Caesar NOTES

SOURCES FOR CAESAR STUDIES

 

Cicero, Letters, Speeches, Rhetorical Writings, Philosophical Writings

 

Sallust, War with Jugurtha, War with Catiline; Histories (70s)

 

Caesar, Gallic Wars, Civil Wars

 

Diodorus of Sicily (60 BC)

 

Suetonius, Caesar the God, Lives of 12 emperors

 

Appian (100 AD), History of Roman Wars, Civil Wars

 

Cassius Dio (230 AD), Universal History of Rome

 

Plutarch's Lives - Gracchi, Marius Sulla, Sertorius,

Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, Cicero, Antony, Brutus

 

Livian epitomators - Fragments of Livy;

Perioichae; Florus, Justin, Eutropius, Orosius

 

Valerius Maximus, Illustrious Lives

 

Oros. Flor. Eut. Velleius Paterculus (Vell. Pat.)

 

 

C. Julius C. f. C. n. Caesar, Aunt Julia = C. Marius

 

daughter named Julia who becomes wife of Cn. Pompey

 

Servilia, mother of M. Brutus.

 

70 BC triangular struggle between Pompey, M. Licinius Crassus, and the Senate

 

EVENTS OF THE 60S BC

 

Lex Gabinia, 67 BC, gave Pompey extraordinary command over the pirates. Maius imperium.

 

Lex Manilia, 66 BC, Pompey received the Mithradatic Command, replacing L. Lucullus, conquered the East, reorganized territories. Returned to Rome in 62 BC in triumph. Cic. Pro Lege Manilia; Letters to Atticus

 

Optimates/populares

 

Julius Caesar (quaestor  69-68 BC in Spain), curule aedile in 65; his celebrated games, material extravagance, and enormous debts. Pontifex Maximus elections in 64 BC, obtained office through extensive bribery (vs. his rival Catulus).

 

Catilinarian Conspiracy, 63 BC, M. Tullius Cicero Consul; C. Antonius Hybrida

 

L. Sergius Catalina  pr. 68 BC, sought cos. 66 for 65; sought cos. Again in 64 for 63

 

Bona Dea Scandal 62 BC; P. Clodius was having an affair with Caesar’s wife Pompeia;  Pontifices; P. Clodius indicted for sacrilege; Cicero =  Terentia; Clodius’ sister Clodia; Catullus was her lover

 

Caesar elected Praetor in 62, assigned province of Spain, couldn’t leave town because of his debts, Crassus paid all his debts so he could leave.

 

62 BC, Pompey returned in triumph; legislative agenda failed through 60 BC, Afranius, Petreius

 

Caesar earned a triumph for his campaigns in Spain in 61, requested the consulship in absentia, forced to return to Rome to seek office 60 BC, elected consul for 59 with help of Pompey and Crassus, forged “First Triumvirate”

 

 

64 Caesar elected Pontifex Maximus

 

praetor in 62, held command in Spain

 

Imperator -- triumphing Roman general

 

M. Porcius Cato the Younger, Optimates, party of good government, blocked Caesar’s bid to seek consulship in absentia. He also blocked legislation to obtain land and bounties for Pompey’s veterans, and blocked remission of tax revenues requested by Asian tax collectors supported by Crassus. Cato’s attempt to restore power to the oligarchy.

 

maius imperium

 

M. Tullius Cicero, cos. 63 BC

 

Pompey needed land for his veterans

 

L. Sergius Cataline,

 

Sallust, The Catininarian Conspiracy

 

M. Porcius Cato the Younger, quaestor 63.

 

C. Julius Caesar, cos. 59 BC, L. Calpurnius Bibulus

 

Q. Lucceius; Caesar was first; M. Calpurnius Bibulus second;

 

 

First Triumvirate, 59 BC, three men combine their influence to seize power at Rome

 

Caesar’s legislation of 59 BC:

1. Agrarian bill for veterans and urban poor. In Campania, 20,000 receive land allotment

 

2. Pompey’s acts in the East were ratified

 

3. Asian tax contract remissions for Crassus and the publicans

 

How to preserve power –

 

Caesar obtains a 5 year grant of imperium in Cisalpine Gaul; with an option to extend the command to Transalpine Gaul or Illyria

 

2. Pompey married Caesar's daughter Julia; Caesar married Calpurnia, whose father became consul in 58 BC; P. Gabinius, P. Clodius, tr. pl. 58;

 

 

1.                 offices for the following year: P. Gabinius elected consul for 58; P. Clodius elected tr. Pl. in 58; Cicero sent into exile; Cato gets assigned duty of selling off the royal estate of the Ptolemies in Cyprus; Clodius then turned on Pompey. Pompey recruits a friend of Cicero named T, Anneius Milo to organize an anti_Clodian gang

 

 

Caesar's 5-year grant of imperium in Gaul – extraordinary command; 5 year command in Cisalpine Gaul, with an option to extend the command to Transalpine Gaul or Illyria

 

Catullus - Mamurra mentula; Clodia/Lesbia

 

Vercingetorix Averni

 

Q. Labienus

 

Renewal of the Triumvirate in 56 BC

 

Pompey and Crassus became consuls in 55 BC; Caesar received 5 more years in Gaul.  49 BC he can run for consulship again. Crassus killed in 53. Julia died in childbirth in 54.

 

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus; Lucca in 56 BC, Triumvirate renewed; Caesar received a renewal of 5 years of imperium; Pompey received the command of the 2 provinces of Spain; Crassus would receive the province of Syria to wage war against the Parthians; Pompey and Crassus to be elected consuls; interregnum; Pompey and Crassus elected coss for 55 BC; Julia, 54 BC; Crassus was killed at Carrhae in 53; murder of P. Clodius by Milo in 52 BC; elected Pompey sole consul to suppress the urban violence

 

56 BC triumvirate met at Lucca;  interregnum; Pompey and Crassus elected consuls 55 BC; all three would receive extraordinary commands. Caesar got 5 year renewal of his imperium in Gaul; Pompey received 5-year command in the two provinces of

Spain; Crassus received a command against the Parthians; Pompey never left Rome; legates

 

59 BC proconsul of Gaul - 49 BC

 

 

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 54) ;

 

54 Julia died; 53 Crassus killed at the battle of Carrhae;

 

Cato and his faction were able to come to an understanding with Pompey

 

P. Clodius killed in 52 BC; Pompey becomes sole consul; Q. Metellus Scipio Nasica; Caesar becomes identified by all as the threat.

 

51 BC law of the 10 tribunes, granting Caesar the right to run for the consulship in absentia

 

50 Claudius Marcellus and L. Aemilius Paullus cons 50 BC; C. Scribonius Curio tr., M. Antony tr. 49; SC passed asking the magistrates

 

Civil War 49-46 BC: Pompey and Caesar, Clementia, pauci potentes

 

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus;

 

Clementia; pauci potentes

 

Magister equitum

 

Caesarion

 

5 triumphs: Gaul, Greece, Egypt, Asia; Africa;

 

10 grant of dictatorship to restore the republic

 

CAESAR’S DICTATORSHIP

 

Scenario 1: Caesar planned to seize absolute power from the beginning but hid his true intentions until he was certain he had control (promise to restore republic was a ruse)

 

Scenario 2: Caesar tried to work with the aristocracy until the Pompey brothers mounted rebellion in Spain in 45 BC. At this point Caesar gave up all hope and turned to dictatorship.

 

Scenario 3: Caesar was manipulated by subordinates and misled by the adulation of the Roman people and allowed himself to be pushed into absolute power. We have no idea of his true intentions.

 

Eulogies to Cato; Caesar wrote Anti-Cato, as an indication of his anger at this time; his rebuking of the two tribunes who refused to stand during his parade

 

Imperator for life, tribunician potestas for life; right to put his statues on the rostrum, the right to put his statues in all the temples, the right to wear triumphal garb and a laurel wreath; the right to have his statue led in the epulones of the gods; a cult was created to his ‘genius’; M. Antony was its flamen;  Caesar received honor, Pater patriae (father of his country) Caesar constructed a new forum, the Forum Julia with the Temple of Venus Genetrix at its center and with a statue of Caesar beside Venus inside. He invited Cleopatra and Caesarion to reside at his villa outside Rome. He assumed membership in all magistracies, he was Pontifex Maximus, Augur, and served on all boards of magistrates. We are told that the senate deliberately began to offer him honors to make him odious. And that when the Senate came to offer him yet another honor at the Temple of Venus Genetrix, he was advised by Oppius and Balbus not to arise as they greeted him. During the Lupercalia, Feb. 15, Antony tried to offer Caesar a diadem; Caesar refused.

 

M. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage.

 

Sulla took the name Felix

 

Jan. 44 bc; Caesar revised the mint. Put his own face on the coins. Caesar celebrated an ovation on Jan 23, 44, and was recorded as Dict. For the 4th time; consul for the 5th time. By Feb. 15 he referred to himself as Dictator in Perpetuo

 

He announced that he would leave Rome to conduct a 5 year campaign against the Parthians and had elections in advance to elect the consuls for the next 5 years. Last Senate Meeting to be held prior to his departure was the Ides of March, 44 BC

 

Caesar avoided the term, REX, but he was dressed as Jupiter, called Imperator, had a cult by his name, statues of himself with all the gods, and a Hellenistic queen outside the city who claimed that her illegitimate son, Caesarion, was his. Dictator for Life was his solution.

 

He was murdered, fittingly, below the statue of Pompey at the Senate meeting at Pompey’s Temple to Venus in the Campus Martius; he was assassinated by 67 senators, including Brutus, Cassius, Dec. Iunius Brutus Albinus (cos. Designate 42 BC)

 

JPVD BALSDON, The Ides of March, Historia 7 (1958), 91 f.