Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar took advantage of new reforms to the military which catapulted him into wealth and power which altered the course of history. With the previous reform to the Roman army hee made war profitable giving rise to a military industrial complex. But it was his experience as a priest of Jupiter than gave way to the use of those profits to fund the free bread of the Roman welfare state that would ruin that which made Rome great.

Gaius Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator of Rome from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. His enemies feared the death of the Republic under the driving force of his ambitions, but what kills a republic is the dainties of rulers.

"In 509 B.C. it became a republic with permanent tyranny beginning in 31 B.C. under direction of the immortal Julius Caesar.... An extremely large source of Roman prosperity, including that used for charity, was derived from the spoils of war."

Cultural attacks

A mix of Gauls and Jutes had invaded Rome in late July 390 BCE. The city fell to the invaders because troops had fled the battle and leftthe city undefended to be burnt and sacked.

Only a small group of Romans put up a valiant defense on the Capitol Hill, until the siege and famine forced a surrender. They were forced to pay a ransom of gold but the humiliation would bring an awakening of a culture of courage and civic brotherhood of honor.

While, the Gauls too paid a heavy price too because of disease and famine the Romans would not forget due to many reminders in their recorded history.

New generations would renew their commitment with more attacks upon the Roman people. The Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus, distant relative of Alexander the Great, invaded southern Italy in 280 BC to aid Tarentum from incurtions by the Roman Republic.

Hannibal Barca commanded Carthaginian forces in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). Crossing the Alps from North Africa by way of Spain the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, Hannibal‘s forces overwhelmed and annihilated a Roman army of from 50,000-70,000 men in one of the worst defeats in Roman history.

The Cimbrian threatened the Roman Republic during the Cimbric War (113–101 BC) would stir these memories and fears. The Germanic and Celtic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutons, Ambrones and Tigurini had migrated from the Jutland peninsula and clashed with Rome and her allies. This was the first time since the Second Punic War that there had been serious threat to Italia and Rome.

This would lead to a major changes in the internal politics of Rome, and the organization of its military by Gaius Marius, an uncle of Julius Caesar. These events allegedly inspired the putative Marian reforms that would lead to the altering of Roman culture.

Reforming the world

The Marian Reforms introduced to the Roman army by Roman general and politician Gaius Marius (157-86 BCE). These reforms transformed the Roman army from a semi-professional militia to a professional fighting force.

Property ownership had previously been a requirement to be a Roman soldiers, but now the recruitment of vast numbers of poor, propertyless plebeians would do almost anything to obtain land redistributed after Gaul was invaded. These new professional soldiers served for longer consecutive terms and were personally bound and singularly loyal to their commanders.

The threat of the German Cimbri and Teutoni tribes when they invaded Gaul in 109 B.C. with numerous successes allowed a free hand for generals of Rome to alter the nature of the army.

Marius' military restructuring proved itself during the war by 102 B.C. As a vast gathering of Germans neared the Alps one of the bloodiest battles in history took 130,000 lives, decimating the Teutones. A similar battle at Vercellae saw the slaughter of more than a 100,000. In a single war with three major battles almost 300,000 men were killed on a scale not seen.

These Celtic and Germanic tribes were migrating and traveled with their wives and children. Upon these massive defeats the women killed themselves and their children in order to avoid the growing slave markets. The remaining Cimbri and their allies, the Boii settled in southern Gaul and would eventual face Julius Caesar.

The structure of the army with the need for profitable wars through acqusition of land and wealth through the slave trade changed the perception of war. This would lead the way for Julius Caesar to use the military as one of the largest slave running operations in history as he invaded Gaul. The revenue from this operation amassed the wealth needed to finance his political aspirations by buy the loyalty of his troops and the Roman populous who were lavished with free bread and circuses.

Gallia divisa

• "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"

Julius Caesar had held the offices of Pontifex maximus (64–44 BC), Consul (59 BC), Proconsul (Gaul, Illyricum) (58–49 BC), Dictator (49–44 BC), Consul (48, 46–44 BC), Dictator perpetuo (44 BC).

"He was a politician and statesman who eventually took supreme power in the Roman Republic and made himself a monarch in every practical respect, although he never took the name king," wrote historian Adrian Goldsworthy in his book "Caesar: Life of a Colossus" (Yale University Press, 2006).

"In his triumph in 46 [B.C.] Caesar listed the number of [enemy] soldiers killed in all his battles — thus not only in Gaul — as 1,192,000," wrote Kurt Raaflaub, emeritus professor of classics and history at Brown University, in the New England Classical Journal(opens in new tab) in 2021

"It was not only the Roman sword that inflicted death on the Gallic population. Large parts starved to death because the harvests were confiscated or destroyed and their settlements and farmsteads burned, or they froze to death when the legions drove them out of their settlements in winter and burned down buildings, villages and towns," Raaflaub wrote.

Caesar wrote that when the "Sigambri" fled from his army he "burned all their villages and houses, and cut down their corn,"

"I came, I saw, I conquered,"

Caesar was very willing to pardon his opponents and enemies unlike Sulla who had murdered Romans by the thousands.

"It is said that he [Caesar] received twenty-three [stab wounds]; and many of the conspirators were wounded by one another, as they struggled to plant all those blows in one body," wrote Plutarch.

"He [had] a large and gradually increasing political influence in consequence of his lavish hospitality and the general splendour of his mode of life," Plutarch

Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC in hopes of restoring the Republic. He was the maternal great-uncle of Octavius his adopted son and heir. So, Gaius Octavius was named his successor becoming Augustus Caesar.

The Rubicon

Crossing the Rubicon on the 10 of January 49 BC. would reveal Caesar's ultimate aspirations and mark a point of no return. In this moment of history the Roman Empire was born and the Republic was smothered in the bed of its own making. The world was forever altered.

When Julius Caesar stepped into the River Rubicon, he declared, “Jacta Alea Est.”, “Let the die be cast.”

Gaius Marius had reformed the Roman army and made the people drawn from the masses mercenaries in their own land as a professional army. These soldiers increasingly owed their loyalty to their generals rather than the more abstract idea of a citizen republic.

Power corrupts and powerful men became more powerful by altering the way they had done things before in the Republic. Now men were fielding their own private armies, and the last troubled years of the Republic had seen the Senate’s power crumble in the face of the ambition of Marius, and his rival Sulla. But the great degeneration within a Republic does not begin with its leaders but with the degeneration of the masses through legal charity.

Chronology

July 13, 100 B.C.: Caesar born in area of Suburra.

82 B.C.: Sulla become dictator of Rome; Caesar speaks out and flees Rome.

78 B.C.: Caesar returns to Rome when Sulla dies.

75 B.C.: Caesar goes to Rhodes to study oratory but but is captured by pirates and ransomed.

74 B.C.: Caesar returns to Rome and politics, using his family fortune to gain influence.

69 B.C.: Caesar's wife Cornelia dies but praises her to increase his popularity.

61-60 B.C.: Caesar serves as governor of Iberia, suppresses tribes who oppose Roman rule.

60 B.C.: Caesar, Crassus and Pompey form triumvirate to rule Rome.

59 B.C.: Caesar's daughter Julia marries Pompey.

58-50 B.C.: Caesar campaigns in Gaul and England successfully.

54 B.C.: Pompey's wife Julia and her child die.

53 B.C.: Crassus is killed in a disastrous defeat fighting the Parthians.

January 49, B.C.: Caesar crosses the Rubicon and marches on Rome.

49–45 BC: Caesar's Civil War between Julius Caesar and the Optimates initially led by Pompey

August 9, 48 B.C.: Caesar defeats Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece; Pompey flees to Egypt.

September 48 B.C.: Pompey killed by Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy XIII; Caesar is presented with the head and is reportedly disgusted at the way Pompey was treated.

September 48 B.C. – January 47 B.C.: Caesar restores Cleopatra VII to power. Ptolemy XIII fights against Caesar and Cleopatra's forces but is killed.

June 47 B.C.: Caesarion, the son of Caesar and Cleopatra VII, is born. Caesar doesn't acknowledge the child as his own.

45 B.C.: Caesar implements new calendar system in Rome that has 365 days in a year and an extra day in February every four years.

January 44 B.C.: Senate names Caesar "dictator for life."

March 15, 44 B.C.: Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman senate.

In 50 BC the Senate ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome, where he was banned from running for a second consulship and would be on trial for treason and war crimes following his unlicensed conquests in Gaul.

In 36 BCE his adopted son Octavian seized upon the precedent in his struggles as triumvir; in the constitutional settlement of 23 BCE as Augustus he formalized his tenure of annually renewable tribunicia potestas, henceforth reckoning his years of rule by it. This assumption of tribunician power, alongside enhanced imperium, definitively established the legal basis of his principate, and that of subsequent emperors for at least the next three and half centuries. Augustus also secured grants of tribunicia potestas for his sons-in-law Tiberius.

The plebeian tribunes’ rights expanded, gradually extending beyond their core functions of assisting members of the plebs against patricians and magistrates evolving into a social welfare state feeding the indolent masses with free bread and circuses.

In the mid-2nd century BCE [[Polybius] observe that “the plebeian tribunes are always obligated to carry out the resolve of the people (demos), and especially regard their will,” and as such have earned the fear of the Senate (6.16.5). There was a power struggle in Rome as the generally unwritten constitution of Rome morphed in their appetite for power and benefits.

Flamen Dialis

Julius Caesar first job was Flamen Dialis (high priest of Jupiter).. But because he fell out with Sulla because he supported Marius his uncle against Sulla during a civil war. From there he went into the military. The combination of these to worlds was the one Separation that was essential like the left hand and the right.

The combination of these rolls in society would allow the Caesars to take on the title of "Son of God".

Julius Caesar marching on Rome in 49 BCE received an extraordinary grant of tribunicia potestas without having to hold the office of the tribunate itself (48 BCE, awarded for life in 44 BCE.

If you need help:

Or want to help others:

Join The Living Network of The Companies of Ten
The Living Network | Join Local group | About | Purpose | Guidelines | Network Removal
Contact Minister | Fractal Network | Audacity of Hope | Network Links

Offices
Authority| | Emperator | Apotheos | Principate |
Auctoritas | Tribunicia potestas | Pontifex maximus |
Genius | Son of God | Savior | Scillitan Martyrs |
Imperium | Potestas | Family | Elder | Paterfamilias |
Rome | Caesar | Edict of Milan | Constantine |

---

Religion | Pure Religion‎ | Private welfare | Fleeing Religion |
False religion | Public religion | Our Religion | Christian conflict |
Corban | Baptism | Benefactors | That Word | Daily ministration |
Modern Christians | Diocletianic Persecution | Christians check list |
gods | Judge not | Judge | Fathers | Deist | Damnable heresies |

Factions at the altar |
Pharisees | Sadducees | Zealot | Essenes | Levites |
Messianic Judaism | Menahem the Essene | Sanhedrin |
Altars | Clay and Stone | Red Heifer | Golden calf |
Freewill offerings | Religion | Pure Religion | Public religion |
Christian conflict | Paganism | Denominations | Dispensationalism |
Benefactors | Corban | Daily ministration | Calendars |
Cult | Imperial Cult of Rome | Guru theories| | Covet | Merchandise |
Mark of God | Mark of Cain | Mark of the Beast | Nature of the Beast
Section 666 | Benefactors | Biting one another | Cry out | Worship |
Church | Temples | Religious Orders | Priests | Kings and priests |
Hear | Bible Index | Network |

Caesars
Emperators | Caesar | Julius Caesar |
Augustus Caesar | Tiberius |
Caligula | Claudius | Nero |
Galba | Otho | Vitellius | Vespasian |
Titus | Domitian | Trajan |
Hadrian | Antoninus Pius |
Marcus Aurelius | Vespian |
Diocletianic Persecution |