8. Julius Caesar¶
Core Argument¶
In the epoch of the republic’s decline, Julius Caesar (102-44 BC) emerged as a pivotal figure. Though a patrician of the Julian family, his lineage was cash-poor, and he proved an ambitious, ruthless adventurer. Captured by pirates, he promised to crucify them and did so, cutting their throats first as a ‘gesture of magnanimity’. He married into money, linking himself to the popular party of Cinna and Marius. After Sulla’s victory, Caesar lost his wealth and refused Sulla’s demand to divorce his wife, fleeing to Asia Minor until Sulla’s death. With the popular party reviving and a stalemate between classes after Spartacus’ defeat, ambitious generals like Pompey rose. Rejected by the wealthy elite, Caesar sought a base among the urban poor, the lumpenproletariat. He curried favour by financing lavish games and parading statues of Marius and Cinna, becoming pontifex maximus through massive bribery.
The Catiline conspiracy (63 BC) involved bankrupt aristocrats and the poor demanding debt relief. Cicero crushed it, executing conspirators without trial. Caesar, compromised by his links to Catiline, concluded that war was the quickest route to wealth. After securing the governorship of Spain, he plundered the natives but amended debt laws to restrict creditors to seizing two-thirds of possessions. Returning to Rome, he resumed political intrigues, allying with the demagogue Clodius and the city mob while also seeking alliances with the rich, marrying Pompeia, granddaughter of the dictator Sulla. Caesar mediated between Crassus and Pompey, both aggrieved against the Senate, forming the first Triumvirate – Caesar, Pompey and Crassus – as a rival power centre to the Senate, signalling the Republic’s end. As consul in 59 BC, Caesar used Clodius’s ruffians to assault his co-consul Bibulus, bypassed the Senate to pass land distribution laws, and revealed the Triumvirate’s existence.
After Clodius’s murder in 52 BC sparked a riot, Caesar secured command in Gaul, launching brutal campaigns. Plutarch reports 1 million Gallic soldiers killed and another million captured. Caesar’s Commentaries are described as political propaganda, not history. His victories, including the defeat of Vercingetorix at Alesia, made his reputation, but the Triumvirate cracked over who would rule Rome.