History Online - Julius Caesar
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Julius Caesar
Veni, vidi, vici
Veni, vidi, vici. 'I came, I saw, I conquered.' These are the words of the man who changed the course of Greco-Roman history.
Julius Caesar was born in Rome on July 12 or 13, in the year 100 B.C.. His father Gaius Caesar, died when Caesar was 16 years old, and it was his mother Aurelia, who proved to be quite influential in his life. Caesar's family was part of Rome's original aristocracy, called patricians, although they were not rich or particularly influential. At the time of Caesar's birth, the number of patricians was small, and their status no longer provided political advantage.
When Caius Julius Caesar was born, the leading man in Rome was Caius Marius, who had saved the Roman Republic several years before by defeating two German tribes, the Teutones (102) and the Cimbri (101). The connections between the Marius and Julius families were close: Marius was married to a sister of Caesar's father. So, Caesar belonged to a powerful family.
His contemporaries called Marius a popularis. It is unclear what this label means (for some speculations, see below), but modern historians tend to believe that it means that Marius tried to reach his political aims via the People's Assembly. The opposite group, the optimates, played the political game in the senate.
All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of [our] Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war; for which reason the Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valor, as they contend with the Germans in almost daily battles, when they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that the Gauls occupy, takes its beginning at the river Rhone; it is bounded by the river Garonne, the ocean, and the territories of the Belgae; it borders, too, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, upon the river Rhine, and stretches toward the north. The Belgae rises from the extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the river Rhine; and look toward the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from the river Garonne to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Spain: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star.
The First Triumvirate, consisting of Julius Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, came to power in 59 BC when Caesar was elected consul. The Triumvirate reform program was enacted and Caesar got himself appointed governor of Illycrium and Gaul. The way to power in Rome was through military conquest; this gave the general a loyal army, wealth (from the conquered), and popularity and prestige at home. So the governorship of Illycrium and Gaul allowed Caesar to become the general and conqueror he so desperately desired to become.
Now the Romans really had no reason to conquer northern and central Europe; the people who lived there, the Germans and the Celts, were a tribal, semi-nomadic people. The province of Illycrium provided enough of a territorial buffer to defuse any threat from these people. But Julius embarked on a spectacular war of conquest anyway. In a series of fairly brilliant campaigns, Julius added a considerable amount of territory to the Roman Empire in northern France, Belgium, and even southern Great Britain, subjugating the Celts in all these territories. When he had finished his conquests, however, the Triumvirate had dissolved. Crassus had died in a war against the Parrhians in the Middle East, and Pompey had turned against Julius and had roused the Senate against him. The Senate declared Julius an enemy of the state and demanded that he hand over his generalship and province. Julius, however, decided on a different course of action. His troops were fiercely loyal to him; so in 49 BC, Caesar ordered his troops to cross the Rubicon River, which separated his province from Italy, thus committing a grave crime against the state. The Civil War started the minute the first of his legions had finished crossing the Rubicon.
The war was fought between these two great generals, Pompey and Caesar, but in 48 BC, Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in Greece. Shortly thereafter Pompey was assassinated by the Egyptians among whom he had sought refuge. Caesar then turned his forces towards Asia Minor in a conquest that was so swift that Caesar described it in three words: "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered").
Caesar returned to Rome in 46 BC and had the Senate appoint him dictator for ten years; he was given imperium over the Roman Empire and was, for all practical purposes, above the law and the constitution. Two years later he was appointed dictator for life, and he quickly assumed all the important offices in the government. He reformed the government in many ways, but these reforms were functionally meaningless considering his absolute power. Caesar's absolute power, imperium for life (which made him imperator , or Emperor, of Rome), looked suspiciously like a monarchy, which, for all practical purposes, it was. The Romans, proud of their Republican tradition, deeply resented his power, and in 44 BC, on the Ides of March (March 15), a group of conspirators, led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated Caesar as he entered the Senate in his usual manner: with no bodyguards or protection.
The conspirators were striking a blow for the Republic, fully confident that the Republic would magically reconstitute itself. Caesar had, after all, ruled Rome for a mere two years. Their dreams, however, disappeared in a brutal civil war that would last for thirteen years. At the end of the war, the Roman Republic would come to a shattering end and never again appear on the stage of history.
When Caesar was still an infant, Marius lost much of his earlier popularity, and eventually left Rome to travel in Greece and Asia Minor, hoping for some new command. However, Marius was still influential, and in 92, Caesar's father was elected praetor (a magistrate whose most important function was the administration of justice). In 91, the former praetor served as a governor in Asia Minor; it is likely, therefore, that the young Caesar was outside Italy when the Social War started.
This war originated in the fact that the Roman allies in Italy had never received a fair share in the spoils of the Roman empire, which included in those days Andalusia, southern Castile, Catalonia, the Provence, Italy, the Dalmatian coast, Greece and Macedonia, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Crete and modern Tunisia. The Italians had fought to conquer the Mediterranean world, but did not get the benefits of it. In 91, they rebelled. Marius was appointed general and had some success; more important, however, were the victories of Sulla, a man who was considered to be one of the optimates. By diplomatic ways, Rome divided the rebels: Lucius Julius Caesar (an uncle) promised Roman citizenship to those Italians who had remained faithful, and in 89 a similar law promised citizenship to those who gave up fighting.
Seizing the opportunity, king Mithridates V of Pontus attacked Asia Minor. The inhabitants of this province had welcomed their liberators, and had murdered many Italians and Romans. It is unknown where Caesar's family was in those days: it is certain that Caesar's father was no longer Asia's governor. The Romans wanted revenge, and the Senate appointed Sulla as a general in this First Mithridatic War. After his departure, Marius was given the same command by the People's Assembly. Sulla marched on Rome (First Civil War), Marius fled to Africa, and Sulla went to Asia Minor again, where he defeated Mithridates. During Sulla's absence, Marius returned, massacred all his enemies, had himself elected consul (86), but died a few days later.
From now on, Caesar's life was in danger: after all, he was the son of Marius's sister. His safety did not grow when his father died (85) and the victorious Sulla returned from Asia (82). However, the young man had had a fine education by one of Rome's most important professors, Marcus Antonius Gnipho, who was also the teacher of the orator Cicero. Caesar was married to Cornelia and had a daughter, Julia.
After his return, Sulla had himself appointed dictator. Originally, dictatorship was an extraordinary magistracy, perhaps best translated as "strong man", and "dictatorship" had nothing to do with tyranny. However, Sulla's exercise of the office gave rise to our present meaning of the word: wishing to exterminate the populares, Sulla changed the constitution by curtailing the rights of the People's Assembly. Many people were slain: Marius's ashes were scattered in the Tiber. Since Caesar was only eighteen years old, Sulla decided to be kind, and ordered Marius' nephew to divorce from his wife, as a symbolic act of his loyalty to the new regime. Although the alternative was banishment (or worse), Caesar refused. Sulla appreciated the young man's dedication to his bride, pardoned him, and prophesied that "in this young man there is more than one Marius".
There were insurrections: in the spring of 46, Caesar defeated the Republicans at Thapsus in Africa. Cato the Younger committed suicide, because he did not want Caesar to pardon him. Being on the spot, Caesar annexed some of the territories of the Numidian king Juba. The wars seemed over, and Caesar celebrated four triumphs: he had defeated Vercingetorix, Ptolemy, Pharnaces, and Juba. In 45, however, Caesar had to suppress a final revolt in Spain, led by a son of Pompey. In the battle of Munda, Caesar was victorious for the last time.
At home, he showed himself a restless reformer. The Roman mob had received free corn doles: Caesar reduced the number of recipients from 322,000 to 150,000. The poor were offered a new life overseas, where he ordered cities like Carthage and Corinth to be rebuilt and founded new towns, such as Arles and Seville. The soldiers of the civil wars also received small farms; his own soldiers he paid an additional silver talent (21 kg or the equivalent of 26 year's pay). In Asia Minor and Sicily, he introduced a new system of taxation, which protected the subjects from extortion.
Debts were a serious problem, because interest had been sky-high during the Civil War. Caesar disappointed radical reformers (like Marcus Caelius Rufus) who had expected a total cancellation. Caesar decreed, however, that the debtors should satisfy their creditors according to a valuation of their possessions at the price which they had paid for them before the war, deducting whatever interest already had been paid. This arrangement wiped out about a fourth part of the debts.
Many public works were carried out in Italy. Most famous is the Forum of Caesar, a kind of shopping complex in the commercial centre of Rome. On the old forum, the political heart of the empire, he rebuilt the speaker's platform, the court house, and the Senate's building. (While the Senate's building was under construction, the Senate gathered in the Theatre of Pompey, which was outside the city, where Caesar's army could control its meetings.) Varro, the commander of Pompey's army in Corduba, was appointed head of a state library; to ensure that Rome would be a centre of learning, Caesar conferred privileges to all teachers of the liberal arts.
As a legislator, Caesar prepared standard regulations for the municipal constitutions and proposed a law against extravagance. The Jews -who had helped him in the Alexandrine War- were protected. He even planned a codification of all existent Civil Law (a project not executed before 438 CE). Most remarkable is the reorganization of the calendar: the Republican year had counted 355 days, the deficiency made up by randomly adding an extra month. With the advice of Cleopatra's astrologer, Caesar added four extra months to the year 46, decreeing that from January 1, 45 our calendar (365.25 days) was to be used.
The empire had been run by a government that had consisted of 600 senators (who served as judges), several magistrates, several governors, and their personal staff. Caesar recognized the need to enlarge the government. He enlarged the number of senators from 600 to 900, rose the praetores from eight to sixteen, the aediles from four to six, and the quaestores from twenty to forty. The last measure granted some justice in provincial taxation, but did not establish a serious professional bureaucracy as yet.
Caesar's most important policy was his lavish granting of citizenship: those who were subjected by the Romans could receive a set of extra civil rights and a small share in the benefits of empire. During the Social War, the Italian allies had received this Roman Citizenship from Caesar's uncle; Caesar extended the privilege first to the Gauls along the Po, and -later- to some Gauls that he had subdued. The inhabitants of many individual towns received the privilege too. To the dismay of the old aristocracy, Caesar even started to recruit new senators from outside Italy.
The Gallic Wars
By Julius Caesar
Among the Helvetii, Orgetorix was by far the most distinguished and wealthy. He, when Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso were consuls, incited by lust of sovereignty, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, and persuaded the people to go forth from their territories with all their possessions, [saying] that it would be very easy, since they excelled all in valor, to acquire the supremacy of the whole of Gaul. To this he the more easily persuaded them, because the Helvetii, are confined on every side by the nature of their situation; on one side by the Rhine, a very broad and deep river, which separates the Helvetian territory from the Germans; on a second side by the Jura, a very high mountain, which is [situated] between the Sequani and the Helvetii; on a third by the Lake of Geneva, and by the river Rhone, which separates our Province from the Helvetii. From these circumstances it resulted, that they could range less widely, and could less easily make war upon their neighbors; for which reason men fond of war [as they were] were affected with great regret. They thought, that considering the extent of their population, and their renown for warfare and bravery, they had but narrow limits, although they extended in length 240, and in breadth 180 [Roman] miles.
Induced by these considerations, and influenced by the authority of Orgetorix, they determined to provide such things as were necessary for their expedition - to buy up as great a number as possible of beasts of burden and wagons - to make their sowings as large as possible, so that on their march plenty of corn might be in store - and to establish peace and friendship with the neighboring states. They reckoned that a term of two years would be sufficient for them to execute their designs; they fix by decree their departure for the third year. Orgetorix is chosen to complete these arrangements. He took upon himself the office of embassador to the states: on this journey he persuades Casticus, the son of Catamantaledes (one of the Sequani, whose father had possessed the sovereignty among the people for many years, and had been styled "friend" by the senate of the Roman people), to seize upon the sovereignty in his own state, which his father had held before him, and he likewise persuades Dumnorix, an Aeduan, the brother of Divitiacus, who at that time possessed the chief authority in the state, and was exceedingly beloved by the people, to attempt the same, and gives him his daughter in marriage. He proves to them that to accomplish their attempts was a thing very easy to be done, because he himself would obtain the government of his own state; that there was no doubt that the Helvetii were the most powerful of the whole of Gaul; he assures them that he will, with his own forces and his own army, acquire the sovereignty for them. Incited by this speech, they give a pledge and oath to one another, and hope that, when they have seized the sovereignty, they will, by means of the three most powerful and valiant nations, be enabled to obtain possession of the whole of Gaul.
When this scheme was disclosed to the Helvetii by informers, they, according to their custom, compelled Orgetorix to plead his cause in chains; it was the law that the penalty of being burned by fire should await him if condemned. On the day appointed for the pleading of his cause, Orgetorix drew together from all quarters to the court, all his vassals to the number of ten thousand persons; and led together to the same place all his dependents and debtor-bondsmen, of whom he had a great number; by means of those he rescued himself from [the necessity of] pleading his cause. While the state, incensed at this act, was endeavoring to assert its right by arms, and the magistrates were mustering a large body of men from the country, Orgetorix died; and there is not wanting a suspicion, as the Helvetii think, of his having committed suicide.
After his death, the Helvetii nevertheless attempt to do that which they had resolved on, namely, to go forth from their territories. When they thought that they were at length prepared for this undertaking, they set fire to all their towns, in number about twelve - to their villages about four hundred - and to the private dwellings that remained; they burn up all the corn, except what they intend to carry with them; that after destroying the hope of a return home, they might be the more ready for undergoing all dangers. They order every one to carry forth from home for himself provisions for three months, ready ground. They persuade the Rauraci, and the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi, their neighbors, to adopt the same plan, and after burning down their towns and villages, to set out with them: and they admit to their party and unite to themselves as confederates the Boii, who had dwelt on the other side of the Rhine, and had crossed over into the Norican territory, and assaulted Noreia.
There were in all two routes, by which they could go forth from their country one through the Sequani narrow and difficult, between Mount Jura and the river Rhone (by which scarcely one wagon at a time could be led; there was, moreover, a very high mountain overhanging, so that a very few might easily intercept them; the other, through our Province, much easier and freer from obstacles, because the Rhone flows between the boundaries of the Helvetii and those of the Allobroges, who had lately been subdued, and is in some places crossed by a ford. The furthest town of the Allobroges, and the nearest to the territories of the Helvetii, is Geneva. From this town a bridge extends to the Helvetii. They thought that they should either persuade the Allobroges, because they did not seem as yet well-affected toward the Roman people, or compel them by force to allow them to pass through their territories. Having provided every thing for the expedition, they appoint a day, on which they should all meet on the bank of the Rhone. This day was the fifth before the kalends of April [i.e. the 28th of March], in the consulship of Lucius Piso and Aulus Gabinius [B.C. 58.]
When it was reported to Caesar that they were attempting to make their route through our Province he hastens to set out from the city, and, by as great marches as he can, proceeds to Further Gaul, and arrives at Geneva. He orders the whole Province [to furnish] as great a number of soldiers as possible, as there was in all only one legion in Further Gaul: he orders the bridge at Geneva to be broken down. When the Helvetii are apprized of his arrival they send to him, as embassadors, the most illustrious men of their state (in which embassy Numeius and Verudoctius held the chief place), to say "that it was their intention to march through the Province without doing any harm, because they had" [according to their own representations,] "no other route: that they requested, they might be allowed to do so with his consent." Caesar, inasmuch as he kept in remembrance that Lucius Cassius, the consul, had been slain, and his army routed and made to pass under the yoke by the Helvetii, did not think that [their request] ought to be granted: nor was he of opinion that men of hostile disposition, if an opportunity of marching through the Province were given them, would abstain from outrage and mischief. Yet, in order that a period might intervene, until the soldiers whom he had ordered [to be furnished] should assemble, he replied to the ambassadors, that he would take time to deliberate; if they wanted any thing, they might return on the day before the ides of April [on April 12th].
Meanwhile, with the legion which he had with him and the soldiers which had assembled from the Province, he carries along for nineteen [Roman, not quite eighteen English] miles a wall, to the height of sixteen feet, and a trench, from the Lake of Geneva, which flows into the river Rhone, to Mount Jura, which separates the territories of the Sequani from those of the Helvetii. When that work was finished, he distributes garrisons, and closely fortifies redoubts, in order that he may the more easily intercept them, if they should attempt to cross over against his will. When the day which he had appointed with the embassadors came, and they returned to him; he says, that he can not, consistently with the custom and precedent of the Roman people, grant any one a passage through the Province; and he gives them to understand, that, if they should attempt to use violence he would oppose them. The Helvetii, disappointed in this hope, tried if they could force a passage (some by means of a bridge of boats and numerous rafts constructed for the purpose; others, by the fords of the Rhone, where the depth of the river was least, sometimes by day, but more frequently by night), but being kept at bay by the strength of our works, and by the concourse of the soldiers, and by the missiles, they desisted from this attempt.
