Typically, dictators served for a limited time (usually six months), then stepped down. In 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar ordered the Senate to make him dictator for life. This very calendar, with a few minor adjustments, is the same one used around the world today. Finally, he created a new calendar named the Julian calendar. He reduced the number of slaves and opened citizenship up to people living in the provinces. Caesar founded many colonies in newly conquered territories and provided land and opportunity for poor Romans who chose to migrate there. During his rule, he enacted several reforms. Upon his return, Caesar made himself dictator and absolute ruler of Rome and its territories. Caesar defeated Pompey’s forces and entered Rome in 46 B.C.E., triumphant and unchallenged. This fateful decision led to a civil war. But when Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in northern Italy, he brought his army with him in defiance of the senate’s order. While Caesar was fighting in Gaul (modern-day France), Pompey and the Senate ordered Caesar to return to Rome without his army. Crassus was killed in battle, and Pompey began entertaining ideas of ruling without the dangerously popular Caesar. Over time, however, the triumvirate broke down. Historians have since dubbed the period of rule by these three men the First Triumvirate. Together, these three men assumed control of the Roman Republic, and Caesar was thrust into the position of consul. by forging an alliance with another general, Pompey, and a wealthy patrician, Crassus. Julius Caesar began his rise to power in 60 B.C.E. Caesar also won the undying loyalty of his soldiers, who supplied him with the necessary muscle to seize power. His many successful military campaigns gained him broad support and popularity among the common people. All of these traits combined helped make him a skilled politician. An excellent speaker, he possessed a sharp sense of humor, charm, and personality.
Born into the patrician class, Caesar was intelligent, educated, and cultivated. It was within this changing atmosphere that military leaders such as Julius Caesar were able to seize control of and put an end to the Roman Republic. Gradually, soldiers became more loyal to the generals who could pay them than to the Roman Republic itself. Soldiers no longer fought for the good of the Republic but fought instead for tangible rewards. Over 5,000 men from Spartacus’s army were crucified along Rome’s main road, the Appian Way, as a warning to other slaves not to revolt.įinally, a new practice developed in which the army was paid with gold and land. A Roman army led by Crassus finally defeated Spartacus and his men. Spartacus wanted to leave Italy, but his army and supporters of the slave revolt urged him to attack Rome. Against great odds, Spartacus’s slave army defeated two Roman battalions. But he escaped his captors and formed an army of rebel slaves.
Spartacus (109-71 B.C.E.) was a captured soldier who was sold into slavery to be a gladiator.
Either way, the words were Greek, so leave “Et tu, Brute” for Shakespeare. On one hand, Caesar may have been amazed to find a close friend like Brutus trying to kill him on the other hand, he may have meant that Brutus would pay for his crime in the future for this treachery. There is still debate whether or not it was shouted in shock or said as a warning. In his history about the life of Julius Caesar, Suetonius writes that as the assassins plunged their daggers into the dictator, Caesar saw Brutus and spoke the Greek phrase kai su, teknon, meaning “you too, my child.” Roman historian Suetonius, Julius Caesar spoke mainly Greek and not Latin, as was the case with most patricians at the time. This is not historically accurate.Īccording to the 1st century C.E. In William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, the title character manages to utter “Et tu, Brute?” (“and you, Brutus?”) as he is slain. The army of Julius Caesar looked very similar to the soldiers in this 2nd-century B.C.E. Roman soldiers’ appearance changed very little over the centuries.