Julius Ceasar
Gaius Julius Caesar is perhaps one of the most prominent Romans of the classical period that can be associated with Rome. This is because Julius Caesar can be most credited with, or blamed for both the downfall of the Roman Republic, and the subsequent creation of the Roman Empire. Many questions asking the usual why’s, and how’s have arisen from the ashes of the Roman Republic in order to cleanse Caesar of guilt or to further tarnish his memory. While those who have posed the various questions about Caesar have provided many clues as to the situations that allowed the Roman to manipulate the system of Rome’s government, they don’t ask the one question that would prove Caesar either innocent or guilty of destroying the ancient Republic: Did Gaius Julius Caesar purposefully intend to destroy Rome as he and her citizens knew it? To get this answer we must put Caesar on trial if you will, one that is unfair to be sure for the man can not defend himself, but one in which those who judge him are able to look at the evidence objectively in an effort to obtain the truth and prove Caesar’s guilt or innocence. It seems that Julius Caesar chose his political lifestyle of essentially doing as he wished at a young age. Caesar broke an engag . . .
” So now begins the formation of a motive for Caesar’s desires which were essentially to make a name for himself. ” With this act of defying Roman morals, Caesar incurred the wrath of the dictator Sulla, who, while later pardoning Caesar for his crime, perhaps foresaw the charisma of Caesar when he said “’there are many Mariuses in the fellow Caesar. At the end of Caesar’s governorship in Gaul, his fellow Pompey was nominated by the Senate to be sole consul, much to the dismay of the common people who wanted Caesar as co-consul. The mob of Rome had come to love Caesar as any body of people come to love a person who can bring them military victories. Caesar also knew that he was militarily stronger than Pompey and that his army, recruited mainly from Gaul was loyal to him and him only. The death of Caesar halted any further aspirations that he might have held towards becoming king, but it did set in motion for the attainment of his grandnephew Octavian to become Rome’s first emperor. Or quite the opposite, perhaps Caesar wished to fulfill the dream he had had while in Further Spain of taking over the world it is not entirely known, but what is known is that Caesar defeated Pompey, gained Egyptian loyalty through Cleopatra, and returned to Rome as a hero to the mob and became dictator. To Julius Caesar the power politics of Rome was just a game that he could play and win as he often did. ” This was the first real step in the direction of political power that Caesar would take. ’” If Caesar wanted to be a monarch, it would seem that he would have done so much sooner as he was fifty-five years old when he was killed. The question that must be asked now is how did this bit of power affect Caesar? Obviously it was a taste that he liked but what was his mind set? Did Caesar believe he deserved more power or was it merely a game to him? To answer this we must look further at the history of Caesar. Caesar knew what would happen should he and his army cross the River Rubicon that was the northern border of Italy and Gaul. Certainly he had the ability to use his army to take over Rome and the mob would more than likely have supported him in doing so but he didn’t. During Caesar’s holding of the office of quaestor, he vocalizes his family descent that is said to be from the “Roman King Ancus Marcius” and “the Goddess Venus. Eventually, after serving in Further Spain, Caesar was elected as consul with Marcus Bibulus and eventually he formed a pact with ex-consuls Marcus Crassus and Pompey which was to block any senatorial legislation that any member of the group did not agree with.
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