When, in his mid-fifties, not long before his assassination, he declared that, “I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory,” it was no idle boast. The man was that great rarity, a practical visionary. This conception of government, and Caesar’s reorganization of Rome and Italy, completed the miracle whereby the youthful spendthrift and roisterer had become one of the ablest, bravest, fairest, and most enlightened men in all the sorry annals of politics. As one mid-twentieth-century historian summed it up with a touch of hyperbole, Caesar’s political vision, besides coming centuries earlier, covered a far wider base: all free adult males in a Roman Imperium already encompassing considerable chunks of Europe, Africa, and Asia-a military, cultural, and economic colossus unrivaled to this day. To give an idea of just how visionary this idea was in Caesar’s day, it was not applied by a major power in Western Europe until England’s so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, more than a millennium and a half after his death. What Caesar seems to have envisioned, many centuries before the concept even had a name, was a kind of constitutional monarchy. That commendable goal, after Caesar’s murder, remained on the back burner until it was finally undertaken as a massive public works project by one Benito Mussolini nearly two millennia later. He initiated a census for the whole Italian peninsula and introduced the “Julian” calendar, which remains the standard to this very day, and he had plans to drain the Pontine marshes to eradicate malaria. Although his political roots were populist, in the tradition of Marius and the Gracchi brothers, Caesar carried out a program of welfare reform that slashed the number of Roman citizens on the grain dole-the ancient Roman equivalent of a universal food stamp entitlement-by more than half (from 320,000 to 150,000) by imposing a means test. Almost all of his many promotions-including the erection of monuments in his honor, his virtual deification, and his proposed lifetime lease on executive power-had been sought through the proper channels, including action by a Roman Senate that he incrementally padded by such measures as placing all free-born Italians on the same legal footing as the citizens of Rome and enfranchising Cisalpine Gaul. Throughout his mature career, he adhered to a sound if somewhat cynical apothegm: “If you must break the law, do it to seize power in all other cases observe it.”ĮVEN IN the pursuit of power Caesar preferred, whenever possible, to do it by the book. He played many roles in his lifetime-youthful playboy, corrupt political machine boss, brilliant propagandist, conquering military hero on an epic scale, and an administrative reformer of genius, to name only a few. Only a month after Caesar’s declaration, a group of senators, among them Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar’s second choice as heir, and Gaius Cassius Longinus assassinated Caesar in fear of his absolute power.Caesar, on the other hand, was a brilliant Renaissance man 1,500 years before there was a Renaissance. His increasing power and great ambition agitated many senators who feared Caesar aspired to be king. In 44 B.C., Caesar declared himself dictator for life. He also granted citizenship to foreigners living within the Roman Republic. At the same time, he sponsored the building of the Forum Iulium and rebuilt two city-states, Carthage and Corinth. He wielded his power to enlarge the senate, created needed government reforms, and decreased Rome’s debt. Returning to Italy, Caesar consolidated his power and made himself dictator. This sparked a civil war between Caesar’s forces and forces of his chief rival for power, Pompey, from which Caesar emerged victorious. When his rivals in Rome demanded he return as a private citizen, he used these riches to support his army and marched them across the Rubicon River, crossing from Gaul into Italy. Throughout his eight-year governorship, he increased his military power and, more importantly, acquired plunder from Gaul. His Roman troops conquered Gallic tribes by exploiting tribal rivalries. Returning to Rome, he formed political alliances that helped him become governor of Gaul, an area that included what is now France and Belgium. Seizing the opportunity, Caesar advanced in the political system and briefly became governor of Spain, a Roman province. During his youth, the Roman Republic was in chaos. Julius Caesar was a Roman general and politician who named himself dictator of the Roman Empire, a rule that lasted less than one year before he was famously assassinated by political rivals in 44 B.C.Ĭaesar was born on July 12 or 13 in 100 B.C.
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