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Julius Caesar...
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was born in the year 100 BC into a patrian family who
claimed decendancy from the kings of Alba Langa and through them, Aeneas of
Troy whose mother was the goddess Venus. Caesar's name Julius comes from
Iulius, the family name. This comes from Iulus, the name of Venus' son.
At the time of his birth, Rome was still a republic and the empire was only
really beginning. The senators ruled, motivated by the greed of power in the
hope of becoming either a consul or a praetor, the two senior posts which
carried emporium, the legal right to command an army. |
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Coin issued by Caesar depicting military trophy
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Caesar made his way to praetorship by 62 BC and many of
the senate felt him a dangerous, ambitious man. Because of this, they
deprived him of a triumph after his praetorian command in Spain (61-60 BC)
and they also did their best to keep him out of consulship. He finally
became consul in 59 BC.
Much of the thanks for this achievement should be given to Gnaeus Pompeius
(Pompey the Great) who had just come back from a campaign which had doubled
the income of the Roman treasury and gained
three new provinces to the empire. |
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Julius Caesar
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Because of this he had popular support and his voice
carried great weight with the public at large. Because of Pompey, however,
to become a leading person in Roman politics you had
to have more then just an ordinary triumph. Caesar had all the acclaim he
could hope for and the triumph to back it up, however, to get the position
he felt his achievements deserved, he had to take his troops across the
River Rubicon and in doing so declare civil war on the state and
Pompey. |
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Pompey, the person who had got
Caesar to where he was, was sent to stop him but failed. General Pompey fled
to Egypt while Caesar entered Rome in triumph as Dictator. The battle for
Rome continued for five years of bloody fighting. He was assassinated by a
group of senators, possibly in support of Pompey or possibly for some gain
of their own, on the Ides of March 44 BC, below a statue of
Pompey. |
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