Julius Caesar

As a commander Caesar fought from the conquest of Gaul, crowned by the siege of Alesia in 52 BC, through the civil war against Pompey, decided at Pharsalus in 48 BC, to his last battle at Munda in Spain in 45 BC. That struggle, and the wars that followed his murder, are told in the Roman civil wars.²

From Gaul to the Ides of March

1. 100 BCBorn into the Julii, a patrician family that claimed descent from the goddess Venus.³
2. 63 BCElected pontifex maximus, Rome's chief priest.⁴
3. 60 to 59 BCForms the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus and serves as consul in 59 BC.⁵
4. 58 to 50 BCConquers Gaul in a series of campaigns and twice crosses to Britain.⁶
5. 52 BCIs thrown back at Gergovia, then forces Vercingetorix to surrender at Alesia.⁷
6. January 49 BCCrosses the Rubicon into Italy, starting a civil war with Pompey and the Senate.⁸
7. 48 BCIs beaten at Dyrrachium, then defeats Pompey at Pharsalus.⁹
8. 47 BCDefeats Pharnaces at Zela: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”¹⁰
9. 46 to 45 BCWins at Thapsus in Africa and at Munda in Spain.¹¹
10. 44 BCNamed dictator for life; murdered on the Ides of March, 15 March.¹²

Where did Julius Caesar come from?

Caesar was born in 100 BC into the Julii, an old patrician family of Rome that claimed descent from the goddess Venus. His father's sister Julia was the wife of the general Gaius Marius, and Caesar married Cornelia, daughter of Marius's ally Cinna. When Sulla took power, Caesar refused to divorce her and had to go into hiding.¹³

The year of his birth is less firm than it looks. Suetonius says he died in his fifty-sixth year and Plutarch that he was fully fifty-six, which points to 100 BC; the Treccani encyclopedia notes that the date is uncertain and gives 100 or 102 BC.¹⁴

He rose through the Roman offices on talent and on borrowed money, for he was often deep in debt. On a voyage to Rhodes to study oratory he was captured by pirates; once ransomed, he hunted them down and had them crucified. He was elected pontifex maximus, Rome's chief priest, in 63 BC, then praetor for 62 BC, and afterward governed Further Spain.¹⁵

In 60 BC he joined Pompey and the wealthy Crassus in the informal alliance known as the First Triumvirate, and he was consul for 59 BC. Pompey married Caesar's daughter Julia. After his consulship Caesar received Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, to which Transalpine Gaul was added: the base from which he set out to conquer the rest of Gaul.¹⁶

Who came first, Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar?

Alexander the Great came first. He lived from 356 to 323 BC and died in Babylon, more than two centuries before Caesar was born. The two never met, but Alexander was Caesar's yardstick: both of Caesar's ancient biographers tell a story of him lamenting how little he had done compared with Alexander at the same age.¹⁷

Suetonius says that while serving as quaestor in Further Spain, Caesar came to Gades, modern Cádiz, saw a statue of Alexander in the temple of Hercules and heaved a sigh, impatient that he had done nothing noteworthy at an age when Alexander had already brought the world to his feet. He then asked to be released from his post, to seek greater things in Rome.¹⁸

Plutarch swaps the statue for a book. In Spain, reading a history of Alexander, Caesar fell silent for a long time and burst into tears; asked why, he said that Alexander, at his age, “was already king of so many peoples,” while he had achieved no brilliant success. For how the two careers compare, read Alexander the Great vs Julius Caesar, and for the Carthaginian, Caesar vs Hannibal.¹⁹

What was Julius Caesar famous for?

Caesar is famous for conquering Gaul between 58 and 50 BC and writing his own account of it, for crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC, for defeating Pompey in the civil war and for ruling Rome as dictator. He also reformed the calendar, and his murder on the Ides of March led to the end of the Republic.²⁰

His Commentaries on the Gallic War and on the Civil War circulated in Rome and shaped how his wars were seen. Both encyclopedias used here stress their bias: Gale's Encyclopedia of World Biography notes that recent scholarship emphasizes their propaganda, and Treccani says their apologetic character calls for caution, especially in the Civil War.²¹

His most lasting reform was the calendar. Suetonius says the Roman year had drifted so far that the harvest festivals no longer fell in summer; Caesar gave it 365 days with one extra day every fourth year. Cassius Dio, describing the year 46 BC, says sixty-seven days were added to bring the year back into line.²²

How did Caesar conquer Gaul?

As governor, Caesar fought a run of campaigns across Gaul from 58 to 50 BC. He turned back the migrating Helvetii and the German chief Ariovistus in 58 BC, beat the Belgae in 57 and the Veneti in 56, bridged the Rhine in 55, crossed to Britain in 55 and 54, and crushed the revolt of 52 BC.²³

That revolt was led by Vercingetorix, a nobleman of the Arverni. Caesar took Avaricum but was thrown back at Gergovia, then shut Vercingetorix up in the hill town of Alesia. There he built two lines of works, one facing the town and one facing outward against a Gallic relief army, defeated that army and forced Vercingetorix to surrender.²⁴

Vercingetorix was kept a prisoner in Rome for six years, led in Caesar's Gallic triumph of 46 BC and then put to death.²⁵

Why did Caesar cross the Rubicon?

Caesar crossed the Rubicon because his enemies in the Senate meant to take away his army and prosecute him. In January 49 BC the Senate demanded that he give up his province and return to Rome as a private citizen. The river marked the edge of his province, and leading troops across it into Italy meant civil war.²⁶

Suetonius and Plutarch both describe him hesitating on the bank. Suetonius has him cry “The die is cast”; Plutarch has him quote the same proverb, “Let the die be cast,” before hurrying on. Caesar advanced so fast that Pompey, with no army ready in Italy, abandoned it and crossed to Greece. His long rivalry with his former ally and son-in-law is the subject of Pompey vs Caesar.²⁷

The river gave English a phrase: to cross the Rubicon now means to take a step that cannot be undone.²⁸

Julius Caesar's greatest victories

Caesar's greatest victories were Alesia in 52 BC, which completed the conquest of Gaul; Pharsalus in 48 BC, where he routed Pompey; Zela in 47 BC, won within five days of reaching Pontus; and Thapsus in 46 BC and Munda in 45 BC, which broke the last Pompeian armies in Africa and Spain.²⁹

At Pharsalus, in Thessaly, Caesar routed Pompey, who fled to Egypt and was murdered there. Following him, Caesar was drawn into a hard war at Alexandria and left Egypt in the hands of Cleopatra.³⁰

From Egypt he marched against Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, who had used the civil war to go to war against Rome. Suetonius says Caesar beat him in a single battle within five days of arriving and four hours after first sighting him. Plutarch says Caesar reported it to a friend in Rome, Amantius, in three words: “Came, saw, conquered.”³¹

In Africa the Pompeians had allied with King Juba of Numidia; Caesar beat them at Thapsus in 46 BC, after which Cato killed himself at Utica. In Spain Pompey's sons raised a new army, and Caesar defeated it at Munda in 45 BC, the last battle of his career.³²

Did Julius Caesar ever lose a battle?

Yes, but he never lost a war. In Gaul his troops were thrown back at Gergovia in 52 BC, the year of Alesia. In the civil war Pompey broke his lines at Dyrrachium in 48 BC. And at Munda in Spain in 45 BC he came so close to defeat that, Suetonius says, he thought of suicide.³³

Suetonius counts only three setbacks in Caesar's nine years in Gaul: a storm off Britain that nearly wrecked his fleet, the rout of a legion at Gergovia, and an ambush on the German border in which his officers Titurius and Aurunculeius were killed.³⁴

At Dyrrachium, on the Adriatic coast, Pompey broke Caesar's siege lines and put his men to flight, but did not follow up. Plutarch has Caesar say, “To-day victory had been with the enemy, if they had had a victor in command”; Suetonius gives the same verdict, that Pompey did not know how to use a victory. Munda was the closest call: Plutarch says Caesar told his friends afterward that he had often fought for victory, but this time, for the first time, for his life.³⁵

How did Julius Caesar die?

Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate in the Curia of Pompey on 15 March 44 BC, the Ides of March. More than sixty conspirators, led by Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus, took part; he received twenty-three wounds and fell at the foot of a statue of Pompey.³⁶

By then he had been named dictator for life, and his honors had gone far beyond Republican custom. Many senators believed he meant to make himself king: Suetonius and Plutarch report a rumor that the Senate would be told that only a king could conquer the Parthians, against whom Caesar was about to march. Rogosz notes that the meeting was expected to grant him a royal title for use outside Italy.³⁷

When Caesar took his seat, Tillius Cimber seized his toga and Casca struck the first blow. Suetonius says he made no sound but a groan at the first stroke, though some writers claimed that he said to Brutus, in Greek, “You too, my child?” Cassius Dio repeats the story. The Latin “Et tu, Brute!” is Shakespeare's line, written for his play Julius Caesar.³⁸

Several of the killers had been Caesar's partisans, and others were former enemies he had pardoned. His murder did not restore the Republic. In his will Caesar adopted his great-nephew Gaius Octavius, who came out of the civil wars that followed as Augustus, the first Roman emperor, and ruled until AD 14. We set Caesar beside another general who seized a state in Napoleon vs Caesar.³⁹

Meet the others in the greatest military commanders in history, or read his defining victory in full at the Battle of Alesia.

Why Caesar won

• Speed. Suetonius says he could cover a hundred miles a day and often arrived before the messengers sent to announce him; Plutarch describes how the speed of his winter march in 52 BC stunned the Gallic rebels.⁴⁰
• Siegecraft at Alesia. To trap Vercingetorix he built two lines of works, one facing in and one facing out, and beat both the besieged army and the relief force.⁴¹
• Clemency. He pardoned many defeated enemies and gave some of them office; Brutus and Cassius, who had fought for Pompey, were among those he forgave.⁴²
• Control of the story. His own Commentaries on the Gallic and civil wars shaped how Rome saw his campaigns.⁴³

Words that became Latin proverbs

Two of his lines, reported by ancient writers, are still quoted today.

Which commander do you most resemble? Find out in our Which Commander Are You quiz, or test yourself on Alesia and Pharsalus in the Roman battles quiz.

More head-to-head comparisons: Genghis Khan vs Caesar and Scipio vs Caesar.