How did Caesar Conquer Gaul and Destroy the Republic? - History of the Roman Empire - Part 8

The mid-first century BC was a wildly eventful era for Rome, as was most of the Republic's existence. From the successful siege of Jerusalem in 63 BC, to the daring coup d'état attempted by Lucius Sergius Catalina, now named the Catilinarian Conspiracy the same year, and then to the decision by Pompey to join the First Triumvirate, the 60s alone were packed full of important dates. But it was Pompey's ally in this trio who would come to overshadow much else in the final century BC. Born in July 100 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar was born to a patrician family with a father by the same name and a well-known uncle by the name of Gaius Marius, ally to Lucius Cornelius Cina and opponent to Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and it was these connections that, early into Caesar's adulthood, taught him just how complicated life can be. After the death of his father, Caesar was wedged to Cornelia, the daughter of Cina, and named the high priest of Jupiter. This post was an honor, but a short-lived one, because Sulla had eventually won control of Rome and quickly turned to people like Caesar who had been connected to the opposition. Sulla took everything from Marius' nephew without hesitation, his priesthood for one, his inheritance, and more. Unwilling to give in despite the immense pressure, young Caesar went into hiding. Despite his maternal family eventually intervening and softening Sulla's gaze on the young man, Caesar chose to stay far away from the dictator as an extra precaution. Now a soldier in the army, the young lad was earning respect and admiration already, even earning himself the civic crown before the death of the potent Sulla in 78 BC. It was at this point that Caesar opted to return to Rome, no longer under the heavy boot of his uncle's foe. Having lost so much, however, Caesar was only capable of finding a modest home surrounded by Rome's lower class, where he would begin a new career as a lawyer of his time. He found success here, just as he had in the army, although it was a short time later that his next obstacle presented itself. In 75 BC, Julius Caesar was captured by Cilician pirates while journeying across the Aegean Sea. Now twenty-five years old, Caesar was much less afraid of his captors than one would expect. Instead, when the pirates demanded a twenty-talent ransom for the Roman noble, Caesar derided the men. He insisted that they surely didn't know who they had just snatched, and thus insisted they must ask for more, in fact thirty more talents. Likely bewildered but pleasantly surprised, the pirates agreed to up the ransom and allowed Caesar to send off some of his men to go and gather the money. While the Roman and his captors waited over a month for the payoff to be brought, it seemed that Caesar remained unperturbed by the situation. In fact, it's said that the rather egotistical twenty-five-year-old was no stranger to ordering the pirates around and forcing them to listen to speeches and poetry he eloquently wrote in his spare time. Curiously, these Cilicians seemed quite fond of their Roman prisoner and treated him rather well. Caesar likely noticed this, but whether it meant much to him or not appears to be very clear. It didn't. At some point, before his ransom was paid, the young man informed his pirate custodians that upon his release he would track every last one of them down, seize them, and have them all crucified while still alive. In what tone he made this threat we don't know. But it couldn't have been too harsh, as the pirates chose to dismiss these words, and when Caesar truly was set free upon the payment of his ransom, they made no attempts to run or hide. Thus, Caesar went through the effort of rallying a small fleet, sailing back to the island he had been held on, abducting his former captors, and taking them back to Pergamon, where he eventually had them executed. When he finally returned to Rome, Caesar's legal career would from that point on become increasingly eclipsed by a budding political one. The first step would be his election, as military tribunal followed closely by the 69 BC election as Quaestor. He would eventually serve out this latter position in Hispania after the death of Cornelia, staying out of Rome until 67 BC, at which point he returned and married a granddaughter of the Sulla. Over the next five years, Caesar would earn the titles of Corulla Aedile, Pontifex Maximus, and Praetor. He would next become Pro-Praetor over Hispania Ulterior as his relevancy, respectability, and power grew. Now styled Imperator as of 60 BC by his soldiers, Caesar was left with a difficult position. Stay in the army and receive a triumph ceremony from the Senate, or lay down his arms and run for consul, as he had already hoped to do. The seasoned lawyer, soldier, and now politician would eventually choose the latter. The election process was distasteful and thronged with corruption, but nevertheless, Caesar found a way to come out on top. He and Marcus Babullus would begin their consulships in 59 BC. It was during this stint as Consul of Rome that Caesar's secret alliance with the likes of Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus would become public knowledge. Previously, Caesar himself had built a relationship with both men, yet the two had been long at odds with one another. This led Caesar to attempt to mediate a reconciliation between the two that would in fact go quite well. The culmination of these efforts was the formation of the First Triumvirate, an initially secret alliance between these three men. But when Caesar proposed a new law during his consulship that called for forceful redistribution of public lands to the poor, Crassus and Pompey decided to take the triumvirate public, supporting the law and Caesar himself. Soldiers soon swarmed the city, and anyone who opposed the trio was quickly intimidated into submission or coincidental silence. What had started as the consulship of Julius Caesar and Marcus Babullus was now dubbed daringly the consulship of Julius and Caesar. This consulship of 59 BC was not without opposition, though it was furthermore not without violence imposed on those challengers. By now, the people of Rome were becoming increasingly aware of the First Triumvirate and yet increasingly afraid of it at the same time. It was no secret that Caesar and his friends would use devious ways to achieve their goals. Still, they were rather good at it, and before his consulship was up, Caesar managed to secure himself the governorship over Caesalpine Gaul, Illyricum, and Transalpine Gaul, an office he would thus hold for five years, keeping him safe for that time from any prosecution brought on by the deeds he'd carried out during his consulship. This was crucial because the astute politician had bigger plans for his next phase of life. With four legions now under his command in Gaul and a coming extension of his governorship for another five years, Caesar had two main objectives, conquer the unconquered lands of Gaul and then enter Britain. Ambitious, maybe even foolish when it came to the latter, but nevertheless, it was what Julius Caesar wanted. He relatively smoothly found success in his first task, defeating the tribes of the unconquered region and inching ever closer to Britain's border. By 55 BC, he was ready to take that very next step, and under the accusation that the Brits had previously backed his opponents in the Gallic War, an invasion was launched. The results were a bit anticlimactic. Caesar was ill-prepared and ill-informed, causing him to first have to pull back into Gaul before again relaunching his fruitless campaign. He would return to Gaul again after achieving more than the first time, but still nothing significant. With the Gauls now in revolt, Caesar would be unable to return to Britain as he turned his attention back to his governorship. Despite valiant efforts from the Gauls and one chieftain in particular, the Romans would be successful once more at putting down their opponents and claiming the rest of the Gallic territory bordering Caesar's. The Gauls were simply too disunified and unprepared to best their invaders, despite Caesar's forces not technically being all that stronger. Either way, Caesar was lucky, as now he needed to turn his attention to whether or not he could even maintain enough support back home to remain in Gaul. One-third of the first triumvirate, in the form of Crassus, was no longer in existence by the end of 53 BC. Having been killed during a campaign into Parthia, Crassus left behind only Caesar and Pompey, whose relationship was now on a downward spiral. Caesar's luck in particular appeared to be wearing thin as Pompey and his supporters started to gain power in Rome, whilst the Senate was turning on Caesar. By the early months of 49 BC, the worst had come for Julius. Any tribunes who had had his back had been rashly expelled from Rome, and now, the Senate declared him to be their enemy. What happened next is clear, but the reason for it is often debated by historians. It's possible that Caesar, in response to the Senate's decision, feared exile and potentially even prosecution, but many argue that this would have been an insanely unlikely outcome, and Caesar would have known that. Instead, he was more accurately focused on his goal of a second consulship, which Pompey, currently in control of Rome, would have possibly attempted to bar Caesar from achieving. Thus, the die had been cast. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with a lone legion and launched a civil war. Though the odds at first seemed to be far from in the disgraced assailant's favor, reality soon hit the Senate like a ton of bricks. The people of Rome cared not to defend their morally questionable politicians, and the men who had fought alongside Caesar under multiple legions were quick to support their comrade. Realizing the gravity of their mistakes, Pompey and some of his senators fled the city, withdrawing to the south where they believed they would be safer as Caesar marched on Rome itself. Yet, they were wrong again. After failed negotiations that had been initiated by Caesar himself, the attackers too turned south. Caesar wanted not to capture Rome first, but to capture Pompey. The subsequent timeline of events saw Pompey flee for Greece. Caesar head off for Hispania, while an ally, Mark Antony, remained in Italy on his behalf. Followed by multiple clashes between the forces of Caesar and Pompey, scores of soldiers were now flocking to Caesar's side as legion after legion joined his ranks. Pompey was soon fleeing for Egypt, where Caesar readily followed him to. What he intended to do with his now former ally is unknown, but what is documented is his immense dissatisfaction when he was informed of Pompey's assassination at the hands of Egypt's King Ptolemy XIII's men. Ptolemy had hoped to make a good impression on the Roman, but it seems that exactly the opposite occurred, and Caesar had instead taken a liking to the King's sister, Cleopatra. This, and likely also the assassination of Pompey, pushed Caesar to side with the Egyptian Queen in the Alexandrine War, later defeating Ptolemy and leaving the now subdued Egypt for Asia Minor. By now, Caesar had been appointed as dictator back in Rome, despite being in and out of Italy as a whole to engage in campaigns in the Middle East and Africa as well as his endeavors in Asia. He was also repeatedly named consul and his dictatorship renewed multiple times, having pardoned his enemies in the Senate and thus laying claim to very few opponents at home. Once he finally returned to Rome again in the 40s BC, Caesar began to roll out new legal reforms, even changing the Roman calendar. He was essentially the sole authority in the crumbling Roman Republic, if one could even still call it that, holding the titles of dictator, tribune, and consul. While he would, in fact, resign from the latter position in 45 BC, his successors were only once more decided by election, given Caesar's decision shortly after to make all appointments of magistrates, tribunes, and consul his own selection. Despite being capable of making all of these unilateral judgments and wielding such grasping power, Caesar's popularity in the Senate was dwindling, not surging. He wasn't accomplishing these things with the support of his senators, but instead in spite of lacking it. Still, hatred, often in these cases, is a fast-growing weed, and seeds are spread rapidly from the mind of one suppressed politician to another. Senators such as those in Rome could only take so much of authority. People got to talking, ideas began swirling, and a devious plot was forming. A man by the name of Servilius Casca soon warned Mark Antony of the building conspiracy, but the senators had accounted for this. There was nothing left to be done, Caesar's days were numbered, and the clock was ticking ever faster. In the year 44 BC, on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, arrived at the Senate, none the wiser to what was about to take place. He was, it's believed, aware that there had been some talk behind his back of some sort, but he surely did not know the full extent of what his were preparing to do on the floor of the Theater of Pompey. Earlier that morning, Caesar's wife had awoken from a ghastly nightmare in which the great ruler had been dreadfully killed. She thus desperately begged him to stay home, finally convincing Caesar to have the Senate dismissed. After Mark Antony arrived to inform the senators of this, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, not the same Brutus now famous for his involvement in the conspiracy to come, made his way to Caesar's home to personally persuade him not to listen to the fears of his wife. After some talking, the dictator now gave in to the deceitful pleas of Decimus and decided to attend the Senate. Mark Antony now endeavored to join his friend and ally, but was stopped on his way into the building and detained, either by Decimus or Aegeus Trebonius. Caesar thus entered alone, at which point he was approached by Lucius Tullius Cimber, who addressed Caesar with an appeal to recall his exiled brother. The dictator showed no interest in listening to the man until Cimber grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, yanking down his toga. Why, this is violence, Caesar is said to have bellowed in response, at which point Publius Servilius Casca Lungus promptly brought out a glistening blade and he attempted to sink it into the dictator's neck. Caesar, being quick in his reflexes, turned just in time to catch Casca's arm, at which point the latter shouted, Brother, help me! Caesar managed to then frantically fight Casca off, but by now it was too late. He was surrounded and a total of at least sixty conniving senators took their shot at the defenseless tyrant. For the first few moments, Julius Caesar hopelessly attempted to free himself from the mob, but he soon stumbled to the floor, where he then lay powerless, covered in his own blood and by the end perforated by twenty-three stab wounds. It was later stated that the mighty and esteemed Roman's cruel death had come from the loss of blood, with the vast majority of his wounds not having been fatal on their own. And so, the great ruler of Rome, Gaius Julius Caesar, bled out on the steps of the Curia of Pompey, his body left there to drain for hours by his killers. The senators, after finishing the deed, paraded through the city, declaring the newfound freedom of the Romans from Caesar's hold, anticipating to be met with elation and gratitude from the citizenry. They were instead met with silence and rage. The immediate aftermath of the killing was chaotic. Mark Antony had fled in fear of his own life. Angry citizens set fire to the Senate House. What would come next for the government was uncertain and would need to be quickly resolved. But one thing was beyond doubt. This was the end of the Roman Republic. With Caesar, it had died on those stairs. Only days after his ally had been assassinated, Mark Antony returned to Rome. He hoped to quickly stabilize the government by negotiating with the killers and wielding the fury of the mourning of the citizenry as a weapon against them. Antony was very likely hoping to take control of Rome himself, having been unaware that prior to his death, Caesar had in his will named his grand-nephew, Gaius Octavius, as his one and only heir. Ironically, it was also decided that if Octavius, a rather sickly young boy, were to die before Caesar, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus would be the replacement heir, still not Mark Antony. There was now a new trio, but one quite different than the allies of the first triumvirate. Gaius Octavius, the sole heir to Gaius Julius Caesar. Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, the would-be heir and actual conspirator, and Mark Antony, the heir who could have been, but never was. These three men and all those around them were about to usher in a new era for the ruins of the Roman Republic. Civil War was yet again knocking at Rome's splintering door.