Julius Caesar

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 occasioned Caesar's famous boast Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). He returned to Rome, but in December 47 he crossed to North Africa to meet a new threat from the Pompeian forces. After victory at Thapsus, he returned home to an unprecedented quadruple triumph in 46 BC. Pompey's sons, however, organized new resistance in Spain. Caesar's victory over them at Munda, on Mar. 17, 45, was the hardest of all. Caesar was now showered with political powers and honors. He was appointed dictator, then dictator for 10 years, and finally dictator for life. He was also elected consul, appointed prefect of morals, awarded tribunician sacrosanctity , and honored by portrayal on coins and by the erection of a temple to his clemency. Caesar introduced numerous reforms, such as limiting the distribution of free grain, founding citizen colonies, introducing the Julian calendar,