His father, C. Iulius Caesar, was praetor in B.C. 84, and died in the same year; Aurelia, his mother, took great interest in his education (Tac. Dial. 28). From the first Caesar was connected with the leaders of the democratic party in the State. Marius, who had married his father’s sister Julia, conferred on him the office of flamen Dialis before he was sixteen years of age; and his first wife was Cornelia, daughter of Cinna. His refusal to divorce her at the bidding of Sulla drew down upon him the enmity of the dictator; and he fled in disguise to the Sabine mountains, where he remained until Sulla reluctantly consented to spare his life.
Caesar obtained his first experience of military service as a member of the staff of M. Thermus, propraetor of Asia, who conferred on him the civica corona for saving the life of a fellow-soldier at the siege of Mytilene. After serving for a short time under Servilius Isauricus against the pirates in Cilicia, he returned to Rome on the news of Sulla’s death in 78, and in the following year commenced his career as an orator with the prosecution of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, proconsul of Macedonia, for extortion.
Towards the end of that year Caesar left Rome for Rhodes—on his way thither being captured by pirates near Miletus—and studied for a year under the famous rhetorician Molo, taking part also in some operations on the mainland against one of the officials of Mithradates. Having been elected one of the pontifices in the room of his uncle, C. Aurelius Cotta, he returned to Rome in 74, and soon became a tribunus militum. In the agitation for the restoration of the powers of the tribunes of the plebs, Caesar took a prominent part; he also supported the Lex Aurelia of 70, which gave the equites a share in the iudicia, and the Lex Plautia, granting an amnesty to the adherents of Lepidus and Sertorius.
The year 68 he spent as quaestor in Farther Spain, and on his return to Rome strenuously advocated the claims of the Transpadane Gauls to the Roman franchise. His first wife having died, he married Pompeia, daughter of Q. Pompeius Rufus, and granddaughter of Sulla, whom he divorced five years later on account of her alleged adultery with P. Clodius. In 67 and 66 the bills of Gabinius and Manilius, conferring extensive military powers upon Pompey, were supported by Caesar and the other leading democrats.
Whether Caesar was concerned in the abortive attempt of Catiline at revolution in 65, is a moot point. He was now aedile, and acquired great popularity by the splendid shows which he gave to the people, and by his restoration of the statue and trophies of Marius. In 64, as president of the quaestio de sicariis, he condemned some of the most active agents in Sulla’s proscriptions. In 63 he supported the lex agraria of P. Servilius Rullus, and brought about the prosecution of C. Rabirius for the murder of the tribune Saturninus. On the re-enactment of the Lex Domitia de sacerdotiis, Caesar was elected pontifex maximus. He was again suspected, probably with good ground, of complicity with Catiline’s designs; he certainly proposed in the Senate that the conspirators should be punished with imprisonment instead of death. Praetor in 62, he worked in Pompey’s cause by proposing that the charge of rebuilding the Capitoline temple should be transferred to him from the aristocratic champion Catulus, and by supporting the bill of the tribune Metellus Nepos for electing Pompey consul in absence. Next year Caesar was propraetor of Farther Spain, where he conquered the Lusitanians and Gallaecians, and amassed considerable wealth. His coalition with Pompey and Crassus procured for him the consulship of 59, rendered notable by the Leges Iuliae; and before he went out of office his position was secured by the Lex Vatinia, conferring on him the government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for five years, with the command of three legions; Transalpine Gaul and another legion were added by the Senate. The following nine years (58-50) were occupied with the subjugation of Gaul and the two invasions of Britain (55 and 54). At the conference at Luca, in the winter of 57-56, it was agreed that Caesar should be continued in office for a second period of five years, and be allowed to increase the number of his legions to ten. In 50, realizing the danger of his position if he returned to Rome as a private person, he was anxious to be a candidate for the consulship in absentia; but Pompey thwarted his plan. Caesar refused to disband his army at the bidding of the Senate, and crossed the Rubicon early in 49. Italy soon submitted; he defeated the Pompeians in Spain, captured Massilia, and secured Sicily and Sardinia. Landing in Epirus in 48, he was defeated at Dyrrhachium, and retreated to Thessaly, where he overthrew Pompey at Pharsalus. Then followed his victories over the king of Egypt in the Alexandrian war (48), Pharnaces in Asia Minor (47), the Pompeians and Juba at Thapsus (46), and C. and Sex. Pompeius at Munda (45).
He had been created dictator in 49 and 48, with the tribunician power in perpetuity; and on his return to Rome in 45 he was made consul for ten years, dictator, and praefectus morum, with the title of imperator for life. In the intervals between his campaigns he carried out numerous reforms, including the rectification of the calendar, B.C. 46 (see [p. 110]). His assassination by Brutus and Cassius and the other conspirators took place on 15th March, B.C. 44.
(2) WORKS.
1. De Bello Gallico, in seven Books. The title used by Caesar himself was probably Commentarii rerum suarum (as in Cic. Brut. 262, and Sueton. Iul. 56; cf. Strabo, iv. 1, 1 ὑπομνήματα), although this does not appear in the best MSS., which give variously libri, historiae, or ephemeris rerum gestarum belli Gallici.
The work describes Caesar’s operations in Gaul, Germany, and Britain during the years B.C. 58-52, the events of each year occupying a separate Book. It was written and published as a whole, not in parts at the end of each year’s campaign. Otherwise it is difficult to see why Cicero should not have heard of it from his brother Quintus or his friend Trebatius, both of whom were with Caesar; or why Hirtius should have spoken of the rapidity with which the work was composed (B.G. viii. praef. 6, ‘Ceteri quam bene atque emendate, nos etiam quam facile atque celeriter eos perfecerit, scimus’). This view is corroborated by the statement of Asinius Pollio, that there were mistakes in the work due to defective memory (Sueton. Iul. 56, ‘quae ... memoria lapsus perperam ediderit’); and by some expressions in the earlier Books pointing forward to events mentioned later (i. 28 compared with vii. 9, and iv. 21 with vii. 76).
The time of composition was probably the winter after the last campaign narrated in the Book (B.C. 52-51). It was certainly published before B.C. 46, the date of Cicero’s Brutus, and probably before the rupture with Pompey, of whom Caesar speaks with approbation (vii. 6, ‘Cum iam ille urbanas res virtute Cn. Pompei commodiorem in statum pervenisse intellegeret’).