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 engagement with a woman of lower rank to marry "Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who had been consul four times." 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.'" After the death of Sulla, Caesar attempted to fill the power vacuum left after the dictator's death, but instead headed to Rhodes albeit in an effort for his own safety as he had brought a charge of extortion against an ex-Consul. Caesar would later be given the "rank of colonel." This was the f...