Historical Personality - Julius Caesar

Throughout history the world has seen many men and women rise to power and one of them is Julius Caesar. Even though Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times in the back, he became dictator of the roman republic because he was a great military and strong political leader.

In the early life of Julius Caesar when he was 16 years old his father an important regional governor in Asial died and left Julius alone with only his mother Aurelia to watch after him. Sometime during Julius’s childhood and element of instability dominated the roman republic. Around the time of julius’s fathers death Caesar made an effort to establish key alliances with nobility of high power that he had already had strong connections with already.

Julius at the young age of 16 became the head of his house with his father gone and decided to marry a nobleman’s daughter named Carnelia not long after in 76 B.C. Cornelia and Julius have a daughter together and name her Julia Caesaris when Juila was only 7 years old her mother Cornelia passed away. After the passing of Cornelia the roman dictator sulla drew ire of Caesar even though Cornelias father was sulla’s political rival Sulla had ordered Caesar to leave his wife and risk losing his property but Caesar had declined sullas offer and escaped him by serving in the military first in the province of Asia and then in Cilicia. With some help from some of Caesar’s political friends, Caesar had eventually convinced sulla he should be allowed to return to rome and be a free citizen once again.

At the start of Julius’s political career he was a prosecuting advocate after the death of Sulla had come during this time Julius had temporarily moved to Rhodes to study philosophy. During the travels of Julius Caesar he was captured by a group of pirates he had been upset because he felt that the amount of money that the pirates were demanding for his return was to low so he convinced them to lower the ransom and he swore that he would come back and slaughter them all and after the Ransom was paid and Julius returned home he put together a naval force and set off to execute all of them, which he ended up doing.

Caesar’s stature was further enhanced in 74 B.C. when he had put together a private army and combated Mithridates VI, king of Pontus, Who had declared war upon rome. Around the same time as this he had started an alliance with a strong and powerful military and political leader, Gnaeus Pompey magnus. In 68-69 B.C. Caesar went on to serve in many other key government offices the first being quaestor a minor political office.

In 67 B.C. Caesar went on to remarry to Pompeia, the granddaughter of Sulla. Their marriage only lasted a few years and they got a divorce in 62 B.C.

In the years 61 and 60 B.C. Caesar served as the governor of the roman province of Spain. However, in 59 B.C. Caesar maintained his alliance with Pompey, which allowed him to get elected as consul a powerful government position for the time period that Julius had lived in. In this same year caesar had wed a teenager named calpurnia in which he had remained married for the rest of his life, however caesar had several mistresses over the years of him being married to Calpurnia one of which was Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt, whom he had a son with named Caesarion

While Caesar was governing under the rule of Pompey he aligned himself with the wealthy military leader Marcus Licinius Crassus.The three political leaders Caesar, Crassus,and Pompey came together to form an alliance called the first triumvirate. For Caesar this new alliance was the perfect opportunity for him to put him in the position for greater domination as well as Crassus, a leader known as the richest man in roman history, offered Сaesar financial and political support that proved to be instrumental in his rise to power. Although the three leaders had an alliance together Crassus and Pompey were intense rivals, once again Сaesar showed his abilities of negotiation and got Crassus and Pompey to realise they were better off being allies then they were being enemies.

Not long after Caesar had secured the governorship of gaul (modern day France and Belgium) was he able to build him a much bigger military force and he was able to begin the kind of campaign that would cement his status as one of romans greatest leaders of all time. Between 58 and 50 B.C. Caesar had fought his way up to conquer the rest of gaul all the way up to the river Rhine.

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