Julius Caesar :: essays research papers

Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 BC. Although patrician descent, Caesars family had not achieved real prominence. His father, also named Gaius Julius Caesar, was the brother-in-law of Gaius Marius and married Aurelia, who was connected with the fully grown Aurelii family he died about 85 BC, however, before reaching the consulship. In 84, Caesar married Cornelia, daughter of Mariuss old partner Lucius Cornelius Cinna. When Lucius Cornelius Sulla ordered him to divorce her, he refused and fly harm through the intervention of such people as his mothers relative, Gaius Aurelius Cotta. Caesar was then sent to collect a fleet from the Roman ally Nicomedes IV of Bithynia and was honour for conspicuous bravery at the siege of Mytilene. Returning home after Sullas death , he unsuccessfully prosecuted two Sullans, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Gaius Antonius Hibrida. He then left capital of Italy for studies in Rhodes but was captured by pirates. by and by obtaining ransom, he recruited private troops, captured the pirates, and had them executed in. His studies on Rhodes were interrupted by the outbreak of war with Mithradates VI of Pontus, against who he self-possessed a force in 74. During a legateship to help Marcus Antonius Creticus fight piracy, Caesar was made a pontiff at Rome in 73 BC. After his military tribunate and possible service against Spartacus, he sided with those seeking power from outside the circle of nobles who dominated the Senate. He support restoration of tribunician powers and the recall from exile of those who had supported Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in his revolt of 77. Caesar also advertised his Marian connections by displaying Mariuss effigies at his aunt Julias funeral through funeral orations for both Julia and his wife and by the restoration of Marius battle trophies on the Capitoline Hill. After a quaestorship in Spain, Caesar earned popularity among the Transpadane Gauls by supporting their agitation for Roman citizenshi p. He next married Pompeia, granddaughter of Sulla and relative of Pompey the Great, and evidence indicates that he supported important military assignments for Pompey in 67 and 66. As aedile in 65 BC, he achieved great popularity--and went into debt--by financing splendid games. He also plausibly cooperated with Marcus Licinius Crassus in an attempt to annex Egypt, in supporting Catiline for the consulship, and in promoting the land-distribution bill of Publius Servilius Rullus. In 64 BC, Caesar presided over trials of those who had committed murder during Sullas proscriptions.