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Caesar |
Keywords Agrippa, Caesarion, Crassus, Pompey, Tiberius
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ContentCaesar was born between 102 or 100 BC. His family has noble roots but is neither rich or influencial when he was born. In 85 BC, his father died when he was about 15. In about 79 BC, at the age of 22, he was a soldier and fought a few battles and received honors for handling difficult situations. After that, he became a lawyer. At 72 BC he was elected military tribune at the age of 28. Meanwhile, pompey was elected as consul in 70 BC. In 68 BC, he was elected quaestor and obtained a seat in the Senate (age 32). After that, Caesar spent a lot of money on games to win public popularity. He loaned most of the money from Crassus. In 60BC (age 40), he teamed up with Pompey and Crassus. [V]In 58 BC, at the age of 42, Caesar left Rome for Gaul, thus begins his 9 years away from Rome. He conquered a lot of places in Europe during the 9 years. In 49 BC, at the age of 51, Caesar tried to maintain his military power. When all the efforts failed, he marched his army back to Rome and declared the civil war. After a few decisive wars, Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was betrayed and his head was sent to Caesar while Caesar's troops arrived Alexandria. In 46 BC, Caesar's victory was decisive and unchallenged. He returned to Rome and began his rule of the Roman empire. In 44 BC, Caesar was named dictator perpetuus (dictator for life). He was planning a war against the Parthians. He was warned of possible assasinations, however, he still refused to take any body guards. Right before setting off to the war, he had a meeting with the house of Senate. Then the sixty conspirators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Brutus Albinus, and Gaius Trebonius, came to the meeting with daggers concealed in their togas and struck Caesar at least 23 times as he stood at the base of Pompey's statue. The consprators then fled away. Caesar was 56. Then began another long-lasting civil war between Marcus Antonius (AKA, Marc Antony, Caesar's top leutenant at the time of Caesar's assisination) [E] and Caius Octavianus (Octavian, Caesar's nephew and adopted son). [E] When Octavian was informed of Caesar's assasination, he immediately returned to Rome from his Spain expedition. When he got back to Rome, he found that Marc Antony had seized the power and was urging compromise and amnesty. Octavian refused to accept this attitude and wouldnot let the assasination go easy. Octavian's attitude gained him a tremendous amount of support from Caesar supporter and even some legions. Octavian also tried to raise funds himself to distribute Caesar's legacies to the Roman public. [R] At about 42 BC, Caesar was deified by the Roman republic, and Octavian then refused to be called Octavian but 'Caesar' instead and he now styled himself as 'divi filius' - 'son of god'. In the following years, Antony lived openly with Cleopatra, who was once with Caesar. Octavian's modesty and strictness in personal life apparently gained the favor and sympathy of the Roman public as well as the Senate. At the same time, Octavian strenthened his control over the wester empires, Antony, however, kept on spending his life as "an oriental monarch at the lavish Egytian court". [R] The fateful war between Octavian and Antony broke out in September 2nd, 31 BC. Although Octavian was no great military commander, but he possessed enough common sense to recognize that. So he relied on his longtime friend Agrippa to do the fighting for him. Antony lost the war, and then both Antony and Cleopatra commited suicide. Then, questionably, Octavian ordered the execution of Cleopatra's son - Caesarion, who was actually his step-brother: son of Caesar and Cleopatra. [R] In the years after, Octavian was reelected many times as consul from 31 to 23 BC. In 19 BC, he was granted consul for life. In 2 BC, he was granted pater patriae - father of the country. Octavian died in 14 AD, at the age of 76. Before his death, he made his adopted son his successor. Tiberius, the son of his wife from a previous marrage, became the next Roman ruler between 14 AD and 37 AD.
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