Julius Caesar Bust

Julius Caesar’s account of the Gallic War made military conquest read like a sequence of clear, necessary decisions. The controlled prose is persuasive. Its author had interests to defend. Caesar was describing campaigns that enlarged his own power, while the violence and enslavement they brought to conquered communities receive a different emphasis.

Born in 100 BCE, he advanced through Roman public office and an alliance with Pompey and Crassus. His command in Gaul gave him wealth and an experienced army. Crossing the Rubicon with troops in 49 BCE turned the struggle over his political future into civil war.

Victory over his opponents led to repeated dictatorships and eventually the title of dictator for life. Caesar was not Rome’s first emperor in the later constitutional sense. The settlement associated with Augustus came after another sequence of wars.

On March 15, 44 BCE, conspirators killed Caesar in the meeting hall attached to Pompey’s theater complex. The assassination removed the man without restoring a stable Republic, and his family name eventually became an imperial title.