The rise of Julius Caesar: Triumvirate, Gaul, the Rubicon and dictatorship for QCE Ancient History Unit 4

What this dot point is asking

QCAA wants you to explain how Julius Caesar rose to dominate the late Roman Republic and to use sources critically in doing so. You should trace his background and early career, the First Triumvirate, the Gallic Wars, the crossing of the Rubicon, the civil war against Pompey, and the dictatorial powers he accumulated. You must weigh the evidence, including Caesar's own self-serving writings, against the political crisis of the late Republic. The skill is explaining a person's exercise of power and authority in their historical context.

The answer

Background and early career

Gaius Julius Caesar was born around 100 BC into the patrician gens Julia, an old but not recently powerful family that claimed descent from the goddess Venus through Aeneas. He aligned with the populares (politicians who used the popular assemblies and tribunate against the senatorial establishment) partly through family connection to Gaius Marius. He advanced through the cursus honorum (the ladder of public offices): quaestor, aedile (in 65 BC, when he won popularity through lavish games), pontifex maximus (chief priest, elected 63 BC), and praetor. He built a reputation for generosity, debt and ambition. By the late 60s BC he was a rising but heavily indebted figure dependent on building alliances.

The First Triumvirate (60 BC)

In 60 BC Caesar formed an informal political alliance, later called the First Triumvirate, with Pompey the Great (Rome's leading general, whose eastern settlement the Senate was blocking) and Marcus Licinius Crassus (Rome's richest man). The alliance was a private bargain, not a constitutional office: each man used the others to get what the Senate denied him. It secured Caesar the consulship of 59 BC. As consul he passed laws benefiting Pompey's veterans and Crassus's business interests, often over fierce senatorial opposition, and obtained for himself an extended military command in Gaul. The alliance was renewed at the Conference of Luca in 56 BC.

The conquest of Gaul (58 to 50 BC)

Caesar's proconsular command in Gaul transformed him. Over eight campaigning seasons he conquered the whole of Gaul (roughly modern France and Belgium), crossed the Rhine into Germany, and twice invaded Britain (55 and 54 BC). The decisive moment was the defeat of the Gallic confederation under Vercingetorix at the siege of Alesia in 52 BC. The conquest gave Caesar three things essential to power: immense wealth from plunder and slaves, a battle-hardened army personally loyal to him, and fame across Rome. He recorded the campaigns himself in the Commentarii de Bello Gallico, written in the third person to appear objective. The Commentaries are a vital source but are propaganda: they justify the war, magnify Caesar's achievements and downplay his defeats.

The breakdown of the alliance

The Triumvirate disintegrated. Crassus died at the disastrous Battle of Carrhae against the Parthians in 53 BC. Julia, Caesar's daughter and Pompey's wife, had died in 54 BC, severing the marriage tie. Pompey drifted toward the senatorial conservatives (the optimates) led by figures such as Cato. By 50 BC the Senate, with Pompey's backing, sought to strip Caesar of his command and force him to return to Rome as a private citizen, where he could be prosecuted. Caesar demanded to keep his command or his immunity; the Senate refused.

The Rubicon and civil war (49 to 45 BC)

In January 49 BC Caesar led a legion across the Rubicon, the small river marking the boundary of his province, into Italy. To cross with an army was to commit treason and to declare civil war. Suetonius records the phrase associated with the moment, that the die is cast. The crossing made armed conflict inevitable. Pompey and most of the Senate abandoned Rome and withdrew to Greece. Caesar pursued and defeated Pompey decisively at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC; Pompey fled to Egypt and was murdered there. Caesar then fought further campaigns against Pompeian forces in Egypt, Asia, Africa (Thapsus, 46 BC) and Spain (Munda, 45 BC) before his control was secure.

Accumulating power

Caesar converted military victory into constitutional dominance, but always through Roman forms. He was appointed dictator (a traditional emergency office) repeatedly: first briefly, then for ten years, and finally, early in 44 BC, dictator perpetuo (dictator for life). He held the consulship, controlled the appointment of magistrates, packed the Senate with his supporters, and received extraordinary honours. He used the power for genuine reform: the Julian calendar of 46 BC (the basis of the modern calendar), debt relief, colonial settlement of veterans and the urban poor, and extension of citizenship. But the permanence of his power, and the honours that edged toward monarchy in a state that had expelled its kings nearly 500 years earlier, alarmed many senators and set the stage for his assassination.