In 84 BC Caesar's father died suddenly while putting on his shoes one morning, and at sixteen, Caesar was the head of the family. Marius died early in 86 BC, but his faction remained in power. Marius's troops took violent revenge on Sulla's supporters. Marius was forced into exile and command was returned to Sulla, but when Sulla left on campaign Marius returned, and he and his ally Lucius Cornelius Cinna seized the city and declared Sulla a public enemy. Both distinguished themselves in the Social War, and both wanted command of the war against Mithridates, which was initially given to Sulla but when Sulla left the city to take command of his army, a tribune passed a law transferring the appointment to Marius. Caesar's uncle Marius was a popularis his protegé and rival Lucius Cornelius Sulla was an optimas. Domestically, Roman politics was divided between two factions, the optimates, who favoured aristocratic rule, and the populares, who preferred to appeal directly to the electorate. The Social War was fought from 91 to 88 BC between Rome and her Italian allies over the issue of Roman citizenship, while Mithridates of Pontus threatened Rome's eastern provinces. Suetonius and Plutarch's biographies of him both begin abruptly in Caesar's teens: the opening paragraphs of both appear to be lost.Ĭaesar spent his formative years in a period of turmoil. Little else is recorded of Caesar's childhood. Caesar had two sisters, both called Julia. They lived in a modest house in the Subura, a lower class neighbourhood of Rome, where Marcus Antonius Gnipho, an orator and grammarian who originally came from Gaul, was employed as Caesar's tutor. His mother, Aurelia Cottae, came from an influential family which had produced several consuls. His father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, reached the rank of praetor, perhaps through the influence of Gaius Marius, the war hero and prominent politician who had married his sister Julia. No member of the family had achieved any outstanding prominence in recent times, though in Caesar's father's generation there was a renaissance of their fortunes. The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations of the name: that the first Caesar killed an elephant ( caesai in Moorish) in battle that he had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries) or that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis).Īlthough of impeccable aristocratic patrician stock, the Julii Caesares were not rich by the standards of the Roman nobility. The branch of the gens Julia which bore the cognomen "Caesar" was descended, according to Pliny the Elder, from a man who was born by caesarian section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedo, -ere, caesus sum). Other information can be gleaned from other contemporary sources, such as the letters and speeches of Caesar's political rival Cicero, the poetry of Catullus and the writings of the historian Sallust.ġ9th century Italian marble bust of the young Julius Caesar.Ĭaesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the Trojan prince Aeneas, himself the son of the goddess Venus. In 42 BC, two years after his assassination, the Roman Senate officially sanctified him as one of the Roman deities.Ĭaesar's military campaigns are known in detail from his own written Commentaries ( Commentarii), and many details of his life are recorded by later historians, such as Appian, Suetonius, Plutarch, Cassius Dio and Strabo. This dramatic assassination occurred on the Ides of March (March 15th) in 44 BC and led to another Roman civil war. This forced the hand of a friend of Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus, who then conspired with others to murder the dictator and restore the Republic.
He was proclaimed dictator for life, and he heavily centralized the bureaucracy of the Republic. After assuming control of the government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. Leading his legions across the Rubicon, Caesar sparked civil war in 49 BC that left him the undisputed master of the Roman world. Caesar was widely considered to be one of the foremost military geniuses of his time, as well as a brilliant politician and one of the ancient world's strongest leaders. His conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, and he was also responsible for the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC.
He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Gaius Julius Caesar ( IPA: ), July 12 or July 13, 100 BC – March 15, 44 BC) was a Roman military and political leader and one of the most influential men in world history. Related subjects: Historical figures Gaius Julius Caesar
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