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Gaius Julius Caesar ( Latin: C·IVLIVS·C·F·C·N·CAESAR) ( July 13, 100 BC – March 15, 44 BC) was a Roman military and political leader whose conquest of Gallia Comata extended the Roman world all the way to the Oceanus Atlanticus, launching the first Roman invasion of Britain, and introducing Roman influence into modern France, an accomplishment whose direct consequences are visible to this day. Caesar fought and won a civil war which left him undisputed master of the Roman world, and began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He became dictator for life, and heavily centralized the already faltering government of the weak republic. His dramatic assassination on the Ides of March became the catalyst of a second set of civil wars which became the twilight of the Roman RepublicSee also Roman Republic (18th century) and Roman Republic (19th century). The Roman Republic traditionally lasted as a representative government of Rome and its territories from 510 BC until the establishment of the Roman Empire, typically placed at 44 BC and the dawn of the Roman Empire60 and 400 with major cities. During this time only Dacia and Mesopotamia were added to the Empire but were lost before 300. The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Roman state in the centuries following its reorganization under t under Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted son, Caesar AugustusCaesar Augustus ( Latin: IMP·CAESAR·DIVI·F·AVGVSTVS) ¹ ( 23 September 63 BC 19 August AD 14), known earlier in his life as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius or Octavianus was the first Roman Emperor and is traditionally considered the greatest. Although he pre. Caesar's military campaigns are known in detail from his own written Commentaries (Commentarii), and many details of his life are recorded by later historians like Gaius Suetonius TranquillusGaius Suetonius Tranquillus ( 75- 160), commonly known simply as Suetonius was a Roman writer. Suetonius was an administrator working as a secretary to the emperor Hadrian. He is remembered chiefly as the author of "The Lives of the First Twelve Caesars", Mestrius PlutarchMestrius Plutarch (c. 120) was a Greek historian/ biographer and essayist. Born in the small town of Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as Boeotia, probably during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius, Mestrius Plutarch travelled widely in the Medite, and Lucius Cassius DioDio Cassius Cocceianus ( 155 after 229), was the son of Cassius Apronianus, a Roman senator, and born at Nicaea in Bithynia. His true name was Cassius, but he assumed the other two names, as being descended on the mother's side from Dio Chrysostom. Thus,.
Caesar was born in RomeRome ( Italian and Latin Roma is the capital city of Italy, and of its Lazio region. It is located on the lower Tiber river, near the Mediterranean Sea, at 41°50'N, 12°15'E. The Vatican City State, a sovereign enclave within Rome, is the seat of the Roman to a well-known patricianThis is an article about the privileged class in ancient Rome. For the fictional character in the Discworld books, see Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Patricians Patricii were the uppermost elite class of ancient Rome. They were largely consisting of families family ( gens Julia) which supposedly traced its ancestry to Julus, the son of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who according to myth was the son of Venus. At the height of his power in 45 BC, Caesar began building a temple to Venus Genetrix at Rome, signifying his link to the goddess. His father and namesake, Caius Julius Caesar, achieved the rank of praetor (see cursus honorum). His mother was an Aurelia from the Cottae branch, a rich and influential family of plebeian stock. As a young boy, he lived in a modest house in the Subura quarter, where he apparently learned to speak several languages, including Hebrew and Gallic dialects.
The Julii Caesarii, although of impeccable aristocratic patrician stock, were not rich by the standards of the Roman nobility. Due to this, no member of his family had achieved any outstanding prominence in recent times, though in his father's generation there was a renaissance of their fortunes. His paternal aunt, Julia, married Gaius Marius, a talented general and reformer of the Roman army. Marius was also the leader of the Populares faction of the Senate, frequently opposed to the Optimates conservatives.
Towards the end of Marius' life in 86 BC, internal politics reached a breaking point. Several disputes of the Marius faction against Lucius Cornelius Sulla led to civil war and eventually opened the way to Sulla's dictatorship. Caesar was tied to the Marius party through family connections. Not only was he Marius' nephew, he was also married to Cornelia Cinnilla, the youngest daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Marius' greatest supporter and Sulla's enemy.
Thus, when Sulla emerged as the winner of this civil war and began its program of proscriptions, Caesar, not yet 20 years old, was in a bad position. Sulla ordered him to divorce Cornelia in 82 BC, but Caesar refused and prudently left Rome to hide. Only the intervention of his family and closest friends saved him from certain proscription and death. Despite Sulla's pardon, Caesar did not remain in Rome and left for military service in Asia and Cilicia. During these campaigns he served under the command of Lucius Licinius Lucullus and distinguished himself for bravery in combat. In 81 BC he was sent to Bithynia to raise a fleet with such success that his oponents in Rome spread the rumour that while there he had became the lover of King Nicomedes. His sexual escapades were such that (according to Suetonius), the elder Curio in one of his speeches called him "every woman's man and every man's woman."
Back in Rome in 78 BC, when Sulla died, Caesar began his political career in the Forum at Rome as an advocate, known for his oratory and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption. Aiming at rhetorical perfection, Caesar traveled to Rhodes in 75 BC for philosophical and oratorical studies with the famous teacher Apollonius Molo .
On the way, Caesar was kidnapped by Cilician pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. When they demanded a ransom of twenty talents, he laughed at them, saying they did not know who they had captured. Instead, he ordered them to ask for fifty. They accepted, and Caesar sent his followers to various cities to collect the ransom money. In all he was held for 38 days and used the time to write speeches and practice his rhetoric on his captors. If they failed to admire his work, he would call them illiterate savages to their faces, and would often laughingly threaten to have them all crucified. They were much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character or boyish playfulness. But, true to his word, as soon as he was ransomed and released, he organized a naval force from the harbor of Miletus, captured the pirates and their island stronghold and put them to death by crucifixion as a warning to other pirates. However, since they had treated him well, he had their throats cut before they were crucified to lessen their suffering.
In 69 BC, Caesar became a widower after Cornelia's death trying to deliver a stillborn son. In the same year, he lost his aunt Julia, to whom he was very attached. During the funerals Caesar delivered eulogy speeches from the rostra. Julia's funeral was filled with political connotations, since Caesar insisted on parading Marius's funeral mask. This was the first attack on the Sullan proscription laws of the former decade. Although Caesar was very fond of both women (according to Suetonius), these speeches were interpreted by his political opponents as propaganda for his upcoming election for the office of quaestor.