Here is a name that should sound familiar to almost everyone as he is easily the most famous individual of ancient Rome. Besides that, he was also the single most central character more or less personally responsible for the transformation of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.

Being both a military and a political leader, Caesar more or less follows in the footsteps of our previous entries as an unrivalled tactician and unparalleled statesman. But without further ado, lets get on with it.

Biography

Gaius Julius Caesar was born into the Roman equivalent of nobility in 100 BC . Unfortunately for him his family was not particularly important. At age 16 his father died an unexpected sudden death and he Caesar was left in charge as head of the family. A year later he was made high priest of Jupiter. Eventually he lost his priesthood due to a whole fuckery of social and political causes that I neither fully comprehend nor care about in which he was exiled and later on un-exiled. All that is left to say is that he joined the military. Around 78 BC he returned to Rome, settling in a humble home due to the loss of his inheritance. He became somewhat the Roman equivalent of a lawyer and was renowned for his oratory skills. He became well known for ruthlessly going after corrupt former government officials.

In a funny anecdote, Caesar was at one time kidnapped by pirates. The pirates demanded a ransom of about 540kg of gold. Caesar in his arrogance insisted they made it a little over 1300. He also promised the pirates they would be crucified for their transgression. After being paid for, Caesar used his influence to raise a fleet and pursue the pirates. They were captured and imprisoned in the Roman province of Asia (modern day West Turkey) where the local governor refused to execute the fiends as Caesar demanded. Regardless, he used his own power to crucify them.

He was elected first as a Tribune, an government official with military powers and later as a quaestor, which more or less correspond with modern day district attorneys. He went to Hispania (modern day Spain) to serve his quaestorship where another peculiar thing happened. He is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great where he broke down crying because he had achieved relatively little during his life while the latter literally had, at that age, conquered the world. He requested a discharge from his position as quaestor to take up a role in Roman politics.

In Rome, he was elected in yet another public office, this time as an aedile, who were responsible for public buildings and events. A little later he ran for election of pontifex maximus, basically the pope of Roman religion and won rather comfortably. He was said to have told his mother that he would come back as pontifex maximus or not at all (due to his massive debts and loans being forced into exile). He was later elected praetor, one of the higher tiers of offices. Even later he was elected consul, the highest of Roman officials together with Bibulus.

Now consulship was usually a shared position, in this case of Caesar and Bibulus, to make sure that no single consul could usurp power and take over Rome by himself. In this particular case however, Caesar found allies in the rich Crassus and military commander Pompey, using their influence as supplements to his own to basically drive Bibulus out and take sole command of the city. After consulship, he was appointed governor of a section of Northern Italy, and with 4 legions of troops at his command he quickly departed, fearing prosecution in Rome for usurping Bibulus.

From his province, Caesar started expanding into Gaul (modern day France and Belgium basically) and eventually even invaded England. Caesar is renowned for his tactical mind on par with the likes of Sun Tzu, Alexander and Hannibal. I’m not going to go into to deep a detail of his conquests here, as I find the political course of things a little more interesting.

In 50 BC, the governing body of Rome (Senate) under authority of Pompey, ordered Caesar to return from warring and disband his army as his term as governor (proconsul) had expired. Caesar was terrified of being incarcerated if he just turned up, so he decided to spite fate and marched to Rome with a single legion of soldiers. He first chased his former ally Pompey who fled to the seas out of Rome. He left Italy under the command of his lieutenant Mark Antony. Following that the army marched to Hispania to decimate Pompey’s commanders. Afterwards the journey went to Greece to confront the commander himself. In 48 BC he would destroy Pompey’s army, even though he was outnumbered more than twofold, Caesar through tactical prowess was able to claim victory. Pompey was eventually murdered by a Roman officer. Caesar was then elected for another round as consul of Rome.

Our Roman friend then took an interest in Egyptian politics, which was contested by two pharaohs; Ptolemy and the world famous Cleopatra. Caesar became lover of the latter and with his army drove out Ptolemy (ladies; fucking gets things done). He proceeded to ultimately destroy several smaller Asian rulers and was reelected as consul a third and fourth time.

Caesar was rather unlike the other dictators usually associated with total power, Julius was rather benevolent. He is known to have generally pardoned his political enemies instead of the typical prosecution and as a result thereof there was no real political opposition to him.

In the next years, Caesar would become the de facto ruler of Rome, being elected sole dictator 10 years in a row. Afterwards he was named “dictator for life” by the Senate. Although attempted several times, he never accepted the title of Rex (king), instead choosing to remain dictator.

Being sole ruler and de facto emperor, he rather lost popularity with the (now no longer) ruling Senate, although he was loved by the common people. Eventually he was assassinated by a group of angry senators including his close friend Brutus. In the following chaos a total of 5 civil wars were fought, ending with the collapse of the Roman Republic and the formation of the Roman Empire under Octavian, later known as the emperor Augustus.

Legacy

Basically, Caesar was single handedly responsible for the collapse of the world’s greatest nation and its following reformation to an extremely powerful empire that would last hundreds of years. The first emperor of the realm was Augustus, a nephew and adopted son of Julius.

During his life he received dozens of titles, of which few of the most important are;

• Awarded the Corona Civica, basically a Roman war decoration
• Pater Patriae, translating to “Father of the Fatherland”
• Pontifex maximus (twice!), translating as “Highest Pries”
• Dictator for Life, a term we all know
• Multiple terms as consul, the highest Roman office (save for dictator)
• After his death he was voted the title Divus, literally translating to “god”.

Besides that, it is extremely remarkable that his influence was so enormous that his actual name, Caesar in this case, became a title. And not just any title, “Caesar” would be a term subscribed to only the highest of individuals and de facto translates to “Emperor”. The latest known ruler to bear the title of “Caesar” or at least a bastardization of that is Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria, who died more than 2000 years after Caesar’s assassination.

So basically, Julius Caesar was a genius.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am and is filed under Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.