As the conqueror of Gaul, the dictator of Rome, and arguably the last ruler of the Republic, Gaius Iulius Caesar, often in English simply called Julius Caesar, was one of Rome’s most consequential leaders. His political and literary career reshaped the Republic and left a lasting imprint on Latin rhetoric and style. He was respected by ally and enemy alike, and for centuries his Commentarii remained a foundation for military and political instruction. Even his very name—Caesar—gave rise to the titles of German (Kaiser) and Russian (Tsar) royalty, and his actions irrevocably altered the course of the ancient world.
Life
Far more of Caesar’s life can be said than shared here. He was born at Rome on 13 July 100 BCE into the aristocratic Julian clan (gens Iulia). As a child, he witnessed the political upheavals of the Social War (91–88 BCE) and the outbreak of civil war (88–82 BCE). He earned the enmity of Sulla for refusing to divorce Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, and subsequently went into hiding. Fortunately for Caesar, some of his extended family intervened on his behalf with Sulla. Caesar then left Rome for military service under M. Minucius Thermus in Asia, where he won distinction at the siege of Mytilene. He next campaigned under P. Servilius Vatia in Cilicia. After Sulla’s death in 78 BCE, he returned to Rome and embarked on a legal career, gaining further renown as a skilled orator.
The 70s BCE marked slow growth for Caesar’s career. He at first attempted a career in law, but suffered setbacks in the prosecution of Dolabella in 77 and Antonius Hybrida in 76, both of whom were well connected enough to defeat Caesar’s cases. Afterwards, he left for further studies under Apollonius Molon of Rhodes, and en route was captured by pirates for ransom. He later returned to Rhodes with a fleet, captured the pirates, and had them all crucified.
After the Mithridatic wars, Caesar returned to Rome with renewed ambition. He was made a pontifex and soon afterwards ascended the cursus honorum: he was elected tribunus militum at some point in the 70s, quaestor in 69, aedilis curulis in 65, pontifex maximus in 63, and finally praetor in 62. He was appointed to govern Further Spain as a propraetor in 61, where he campaigned against the last tribes resisting Roman conquest. After pacifying Spain, he formed the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus, a secret coalition combining their political weight to advance each other’s interests.
Caesar’s political ascendancy did not occur without provoking opposition. While serving in Asia, he was a guest at the palace of Nicomedes IV, king of Bithynia. When his opponents learned of this, they mocked him with slanderous slurs insinuating he had submitted himself sexually to Nicomedes. The slur stuck with him for years: when Caesar was elected consul in 59, the other consul, M. Calpurnius Biblus, refused collegiality with him, having previously called him pulchellus Iason, “little pretty Jason.” With Bibulus withdrawing from public business, Caesar effectively governed alone that year. There was even a joke about it, calling the year the consulship of Julius and Caesar, and a contemporary epigram mocking the situation was recorded by Cicero (M. Tullius Cicero):
Non Bibulo quiddam nuper sed Caesare factum est:
nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini.
Not by Bibulus was anything recently accomplished, but by Caesar:
In fact, I don’t even remember Bibulus being consul!
After his consulship, Caesar lobbied to become governor of Transalpine Gaul. He used the opportunity to wage war against the Gallic tribes, eventually subjugating the entire region. Caesar later compiled the records of his military activities and published them as the Commentarii de Bello Gallico (usually translated in English as Gallic War).
While Caesar’s early successes in Gaul were met positively by the majority in the Senate, even being voted to receive thanksgiving for his victories, as the war went on, opposition intensified. He received public challenges from Cato the Younger and legal challenges from one L. Antistius, and the law he passed as consul allowing settlements for veterans on public lands—something that would have affected Pompey’s former troops as much as Caesar’s future ones—was in danger of being overturned. In 56, he met Pompey and perhaps Crassus at Luca to renew their alliance, and the Triumvirate’s renewed efforts of political maneuvering kept opposition at bay. Cicero, who had recently been opposed to the Triumvirate, suddenly supported more money and legions for Caesar’s war effort, and Pompey and Crassus were elected—albeit through contrivances—consuls for 55.
However, by the late 50s BCE, the Triumvirate began to fall apart. Julia, Pompey’s wife and Caesar’s daughter, had died during childbirth, and Crassus was killed in a war against the Parthians in 53. A plan to have both Pompey and Caesar be elected consul in 52 was derailed when Caesar was forced to continue fighting a rebellion in Gaul spearheaded by the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix. At the same time, political violence at Rome, spurred on by rival gang leaders T. Annius Milo and the aforementioned P. Clodius Pulcher, led to the extraordinary election of Pompey as the sole consul (consul sine collega) in 52.
Pompey’s consular election and Caesar’s victory over Vercingetorix pushed the two men towards opposite ends of supreme power. Caesar’s enemies in particular attempted to woo Pompey to their side. M. Marcellus, the consul of 51, demanded Caesar disband his legions and return to Rome, since he had achieved pacification of Transalpine Gaul. To hasten this, he got Pompey to agree to recall a legion that he had loaned Caesar. By 50, Pompey and a Senatorial faction were attempting to pass laws for Caesar’s disbandment of his army and relinquishment of his command in Gaul, something Caesar was averse to do since he feared prosecution. Threats from the Parthians meant that Pompey not only recalled the legion he loaned Caesar, but also requested another one from Caesar’s army to shore up forces on the eastern front. The two legions never left Italy.
By the end of 50 BCE, Pompey and the Senatorial faction were exerting more control over Rome, threatening to exclude Caesar altogether and prosecute him. Things culminated when two of Caesar’s allies, M. Antonius (Mark Antony) and Q. Cassius, were forced to flee Rome. When they joined Caesar’s camp, they signaled that all negotiations in the Senate had broken down. This was the moment that broke the impasse. Crossing the Rubicon River, which formed a natural boundary between Italy and Gaul, with an army would be considered tantamount to treason. Nearing that boundary, Caesar reportedly uttered the phrase Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος, (more commonly repeated in the Latin, alea iacta est, “the die is cast”), and thus Rome’s civil war began anew.
In just a year and a half, Caesar’s forces had gained the upper hand, and his leading opponents—Pompey and Cato the Younger—were scattered. Claiming to restore the Republic after decades of civil strife, he was made dictator. He left Rome and headed to Egypt, where Pompey had fled. There he learned that Ptolemy XIII had, against the customs of hospitality, murdered Pompey in hope of securing Caesar’s blessing by serving him with Pompey’s head. Caesar was outraged by the act, noting that Pompey was a Roman still and was the widower of Caesar’s only daughter. Instead of welcoming the act, Caesar deposed Ptolemy after a short war (during which part of the Library of Alexandria was burned) and placed Ptolemy’s sister Cleopatra VII on the throne instead. Nine months later, Cleopatra gave birth to Caesar’s son, whom she named Caesarion (“Little Caesar”).
After Egypt, Caesar went on to conquer Pontus before defeating the Pompeian resistance in North Africa (where Cato committed suicide) and then in Spain.
Victorious over all his enemies, Caesar—unlike Sulla and Marius before him—did not proscribe his enemies, but instead famously pardoned them. He was praised by the Senate for this and given titles and honors, including the unprecedented dictator perpetuus “dictator without end,” essentially granting him unlimited power in Rome without the expectation of an end date.
On the Ides of March (i.e. 15 March), he was assassinated by a group who called themselves the Liberatores, led by C. Cassius Longinus. Among the group, though, was Marcus Brutus, with whose mother Caesar had maintained an affair for years. According to one tradition reported by Suetonius, Caesar’s last words came as he looked at Brutus, “Καί σύ, τέκνον?” (“You too, my son?”), though the words are likely apocryphal.
As a comet flew overhead shortly during Caesar’s funeral games, the Senate voted to deify the great leader. At first, Mark Antony attempted position himself as Caesar’s successor, but a few months later, a will was produced nameing Caesar’s grand-nephew, C. Octavius, his adopted son and sole heir. Octavius decided to change his name to Gaius Julius Caesar, also known as Octavianus (Octavian), and the seeds of a new Triumvirate and a new civil war between Antony and Octavian would be planted.
Works
Caesar’s only surviving works are his two histories, the Commentarii de Bello Gallico (often shortened to Bellum Gallicum) and the Commentarii de Bello Civili (often shortened to Bellum Civile).
The De Bello Gallico likely originated in reports (called commentarii) to the Senate detailing Caesar’s actions in Gaul. Their compilation into one text should not be seen as the creation of a history per se; the title instead indicates material for future historians to turn into beautiful prose, though certain stylistic devices become more common in later sections.
Only the first seven of the eight books of De Bello Gallico were written by Caesar himself. The final book was an addition made by his lieutenant Aulus Hirtius in order to connect the narrative to Caesar’s other work, the De Bello Civili.
The contents of Caesar’s portion cover his campaigns from 58–52, while Hirtius’ addition covers the years 51–50. The books typically narrate the various Gallic and Germanic tribes Caesar conquered because of rebellion or refusal to submit to Roman authority. Caesar also shows interest in ethnography, and begins the whole work with a brief ethnographic and geographical overview, while in book V Caesar touches upon the Britons and in book VI he describes the customs of the Germans.
The book closes with the capture of Vercingetorix in 52 BCE. Hirtius’ additions generally narrate the aftermath of conquest, including subduing remnants and, finally, his ultimate triumph as he leaves Gaul for Rome.
The De Bello Civili covers the events of the war between Caesar and Pompey. It opens with the political confrontation at Rome, in which Pompey and the Senate attempt to block his triumph and compel him to return to face prosecution. The work reads like a cross between a sympathetic history and a propaganda piece denigrating the motives of his enemies and portraying himself more as securing his honor rather than satisfying his ambition. It ends with Caesar’s siege of Alexandria after the death of Pompey, following a dynastic struggle between Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII (of Antony and Cleopatra fame).
The work ends abruptly, but its narrative is continued by the De Bello Alexandrino, De Bello Africano, and De Bello Hispaniensi, which together make up the Corpus Caesarianum and narrate the rest of the war to its conclusion at the Battle of Munda, though all three works were not written by Caesar, but perhaps subordinates in his army.
Other works of Caesar are lost, but some of their names have survived. Caesar was one of the best orators of his time, and he received praise even by Cicero While later in his career Caesar avoided the courts that made Cicero famous, he was known for his speeches in the Senate, as well as a particularly moving oration for his Aunt Julia at her funeral.
Caesar was also interested in scholarship and linguistic theory. He penned the De Analogia (On Analogy), addressed to Cicero, in which he argued for a rational approach—as opposed to a historical approach—to grammar and syntax.
Legacy
Caesar’s political legacy is far weightier than his literary contributions. One only need think of the titles of German and Russian rulers (Kaiser, Czar) to see his name penetrating deep into the modern world. Without Caesar, the Roman empire and therefore Europe would look very different.
However, his influence in literature is not negligible. While his De Analogia had little influence, he was noted for his mastery of Latinitas; Caesar’s Latin is often admired for its clarity and purity, and any irregularity in his prose is instead accepted on his authority. The famous critic Quintilian thought only Caesar could rival Cicero in oration. His Commentarii also became central to both military education and to the teaching of Latin, where their simplicity purity makes them indispensable classroom texts.
Caesar Online
Latin: PHI Latin Texts
English: Perseus (Civil War • Gallic War)
English: Sacred-Texts
English: Lacus Curtius (Gallic War)
English: Student’s Interlinear Translation
Further Reading
- Michael Grant 1969. Julius Caesar. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- S. Weinstock 1971. Divus Julius. Oxford.
- J. M. Collins 1972. “Caesar as Political Propagandist.” ANRW 1.1: 922–966.
- Tom Holland 2003. Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic. Anchor Books.
- Adrian Goldsworthy 2006. Caesar: Life of a Colossus. Yale University Press.
