One of Rome’s Greatest Leaders

Julius Caesar was born on the July 12, 100 BC. His Father was too named Julius Caesar. His father was a Praetor who governed the province of Asia. His mother was named Aurelia Cotta was of noble family. Both his father and his mother help a Popular ideology of Rome. This favored democratization of government and also more rights for the lower class. Julius Caesar was a politically adept and popular leader of the Roman Republic who significantly transformed what became known as the Roman Empire by greatly expanding its geographic reach and establishing its imperial system (Mark).

When Julius was 16 his father died and he ended up becoming the head of the family. Julius decided that belonging to the priesthood would be the most beneficial to his family. Julius also managed to nominate himself as the new High Priest of Jupiter. As a priest, Julius had to be a patrician stock and he also had to be married to a patrician. Julius broke off his engagement to a plebian girl and went off to get married to the patrician. Her name was Cornelia and was the daughter of Lucius Cinna, who was of high status and an influential member of the Populares. A roman ruler by the name of Sulla declared himself dictator. This is when he began a systematic purge of his enemies and particularly of those who held to the Popular ideology. Caesar had a target on his back and fled away from Rome but his sentence was taken away through the help of his mother's wealthy family. Even though the sentence was lifted, his position as a priest was taken away and his wife's dowry was confiscated. Caesar was left with nothing to support himself and his family. As a cause of this Caesar joined the army (Mark).

From the very start of Julius' career, he was and ambitious. Julius bribed the poor with entertainment and food. He also made secret deals with the poor. Wanting to succeed, Julius destroyed his political opponents and his enemies on the battlefield. In defending the tribes of Gaul is were he truly found the power he was craving for.

In the year 56 BC, Julius Caesar becomes one of the consuls of Rome. The years he spent bribing and making deals finally paid off. At last Julius become one of Rome's two important politicians. But unluckily the other consul was his rival. His name was Bibulou. Consuls had to consult with each other and agree on plans, so Bibulus was able to stop Caesar from using his power. With the help of men who supported Caesar, he planned to outsmart Bibulus. Caesar decided to use his speaking skills to win over the Senate. If this were to fail, Caser planned to use his popularity with the ordinary people to get his own way.

A man by the name of Vatinius gave Julius Gaul. His tenure was sought out to last until February 28,54 BC. The governor that was assigned to Gaul suddenly died, this province was assigned to Caesar at Pompey's instance. The conquering of Gaul gave Caesar a military recruiting ground and was also the stepping stones for Rome's further conquest of the northwest frontier.

Between the years 58 and 50 BC, Caesar finally conquered the rest of Gaul up to the left bank of the Rhine. Roman did not possess any great military superiority compared to the north European barbarians, so this was an amazing achievement. When Rome did gain military superiority it lay in its mastery of strategy, tactics, discipline, and military engineering.

During his position as dictator, Julius had a numerous amount of remarkable impacts on Rome. One of the many crises that Caesar had to deal with was the widespread debt in Rome. The widespread of debt started to occur especially after the outbreak of the civil war when lenders demanded repayments of loans and real estate values collapsed. The consequences of this debt were a major shortage in coinage inflow as people hoarded whatever they owned. Caesar saw the danger of this situation and ordered that all property must be accepted for repayment at its pre-war cost. Julius also re-established a previous law that forbade people holding more than 60,00 sesterces in cash. Caesar also canceled all interest payments that people owned since the beginning of 49 BC and he also permitted that tenants to pay no rent for a whole year. Although Caesar's methods did not completely get rid of Rome's debt, his intuitive reaction regarding this problem help to lessen the debt in such a way that it satisfied the lenders and the borrowers.

Julius also had to deal with a widespread unemployment in Rome. The poor were offered a new life in Rome's overseas colonies as a way to reduce the unemployment rate. The people who stayed behind depended on free rations of grain. These people suffered when Julius cut the rations by nearly half. This limited the number of receivers to 150,00 when 320,000 had been collecting these rations. Caesar arranged for better supervision of the city's grain supply. He helped improve the accesses to grain from overseas by constructing a new harbor at the Astia. He also built a new canal from Tarracina to support his cause

The enemies of Julius feared that he planned to take ultimate power and pronounce himself as king. So in order to save the republic of Rome, they plotted against him. In March 44 BC, Caesar arrived at the Senate. This is where his enemies stabbed him to death. Each member of the Senate stabbed him 1 time.

The assassination of Julius Caesar shot Rome into a new round of civil war. Mark Antony was Caesar's chief general, and Octavian, his grand-nephew joined the forces to hunt down and find who were the murderers. The two men quarreled, however, setting off a bitter and sour struggle for power. In the year 31 BC, Octavian finally defeated Antony and his ally Cleopatra.

In conclusion Julius Caesar was one of Rome's greatest leaders. His contribution relieved Rome of many problems that could

Did you like this example?

397

17