but access the second most important position in the State, the praetorship. He held this position when his fifteen-year-old son had to attend the ceremony in which the purple-bordered children’s garments were abandoned and the virile toga was received.
At sixteen years of age his father died, [1] [2] Caesar was already a man. He immediately took as his wife Cornelia, [2] daughter of Cinna, one of the top leaders (along with Gaius Marius) of the popular party and an all-powerful man in Rome. With this decision, the Julia gens ended up definitively associating itself with the interests of the people, confronting the corrupt Roman patriciate. All this must have been somewhat hard for César, who was a young man who led a life free of prejudices, already freed from the rigidity of his teacher and inclined towards all types of reading, including theater.
To marry Cornelia he had to break a previous engagement, which caused tensions within the family. César had a daughter with her, Julia, [2] to whom he was linked throughout her life and for whom he always felt deep affection, even though this marital relationship with Cornelia was almost circumstantial. When the new married life began, César must have entered the circle of important men with whom Aunt Julia, Mario’s widow, surrounded herself. At that time he was designated flamin dial , [2] that is, priest of Jupiter, the most important of the Roman gods.
Conflict with Sulla
Bust of Lucius Cornelius Sulla .
In 82 BC n. and. [ 3] Lucius Cornelius Sulla , who had defeated King Mithridates , driving him back to the primitive borders of his kingdom in Pontus, returned victorious to Rome and, as usual, took complete revenge on the “popular” adversaries of he; He murdered them, banned their descendants from ascending to public office, seized their property and established a new form of state, inaugurating a type of absolute dictatorship for an indefinite period, a legal concept that Caesar would not forget in the future. But for now Sulla, who had some considerations with the patrician families inclined towards populism, demanded that Caesar repudiate Cornelia. Caesar responded to Sulla’s messenger with a famous phrase:
Tell your master that Caesar alone rules.
He opted for exile in Asia .
None of this was easy; Caesar was persecuted and a price was put on his head. He had to buy his freedom from a soldier who had found him, [2] and finally, at the request of relatives close to the dictator ( Mamerco Emilio and Aurelio Cotta ) [2] and the intermediation of priestesses of the goddess Vesta , [2] Sulla He pardoned “the young man in the loose toga”, an epithet that alluded to Caesar’s habit of not adjusting the belt of his toga, which thus fell freely, according to a custom that was then considered unmanly. It was a grudging forgiveness. Sulla had glimpsed the boy’s fearsome future when he stated, according to Suetonius, that Caesari multos Marios inesse [4] [2] (in Caesar there are many Marios), meaning with that phrase the danger that his resolute personality entailed. Caesar, however, did not hesitate to return to Rome and entered the service of the propraetor Termes, [5] who, because Caesar was the son of a member of the Senate, conferred on him the rank of officer. He thus participated in the taking of Mytilene from Lesbos , a city allied with Mithridates , and his military behavior earned him a decoration.
Ambassador to Bithynia
Termes then decided to send him to the court of Nicomedes , [5] king of Bithynia , a kingdom on the southern coast of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara , in order to strengthen relations. A close friendship was established between Nicomedes and Caesar that was the subject of rumors, [5] something very common at the time, on the other hand. The fact is that Caesar returned to Bithynia a couple of times and that, upon the death of Nicomedes, the kingdom would be incorporated into Rome as another province, with all its inhabitants becoming “clients” of Caesar. He was already absolute dictator of Rome, and even in the great celebrations (a curious example of the freedom that some enjoyed in the Rome of those days) his own soldiers sang songs in which they mockingly referred to his probable homosexual relationships with Nicomedes. His enemies would often remind him of this disgraceful episode, even baptizing him with the infamous nickname Bithynicam reginam (queen of Bithynia).
Rise to power
Statue of Julius Caesar.
After Sulla died, Caesar returned to Rome [6] in 78 BC. n. and. In his short life he had already acquired enough experience in public affairs and had exercised his leadership skills. Caesar undoubtedly thought that Sulla’s death would allow him rapid progress among the popular, but he was wrong. Sulla had left everything well tied up, and the power of the conservative optimates (excellent men), who dominated the Senate, stopped the popular party. Julius Caesar, a born politician (and this must always be understood to understand the meaning of many of his actions), set out to deepen the understanding of the labyrinth of public affairs. He considered that his training had not yet been completed and he traveled to Rhodes to study rhetoric with Apollonius of Molon , [7] a brilliant and renowned teacher who found in his disciple excellent innate qualities for eloquence. Only Cicero , who had also received lessons from Apollonius, surpassed him among his contemporaries in the art of oratory.
On the trip he was kidnapped by pirates [7] who devastated the Mediterranean and who lived off the ransom they demanded for their victims. The story has no doubt been exaggerated, but the fear and respect that the pirates reportedly came to feel for him are illustrative of Caesar’s arrogance and his ability to fascinate even his enemies. . Once freed from him, he gathered a small army, chartered ships and attacked the pirates, whom he defeated, keeping him and his soldiers with everything they owned [7] . The survivors of the adventure were finally crucified at Miletus , and Caesar undertook an immediate campaign against Mithridates , who was once again rising against the empire. He was then unaware of Nicomedes’ will, a fact of singular importance for him, since the king of Bithynia left him a legacy that, together with the pirates’ loot, healed his always battered economic situation.
However, the campaign against Mithridates was entrusted to other hands, because the death in 74 of his uncle Aurelio Cota left a position vacant in the College of Pontiffs of Rome , a position that he requested and that was granted to him, as well as a year later. next, that of military tribune. These appointments only accelerated Caesar’s political career. As a quaestor ( 68 BC ), he delivered on the harangue platform, as was customary, the eulogy of his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, who had just died. In the first he established in the following way the double origin of his aunt and that of his own father [8] :
Through her mother, my aunt Julia was descended from kings; Through her father, she is united to the immortal gods; because the Marcian kings descended from Ancus Marcius, whose name my mother bore; From Venus came the Julius, whose race is ours. This is how the majesty of the kings, who are the owners of men, and the holiness of the gods, who are the owners of the kings, are seen together in our family.
As quaestor he traveled to Hispania Ulterior [9] . It is said that Caesar cried before the statue of Alexander the Great , [9] erected in the city of Cádiz , thinking how little his career could be compared with that of the conqueror of the East and how much he wanted to emulate in his heart the invincible Macedonian general. . On one occasion he was disturbed by a dream in which he appeared to be raping his own mother, but the fortune tellers prophesied good omens to him, since they interpreted that the mother symbolized the Earth, mother of all things, and this meant that she would take over of the world. And the truth is that, dizzyingly, he was accumulating dignities in the following years. In 65 he was appointed curul councillor ; In 63 the president of the College of Pontiffs died, and Caesar, at the age of twenty-seven, presented his candidacy against Catullus, leader of the optimates.
Caesar knew that he was undertaking an economic adventure (the struggle for power always required money) and that if he lost he would be relentlessly persecuted. But the election showed the popularity he enjoyed among the people, and he was appointed pontifex maximus . The praetorship, the step immediately before the consulate, arrived in 62 BC. n. and. , and was sent as propraetor to Hispania Ulterior , [10] territory that he already knew very well, where he not only made solid friendships, but also enriched the public treasury, to the great satisfaction of Rome, and notably strengthened his personal wealth and his ability to command over a large army, an indispensable condition for political success in Rome. When in the year 60 he returned to the Eternal City, the way was open for the great adventure.
Triumvirate
The step to the maximum status of consul was given in the year 59 BC. n. and. Aware of the forces of the Senate (always dominated by conservatives), in which Caesar had intelligently gotten rid of his unfortunate links with the rebellious Catiline, he understood that only an alliance between powerful people could neutralize the equites. He then proposed to his old friend and supporter, Crassus, to establish, together with Pompey , a mutual defense society that would force them to always act unanimously (an institution later known as the “triumvirate”). The alliance was effective and Caesar, in the company of Calpurnius Bibulus (a candidate from the Equites), was appointed consul.
The triumvirate was further strengthened by Pompey’s marriage to Julia, Caesar’s daughter. Caesar, in turn, married Calpurnia [11] . He had repudiated Pompeii , his second wife, for infidelity, in 62, after a scandalous episode: during the mysteries of the Bona Dea, an exclusive night party for women that took place in the home of Julius Caesar himself, one of the servants discovered the presence of an intruder disguised as a woman, Publius Clodius , which caused the indignation of the attendees. Pompeii was accused of being Clodius’s lover, a point that could never be proven. César did not want to believe the complaint and absolved both of the crime of adultery in which they had been accused. Everyone was amazed that he still repudiated his wife, but he responded with a phrase that has become famous: “Caesar’s wife must not only be chaste, but appear so.”
Caesar’s progressive legislation had an agrarian base. He voted for laws to distribute land to veterans and to settle colonists on conquered lands, a practice that was later extended to all of Italy, also granting the colonists full Roman nationality. Bibulus, faced with the impossibility of opposing Caesar, opted for retirement. The tribune of the plebs, Publius Vatinius, a former friend and associate of Caesar, in order to avoid the trial of Caesar by the conservatives after his consulship, proposed a law that the Senate could not but approve, by which he was granted in quality of proconsul (which prevented his subsequent trial), and for a term of five years, three legions, the provinces of Cisalpine and Transpadana Gaul and Illyria . These concessions were renewed for five more years in April 56, at the Lucca meeting, attended by the “triumvirs.”
Crassus, meanwhile, was still stationed in Syria , where he led the war against the Parthians and in which he died in 53, and Pompey continued in the proconsulate of Hispania. These conditions allowed Caesar to seize all power. To achieve this, any means could be useful: as pontifex maximus he authorized Clodius, former lover of his wife Pompeii, to be adopted by a plebeian, in order to be able, despite his original status as a patrician, to access the position of tribune of the plebs. And so it was that the grateful Clodius took care of clearing Caesar’s path of enemies.
The Gallic War
Main article: Gallic War
Julius Caesar in the Gallic War
Between the year 58 and 51 BC. n. and. [12] The conquest of Gaul took place, a war that gave Julius Caesar the resources and popularity that allowed him to face Pompey in a long civil war.
Already in the province of Gaul, Caesar seemed determined not to intervene in war problems, but he did so when its inhabitants requested it. The Aedui began to feel the threat of the Helvetii, who at the same time were looking for new territories, pushed by the invasion of the Germans led by Ariovistus. Caesar’s legions came to the aid of the Aedui, and defeated the Helvetii and Suebi. This marked the beginning of the systematic occupation of Gaul by Caesar’s forces, aided by lieutenants Labienus and Crassus.
It was a protracted struggle in which the country was literally plundered, a third of its population died fighting and another third were probably sold into slavery. Subsequently, in actions in which Caesar also suffered defeat, all the Gallic towns were subjected. In the midst of this struggle, between 55 and 54, Caesar landed in England and fought beyond the Thames, but finally had to withdraw. The following year (winter 54-53), Gaul once again stirred. The Eburones revolted, led by Ambiorix and also the Trevines, and finally all the Gallic peoples, under the leadership of Vercingetorix (80-46 BC). The Romans met disaster at the Battle of Gergovia , but Vercingetorix’s forces were besieged for a long time and finally defeated at Alesia. The surrender of the Belovaks (Belgians) at Uxellodunum (51) put an end to the domination of Gaul, although total submission was only achieved in the winter of December 51 to February 52 BC. n. e., after reducing persistent pockets of resistance.
The Roman soldiers came out enriched from these campaigns; the officers, naturally, even more so. César cleaned up his finances, enriched the state coffers, was largely generous with his friends and even reserved an important amount for the future. He flooded the city of Rome with so much gold that the noble metal depreciated by at least thirty percent. The Gallic War was recorded in De bello gallico , one of two preserved works by Caesar, written in 52-51 BC. n. e., which is not only the most valuable document for the knowledge of that fact, but must also be considered a masterpiece of classical Latin.
The prestige and power achieved by Caesar worried Pompey, who was elected sole consul in Rome in the midst of a situation of chaos due to fights between mercenaries ( 52 BC ). Ordered by the Senate to discharge his troops, Caesar preferred to confront Pompey, to whom the Senate had entrusted the defense of the Republic as the last hope of safeguarding the traditional oligarchic order. But, at the beginning of the year 49 BC. n. and. , Caesar marched with the men on Rome.
The civil War
The other preserved work of Julius Caesar, De bello civili , [13] [14] literarily inferior to the first, perhaps because he did not even have time to review his manuscripts, refers to the events covering the civil war between the years 49 and 45. The immense power accumulated by Caesar caused panic among the senatorial party, his usual enemies. On the other hand, many republicans saw this power as the most serious danger to the republic. And furthermore, internal circumstances had the city in convulsion. The Senate appointed in 52 BC. n. and. Pompey as sole consul [15] , and when the senatorial side felt strong again, between 51 and 50, Pompey (now Caesar’s enemy) asked him to discharge his legions and return to Rome.
Caesar crosses the Rubicon River .
In this situation, hesitant and indecisive, Julius Caesar was in front of the small Rubicon River , which separates Cisalpine Gaul from Italy, when, according to some because of his proverbial daring and according to others due to the imperative of fate, he was seized by an uncontrollable impulse and He dragged his troops behind him exclaiming Alea jacta est [16] (the die is cast!). This action would trigger the civil war that would last three years (49-46): he occupied Picenas, Umbria and Etruria [17] , he went to Brindisi to intercept the passage to Pompey, although he did not succeed, and he retraced his steps to enter Rome convened the Senate and imposed its conditions, then invaded Hispania.
The final battle would take place in Pharsalia [15] [18]
( June 26 , 48 BC ), epic sung by Lucanus in immortal verses. The poet describes Pompey:
in the decline of his years towards old age, like the shadow of a great name.
While of Caesar he said:
fiery and indomitable, a man who went to act wherever hope or anger called him. There they found tawny ensigns facing equal and hostile ensigns, identical eagles facing each other and pikes threatening identical pikes.
Caesar won and Pompey fled to Alexandria , where he died on September 28 , 48 BC. n. and. at the hands of Ptolemy’s soldiers, who had a dispute with his sister and his wife, Cleopatra, over the throne of Egypt. Caesar arrived in Egypt and upon learning of Pompey’s tragic end, he mourned his death [19] , while there he took the opportunity to intervene in a succession dispute of the pharaonic family, taking sides in favor of Cleopatra (” Alexandrian War “, 48-47 a.n.e.).
After Pompey was assassinated in Egypt, Caesar continued the fight against his supporters. First he had to defeat the king of Pontus, Pharnaces [20] , in the Battle of Zela (47 BC), which he defined with his famous sentence veni, vidi, vici [21] (‘I arrived, I saw and I conquered’) .
Caesar in Egypt
Caesar and Cleopatra in Egypt
Caesar arrived in Egypt accompanied by two legions, the tenth and the twelfth; in total, about six thousand men. After accommodating his men in the royal palace, he set about putting order in the difficult internal situation of the Nile country , divided by the confrontation between the two reigning brothers and husbands, Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII . Caesar and Cleopatra had an intense and famous love relationship that would produce a son: Caesarion. Caesar gave the throne to Cleopatra (47 BC), which, together with the presence of Roman troops in the palace of the pharaohs and the deposition of Ptolemy XIII, caused the people, led by advisors loyal to the king, to mutiny. and tried to take the palace.
For four months, Caesar resisted entrenched in the palace against the sixty thousand men of the Egyptian Achilles. Finally, when reinforcements led by Mithridates of Pergamum arrived , Caesar carried out one of his brilliant military actions and managed to break through the Egyptian encirclement to meet with Mithridates, after which the combined forces of both destroyed the Egyptian troops in a bloody battle in the that Ptolemy XIII died. Cleopatra later moved to Rome, where she lived until the dictator’s death.
Last battles
That war between Romans was not over yet. Caesar was holding his third consulship when he had to fight again against the senatorial forces at Thapso, in April 46, and against the last forces of Pompey’s sons at Manda, in March 45, when he was already consul for the fourth time. In warrior terms there was practically nothing left to do. Even in the midst of the civil war, in 47, he had definitively defeated Pharnaces, the eternal enemy king of Pontus. Five days after arriving, he gave battle and in a few hours devastated the enemy troops. He immediately sent the Roman Senate a famous and laconic account of the events: veni, vidi, vici (I arrived, I saw, I conquered). He was never personally defeated in any combat he engaged in, although his generals were.
Once master of the situation, Caesar accumulated positions and honors that strengthened his personal power: consul for ten years, prefect of customs, supreme chief of the army, maximum pontiff (high priest), perpetual dictator and emperor with the right of hereditary transmission, although he rejected the royal diadem that Marco Antonio offered him . The Senate was reduced to a mere council of the prince. He thus established a military dictatorship disguised by the appearance of accumulation of civil magistracies.
His government established numerous reforms. However, several senatorial families felt that he threatened their privileged positions and believed that he would establish a monarchical government.
Murder
Caesar was, therefore, absolute master of the Roman Republic and the Mediterranean world. He had fulfilled the dream of his youth: totality of power, within the legal framework of the republic. Caesar was imperator and dictator. As such, he again exercised his typical clemency towards his enemies; He did not forget his agrarian policy and the settlement of colonists; He increased the number of popular festivals, although taking care not to incur ruinous expenses for the State; He established economic and financial regulations that protected the less powerful, tried to moderate the luxury of the powerful and limited spending on banquets; He designed profound political transformations, dictated laws that expanded Roman citizenship to broader layers of the population, and began to think about a world different from the one hitherto known within the limits of the Roman city.
Caesar was convinced that, to maintain dominance in the East and be able to successfully carry out the final expedition against the Parthians (the only threat to the empire), he needed to be absolute king outside the territorial confines of Rome. And this was the trigger. Some sixty members of important families, almost all of them senators, conspired to eliminate Caesar and restore the legitimacy and legality of the republic, fearful that the overwhelming accumulation of positions and privileges that fell to him would end up putting the last word on the dilapidated Republic and Caesar proclaimed himself king.
In fact, some commentators put these boastful and defiant words in their mouths: “The Republic is nothing, it is just a name without body or figure.” But for many of them it was undoubtedly a pretext that hid sordid resentments and appetites. Cassius, Brutus and Casca led the conspiracy. Brutus was the son of Servilia, the most famous of Caesar’s lovers, and Julius Caesar himself had welcomed him as an adopted son and showered him with honors [22] . Cassius had always fought alongside Caesar in search of loot, so it was not difficult to purchase it. Casca, finally, was a traditional enemy of Julius Caesar. Probably, other conspirators had no other objective than to eliminate the dictator and undertook, as Brutus imposed, to respect his lieutenant Mark Antony.
Julius Caesar attended the Senate on March 15, 44 BC . n. and. [23] [24] to the session that would discuss the expedition against the Parthians. He went to the Senate despite Calpurnia ‘s pleas that he not do so, since during the night he had had premonitory dreams. Someone detained Mark Antony in the anteroom of the Senate. When Caesar had sat down, they surrounded him and attacked him with their daggers and daggers. According to tradition, when faced with Brutus’ stab wound, Caesar exclaimed kai su teknon of him, a phrase in Greek that was later Latinized into the famous tu quoque, fili mi! [25] (you too, my son!). Caesar groaned at the first stab, then remained silent.
Assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate.
He had received 23 stab wounds [26] ; Possibly only one of them had been fatal. While the terrified senators fled (a fact that did not enter into the conspirators’ plan), Caesar, wrapped in his toga, fell at the foot of the statue of Pompey. The bloodthirsty scene, predicted by the fortune tellers and which would unleash a new fratricidal war, accredits, following Suetonius ‘s description , the hero’s final elegance:
Then, realizing that he was the target of innumerable daggers that were brandished against him from all sides, he covered his head with the toga, and with his left hand he lowered its folds to the ends of his legs to fall with more dignity. .
The man who had won a world and had contributed to irreversibly modifying the destiny of the West and much of the East was now nothing more than a bleeding wreckage.
On March 17, the Senate met urgently to discuss the critical situation of the state following Caesar’s assassination. Compromise measures were approved between the two opposing sides: the tyrannicides were not punished and, in turn, neither the person nor the work of Caesar was condemned. Power fell to Mark Antony, who at the time held the consulship along with Caesar. Caesar’s will bequeathed 300 sesterces to each needy citizen of Rome and gave his Trastevere gardens to the Roman people, which stimulated popular devotion to his figure to impressive extremes; The execution of the tyrannicides was requested and Mark Antony’s commitment to Caesar’s murderers was rejected, which in the long run would cost him power. Since Caesar had no male heirs, his will established that his great-nephew, Octavian, would become his successor [27] :
Julius Caesar, descendant of Romulus and the goddess Aphrodite herself, conqueror of Gaul (…) dictates that his political heir will be his great-nephew, Octavian
Octavian would carry out Caesar’s reforms and become the first emperor of Rome, under the name Augustus.
Legacy
Julius Caesar was the great protagonist of the last period in the history of republican Rome. A splendid orator and brilliant writer, he stood out above all as a distinguished general and politician, brilliant, ambitious, generous, impulsive and, at the same time, determined and subtle. Possessor of a vast and refined culture and an exceptional memory, he knew the doctrines of political philosophers as well as the history of the great Eastern empires and was also fond of linguistic and grammatical problems.
While Julius Caesar was still very young, Sulla recognized in him “the makings of many Marius.” In reality, he was to a certain extent the heir and continuator of the activity carried out by that former political leader, his uncle, as happened with Pompey with respect to Sulla: Caesar also relied on the people and founded the fight against the war on his own military prestige. senatorial faction, which he always sought to weaken.
The reform of the state
The Emperor Julius Caesar , by the painter Rubens
The military victories of Julius Caesar had significantly increased the extent of the territories subject to Rome, and the conquest of power confronted Caesar with the difficult task of reorganizing the State, energetically attacking the multiple problems that weighed on Rome and its empire. .
With all the power of the Republic in his hands, Caesar launched an ambitious project of reforms and the fight against administrative corruption. Caesar defined his program with the famous phrase: create tranquility for Italy , peace in the provinces and security in the Empire . To restore peace in the provinces, Caesar did not resort to revolutionary measures, but instead favored the ruling classes while making some concessions to the rest of society. This double policy caused him the enmity even of his followers, who did not understand Caesar’s work, who slowly became isolated.
In contrast to the multiple activity of the dictator in the social and administrative field, there was no institutional regulation of his role in the state, which culminated in the exercise of totalitarian power. It was precisely his isolation and the indications that he aspired to create a monocratic position on the ruins of the traditional order that favored the conspiracy, to the point that on the day of his assassination only two senators tried to defend him, in the face of the total passivity of the rest.
Caesar’s government, after his military campaigns, was really short-lived, barely two years. During that time he nominally maintained the Roman republican institutions, but adapted them to his political approaches. His program, which attempted to cover all of the State’s problems, consisted of establishing security throughout the Roman world under his aegis, for which he sought to guarantee social peace, eliminating armed bands, which functioned as political collegia, without taking measures. of retaliation against their enemies.
Two of his great achievements were his colonizing policy (with the creation of colonies outside Italy, especially in Hispania, Gaul and Africa , in which he settled army veterans and many urban commoners) and the granting of Roman citizenship with the who rewarded people loyal to their cause. Many provincial cities became municipalities under Roman or Latin law, depending on the case. The soldiers received double the salary they had received until then, thus avoiding possible discontent. With them he structured an army of 32 legions .
Among his political reforms, the increase in the number of senators should be noted , which rose to nine hundred (some originating from Cisalpina and Bética ) , with which this institution lost part of its power. The assemblies were managed according to his personal criteria, although republican formalities were maintained, and the magistracies became, in practice, an executive body, with magistrates appointed in part by Caesar himself. He modified the courts, ordering harsher penalties for the guilty and published a lex Iulia de provinciis by which the temporary mandate of provincial governors was shortened. He minted gold coins, leaving the issuance of silver and copper pieces to the senate. Finally, it is worth highlighting the reform of the calendar that he carried out in 46 BC. n. and. , matching it to the solar year . In the cultural field, he commissioned Varrón to organize libraries .
Literary work
As a writer, Caesar is considered one of the fundamental pillars of Roman Literature . His best contributions are the famous Commentaries on the Gallic War [28] and Commentaries on the Civil War , written during the winter pauses of his military campaigns. In the first work, composed of seven books, he described his annexation wars with detailed descriptions of the expeditions, conquests, uprisings and defeats that he experienced in Gaul between the years 58 and the surrender of Ariovistus in 52 BC. n. and.; and in the second he reflected in three books the events that occurred in 49 and 48 BC. n. e., with the clear intention of justifying the need for the civil confrontation that brought him to the top of power.
The meaning of the historical work is complex. He picked up the tradition of public men who, to spread their speech and strengthen voters, used the publication of war chronicles, memoirs or pamphlets; but it was original because it added the technical language and concise lexicon learned from the Hellenic military tradition. He used a simple style, and language devoid of ornaments, brief and austere.
A 1783 edition of Commentaries on the Gallic War
In the Commentaries on the Gallic War he expanded on the role of strategist and military leader, and he did not need to justify his actions as much because the Romans supported him. The aim was to show, in an official version directed against hostile interpretations, that the conquest of Gaul (with which, in reality, Julius Caesar had exceeded the limits of the position of governor of the Narbonne province) was provoked by the threatening attitude of the same Gauls. However, in the Commentaries on the Civil War he changed objectives and developed a set of subtle justifications to hide his responsibility at the beginning of the conflict that divided Rome and to blame the Senate for the civil war; and he used all narrative and rhetorical resources to consolidate the power and honor achieved.
His contemporaries themselves praised the clarity and precision of the Commentaries, as well as the style, “sermo imperatorius”, which tends directly to its object with the speed typical of a man of action. The style of the Commentaries on the Gallic War was praised by Cicero as “sober, without artifice, elegant”, “like a body that had shed its clothing.” However, neither can we deny to both texts the polemical spirit and the tendentious character that, skillfully concealed by the silence maintained regarding some details and the presentation of others in the light most favorable to the author, harm the objectivity, otherwise unusual. in the memoirs of political figures. All in all, the two works constitute a valuable source of information regarding decisive events in the history of Rome. The Prose is suggestive, despite a certain monotony due to the use of indirect speech in a tone typical of a war report, generally indifferent (although not always) to the oratorical passages typical of what is written with artistic intentions.
He also wrote other texts of which only fragments are preserved, such as some speeches and poems, and De analogía , a work originally composed of two books dedicated to Cicero, whom despite political differences he considered a fundamental figure of Latin eloquence. The two Anticatones , propaganda works from the late Roman Republic, were well known at the time but were not preserved and are only known from quotes by contemporary writers.
Latin quotes
Ab imo pectore (With all my heart)
Alea iacta est (The die is cast)
Caesarem vehis, Caesarique fortunem (You carry Caesar and the fortune of Julius Caesar)
Cum tridui viam processisset (As I would have extended the march for three days)
Et milia passuum tria ab eorum castris castra ponit (And he set up camp three miles from theirs)
Divide et impera (Divide and seize power)
Et tu, Brute? (You too, Brutus?)
Fere libenter homines, id quod volunt, credunt (People almost always willingly believe what they want)
Hoc voluerunt (They wanted it)
Ignavi coram morte quidem animam trahunt, audaces autem illam non saltem advertunt (Cowards agonize before death, the brave do not even know about it)
I have you, Africa (I have you, Africa)
Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw and I conquered)
Filmography
| Year | Movie | Director | Actor |
| 1908 | Julius Caesar | J. 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 |
| 2001 | Vercingetorix | Jacques Dorfmann | Klaus Maria Brandauer |
| 2002 | Julius Caesar | Uli Edel | Jeremy Sisto |
| 2003 | Imperium: Augustus | Roger Young | Peter O’Toole |
| 2005 | Rome | Several | Ciarán Hinds |