Julius Caesar - Biography - Alternative View

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Julius Caesar - Biography - Alternative View
Julius Caesar - Biography - Alternative View

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Video: Julius Caesar - Biography - Alternative View
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Biography of Guy Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar had many talents, but he remained in history thanks to the main one, this is the ability to please people. Origin played a significant role in Caesar's success - the Julian family, according to biographical sources, was one of the most ancient in Rome. Julia's ancestry was from the legendary Aeneas (son of the goddess Venus), who fled from Troy and founded a dynasty of Roman kings. Caesar was born in 102 BC, while the husband of his aunt Guy Marius defeated an army of thousands of Germans on the border of Italy. His father, who was also called Gaius Julius Caesar, did not achieve heights in his career. He was the proconsul of Asia. But the relationship of Caesar Jr. with Mary opened up a brilliant future for the young man.

At the age of 16, young Caesar marries Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, Mary's closest associate. Around 83 BC. they had a daughter, Julia, Caesar's only legitimate child - while he had illegitimate children already in his youth. Often leaving his wife alone, Caesar roamed the taverns in the company of fellow drinking companions. He differed from his peers only in that he loved to read - Caesar read all the books in Latin and Greek that he could find, and more than once amazed his interlocutors with knowledge in various fields.

As an admirer of ancient sages, he did not believe in the constancy of his life, peaceful and secure. And he was right - when Marius died in Rome, a civil war began. The power was taken by the leader of the aristocratic party Sulla, who began repressions against the Marians. Guy, who refused to divorce his daughter Cinna, was deprived of his property, and he himself was forced into hiding. "Look for the wolf cub, there are a hundred Marievs in it!" the dictator demanded. However, Guy had already left for Asia Minor, to the friends of his recently deceased father.

Not far from Miletus, his ship was captured by pirates. The smartly dressed youth interested them, and they demanded a large ransom for him - 20 talents of silver. "You appreciate me inexpensively!" - answered the descendant of Venus and offered 50 talents for himself. Having sent his servant to collect the ransom, he was "visiting" the pirates for two months.

Julius Caesar behaved quite defiantly with the pirates - he forbade them to sit in his presence, called them boors and threatened to be crucified on the cross. Having finally gotten the money, the pirates were relieved to let the impudent go. Guy immediately went to the Roman military authorities, equipped several ships and overtook his captors in the same place where he was captured. Taking their money, he actually crucified the pirates - however, those who were more attractive to him, he had previously ordered to strangle.

Sulla, meanwhile, had died, but his party supporters remained in power, and Julius Caesar was in no hurry to return to the capital. He spent a year in Rhodes, studying eloquence - the ability to speak was necessary for the politician, whom he firmly decided to become.

From the school of Apollonius Molon, where Cicero himself studied, Caesar emerged as a brilliant orator, ready to conquer Rome. His first speech was delivered in 68 BC. at the funeral of his aunt, widow Maria, - he fervently praised the disgraced commander and his reforms, thereby causing a commotion among the Sullans. An interesting fact is that at the funeral of his wife, who died in an unsuccessful birth a year earlier, he did not say a word.

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The speech in defense of Mary was the beginning of his election campaign - Julius Caesar put forward his candidacy for the post of quaestor. Such an insignificant post made it possible to become a praetor, and then a consul - the highest representative of power in the Roman Republic. Having borrowed from whom he could only a huge amount, 1000 talents, the descendant of Venus spent it on magnificent feasts and gifts to those on whom his election depended. In those days, two commanders, Pompey and Crassus, were fighting for power in Rome, to whom Guy offered his support in turn.

This earned him the post of quaestor, and then aedil, the official who was in charge of the festivities in Rome. Unlike other politicians, he generously gave the people not bread, but entertainment - either gladiator fights, or competitions in music, or the anniversary of a long-forgotten victory. Simple Romans were delighted with him. He earned the sympathy of the educated Roman stratum of society by creating a public museum on Capitol Hill, where he exhibited his rich collection of Greek statues. As a result, he was elected to the post of high pontiff, that is, a priest.

Believing in nothing but your luck. Julius Caesar found it difficult to maintain seriousness during lavish religious ceremonies. However, the post of pontiff made him inviolable. This kept him alive when Catalina's conspiracy was discovered in 62. The conspirators gathered to offer Guy the post of dictator. They were executed, but Caesar survived.

In the same 62 BC. he became a praetor, but got into such debts that he was forced to leave the Eternal City and go to Spain as governor. There he quickly amassed a fortune, bringing rebellious cities to ruin. He generously shared the surplus with his soldiers, saying: "Power is strengthened by two things - the army and money, and one is unthinkable without the other." He was declared emperor by grateful soldiers - this ancient title was given as a reward for a major victory, although the governor never won a single such victory.

After that, Guy was elected consul, but this position was too small for him. The days of the republican system were drawing to a close, things were moving towards autocracy, and Julius Caesar was determined to become the true ruler of Rome. To do this, he had to enter into an alliance with Pompey and Crassus, whom he did not manage to reconcile for long.

60 BC - a triumvirate of new allies seized power. To consolidate the alliance, Caesar gave his daughter Julia to Pompey, and he himself married his niece. Moreover, rumor attributed to him a relationship with the wives of Crassus and Pompey. Yes, and other Roman matrons, according to rumors, he did not bypass his attention. The soldiers sang a song about him: "Hide your wives - we are taking a bald lecher to the city!"

In fact, he went bald early, he was ashamed of it and got the Senate permission to wear the laurel wreath of triumphant on his head all the time. Bald, according to Suetonius, was the only flaw in the biography of Julius Caesar. He was tall, well built, had fair skin, and his eyes were black and lively. In food, he knew when to stop, he also drank quite a bit for a Roman; even his enemy Cato said that "Caesar was one of all who carried out a coup d'état, being sober."

He also had one more nickname - "the husband of all wives and the wife of all husbands." It was rumored that in Asia Minor the young Caesar had a relationship with the king of Bithynia Nicomedes. Well, the customs in ancient Rome were such that it could well turn out to be true. In any case, Guy never tried to shut the mouth of the scoffers, professing a completely modern principle "whatever they say, just say." As a rule, they said good things - in his new post he, as before, generously supplied the Roman mob with spectacles, to which he now added bread. The love of the people was not cheap, the consul again went into debt and in irritation called himself "the poorest of citizens."

He breathed a sigh of relief when, after a year in office as consul, he, according to Roman customs, had to resign. Caesar got from the Senate that he was sent to rule Schllia, the present France. The Romans owned only a small part of this rich country. For 8 years, Julius Caesar was able to conquer the entire Shlya. But, oddly enough, many Gauls loved him - having learned their language, he asked with curiosity about their religion and customs.

Today, his "Notes on the Gallic War" is not only the main source of biography about the Gauls, who disappeared into oblivion not without the help of Caesar, but one of the first historical examples of political PR. In them the descendant of Venus was flaunted. that they took by storm 800 cities, destroyed a million enemies, and another million were enslaved, giving their lands to the Roman veterans. Veterans gratefully said at all corners that on campaigns Julius Caesar walked alongside them, encouraging those who lagged behind. Riding on a horse, like a born rider. I spent the night in a cart under the open sky, only in the rain I covered myself with a canopy. At a halt, he dictated to several secretaries two or even three letters on various topics.

The correspondence of Caesar that was so lively in those days was explained by the fact that after the death of Crassus in the Persian campaign, the triumvirate came to an end. Pompey no longer trusted Caesar, who already surpassed him in fame and wealth. At his insistence, the senate recalled Julius Caesar from Gillia and ordered him to appear in the Eternal City, leaving the army at the border.

The decisive moment has come. At the beginning of 49 BC. Caesar approached the border river Rubicon north of Rimini and ordered 5,000 of his soldiers to cross it and advance to Rome. They say that while he uttered once again the historical phrase - "the lot is cast." In fact, the die was cast much earlier, even when the young Caesar was mastering the intricacies of politics.

Already in those days, he realized that power is given into the hands of only those who can sacrifice everything else for it - friendship, family, a sense of gratitude. Former son-in-law Pompey, who helped him a lot at the beginning of his career, now became the main enemy and, not having time to gather strength, fled to Greece. Caesar with his army set off after him and, without giving him time to recover, defeated his army at Pharsalus. Pompey fled again, now to Egypt, where local dignitaries killed him, deciding to earn the favor of Julius Caesar.

Such an outcome was quite beneficial for Tom, especially since he gave him a reason to send an army against the Egyptians, accusing them of murdering a Roman citizen. Having demanded a huge ransom for this, he wanted to pay off the army, but everything turned out differently. The young Cleopatra, the sister of the reigning king Ptolemy XTV, who appeared to the commander, suddenly offered herself to him - and in a place with her, her kingdom.

Guy, before going to Gaul, married a third time - to the wealthy heiress Calpurnia, but did not feel for her. He fell in love with Cleopatra as if she had bewitched him. But over time, she also experienced a real feeling for the aging Caesar. Later, the conqueror of the world, under a hail of reproaches, received Cleopatra in the Eternal City, and she listened to even worse reproaches for going to him, the first of the Egyptian rulers to leave the sacred Nile Valley.

In the meantime, the lovers were besieged by the rebellious Egyptians in the harbor of Alexandria. To save the city, the Romans set fire to the city. destroying the famous Library of Alexandria. They were able to hold out until the arrival of reinforcements, and the uprising was suppressed. On the way home, Julius Caesar casually defeated the army of the Pontic king Pharnaces, reporting this to Rome with the famous phrase: "I came, I saw, I won."

He had a chance to fight two more times with the adherents of Pompey - in Africa and Spain. Only in 45 BC. he returned to Rome, ravaged by civil wars, and was declared dictator for life. Julius Caesar himself preferred to call himself emperor - this emphasized his connection with the army and military victories.

Having achieved the desired power, the descendant of Venus managed to do three important things. First, he reformed the Roman calendar, which the malicious Greeks called "the worst in the world." With the help of the Egyptian astronomers, who were sent by Cleopatra, he divided the year into 12 months and ordered to add an extra leap day to it every 4 years. The new Julian calendar turned out to be the most accurate of the existing ones and lasted one and a half thousand years, and the Russian Church uses it to this day. Second, he pardoned all his political opponents. Third, he began to mint gold coins, on which, instead of the gods, Caesar himself was depicted in a laurel wreath. After Caesar, they began to officially call the Son of God.

From this there was only a step to the royal title. Flatterers had long offered him the crown, and the Egyptian queen had just given him a son, Caesarion, who could have been his heir. Caesar found it tempting to found a new dynasty, uniting the two great powers. But when the closest associate Mark Antony publicly wanted to put on him a golden royal crown, Caesar pushed him away. Maybe he decided that the time had not come yet, maybe he did not want to turn from the only emperor in the world into an ordinary king, of whom there were many around.

The smallness of what was done is easily explained - Julius Caesar peacefully ruled Rome for less than two years. The fact that he has been remembered for centuries as a great statesman is another manifestation of his charisma, influencing his descendants as strongly as his contemporaries. They planned new transformations, but the treasury of Rome was empty. To replenish it. Caesar decided to embark on a new military campaign that promised to make him the greatest conqueror in history. He wanted to crush the Persian kingdom, and then return to the Eternal City by the northern route, conquering the Armenians, Scythians and Germans.

Leaving Rome, he had to leave reliable people "on the farm" in order to avoid a possible rebellion. Guy Julius Caesar had three such people: his devoted comrade-in-arms Mark Antony, his adopted son Guy Octavian, and the son of his longtime mistress Servilia, Mark Brutus. Antony attracted the emperor with the decisiveness of a warrior, Octavian - with the cold prudence of a politician. It is more difficult to understand what could connect Caesar with the already elderly Brutus, a boring pedant, an ardent supporter of the republic. And yet Caesar promoted him to power, publicly calling him his "dear son." Perhaps, with the sober mind of a politician, he understood that someone should remind of the republican virtues, without which the Eternal City will rot and perish. At the same time, Brutus could try on two of his comrades, who clearly disliked each other.

The emperor, who knew everything and everyone, did not know - or did not want to know or believe - that his "son", together with other Republicans, was preparing a conspiracy against him. Caesar was informed about this more than once, but he brushed it off, saying: "If so, it is better to die once than to constantly live in fear." The assassination attempt was scheduled for the Ides of March - the 15th day of the month when Guy was supposed to appear in the Senate. Suetonius' detailed account of this event gives the impression of a tragic act, in which the emperor played the role of a victim, a martyr of the monarchist idea, like clockwork. At the Senate building he received a warning note, but he waved it off.

One of the conspirators, Decimus Brutus, distracted the stalwart Antony at the entrance, so as not to interfere. Tillius Cimbre grabbed Julius Caesar by the toga - this was a signal for the others - and Servilius Casca hit him first. Further blows rained down one after another - each of the killers tried to do their bit, and in the dump they even wounded each other. Then the conspirators parted, and Brutus approached the barely alive, leaning against the column. The "son" silently raised his dagger, and the slain descendant of Venus fell dead, having managed to utter the last historical phrase: "And you, Brutus!"

As soon as this happened, the senators, seized with horror, who had become unwitting spectators of the murder, rushed to flee. The murderers also scattered, throwing down their bloody daggers. The corpse of Julius Caesar lay for a long time in an empty building, until the faithful Calpurnia sent slaves for it. The body of the emperor was burned at the Roman forum, where a temple to the divine Julius was later erected. The month of quintiles in his honor was renamed to July (Iulius).

The conspirators hoped for the Romans' loyalty to the spirit of the republic, but the solid power established by the dictator seemed more attractive than republican chaos. Pretty soon, the townspeople rushed to find Caesar's killers and put them to a cruel death. Suetonius ends his story about the biography of Gai Yulia with the words: “No one of his killers has lived more than 3 years after that. They all died in different ways, and Brutus and Cassius struck themselves with the same dagger with which they killed Caesar."

V. Erlikhman