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Caeser Essay, Research Paper

Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 BC. Although patrician descent,

Caesar’s family had not achieved real prominence. His father, also named Gaius Julius

Caesar, was the brother-in-law of Gaius Marius and married Aurelia, who was connected

with the prominent Aurelii family; he died about 85 BC, however, before reaching the

consulship. In 84, Caesar married Cornelia, daughter of Marius’s old partner Lucius

Cornelius Cinna. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla ordered him to divorce her, he refused and

escaped harm through the intervention of such people as his mother’s relative, Gaius

Aurelius Cotta.

Caesar was then sent to collect a fleet from the Roman ally Nicomedes IV of

Bithynia and was honored for conspicuous bravery at the siege of Mytilene. Returning

home after Sulla’s death , he unsuccessfully prosecuted two Sullans, Gnaeus Cornelius

Dolabella and Gaius Antonius Hibrida. He then left Rome for studies in Rhodes but was

captured by pirates. After obtaining ransom, he recruited private troops, captured the

pirates, and had them executed in. His studies on Rhodes were interrupted by the outbreak

of war with Mithradates VI of Pontus, against who he gathered a force in 74.

During a legateship to help Marcus Antonius Creticus fight piracy, Caesar was

made a pontiff at Rome in 73 BC. After his military tribunate and possible service against

Spartacus, he sided with those seeking power from outside the circle of nobles who

dominated the Senate. He supported restoration of tribunician powers and the recall from

exile of those who had supported Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in his revolt of 77. Caesar also

advertised his Marian connections: by displaying Marius’s effigies at his aunt Julia’s

funeral; through funeral orations for both Julia and his wife; and by the restoration of

Marius’ battle trophies on the Capitoline Hill.

After a quaestorship in Spain, Caesar earned popularity among the Transpadane Gauls by

supporting their agitation for Roman citizenship. He next married Pompeia,

granddaughter of Sulla and relative of Pompey the Great, and evidence indicates that he

supported important military assignments for Pompey in 67 and 66. As aedile in 65 BC, he

achieved great popularity–and went into debt–by financing splendid games. He also

probably cooperated with Marcus Licinius Crassus in an attempt to annex Egypt, in

supporting Catiline for the consulship, and in promoting the land-distribution bill of

Publius Servilius Rullus.

In 64 BC, Caesar presided over trials of those who had committed murder during

Sulla’s proscriptions. The following year, he prosecuted Gaius Rabirius, and used that trial

to attack the legality of the Senatus consultum ultimum, the Senate’s decree of a state of

emergency. In the elections of that year, massive bribery helped him become Pontifex

Maximus. Caesar took no part in Catiline’s conspiracy, but he courted popularity by

opposing the execution of Catiline’s accomplices and, as praetor in 62, by supporting

measures favorable to Pompey. Soon after, however, he divorced Pompeia on suspicion of

infidelity with Publius Clodius, although he refused to testify against the latter in the Bona

Dea affair. Caesar later married Calpurnia.

Caesar became governor of Further Spain in 61 after Crassus had helped pacify his

creditors. Military action in Spain restored Caesar’s finances, and he outwitted his political

enemies by forgoing a triumph (the traditional victor’s procession in Rome) in order to win

election to the consulate with the support of Crassus and Pompey. Faced with increased

opposition from conservatives like Cato the Younger, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey

formed the First Triumvirate to further their ambitions After obtaining a reduction of the

Asian tax contracts for Crassus, ratification of Pompey’s postwar arrangements in the

East, and land for Pompey’s veterans, Caesar received the governorships of Illyricum,

Cisalpine Gaul, and Transalpine Gaul. He was also given control of a large army, which he

used to subjugate Gaul. He gained enormous political strength from the Gallic Wars,

which lasted from 58 to 51 BC.

Although Caesar’s daughter, Julia, married Pompey in 59, strain, encouraged by

Crassus, developed between the two men. The “Triumvirate” was renegotiated at Luca in

56, but the death of Julia in 54 and Crassus in 53 and the phenomenal success of Caesar in

Gaul eventually destroyed Caesar’s relationship with Pompey. In 50 Pompey joined

opponents of Caesar’s bid for a second consulate. Caesar’s offers of compromise were

rejected by the Senate, and on Jan. 10, 49 BC, Caesar precipitated civil war by leading his

army across the Rubicon into Italy proper.

Caesar’s veteran army soon overran Italy, forcing the unprepared Pompey to

withdraw to Greece. In August 49 a lightning campaign secured Spain, and Caesar then

crossed to Greece. At Dyrrhachium he suffered a loss, but his hardened veterans totally

defeated Pompey’s superior numbers at Pharsalus on Aug. 9, 48. Pompey fled to Egypt,

where he was murdered. Following him there, Caesar became involved in the civil war

between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII. He made Cleopatra his mistress as well

as queen of Egypt.

In 47 BC Caesar went to Anatolia, where he defeated Pompey’s ally Pharnaces,

king of Bosporus, at Zela; this victory

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