taken up. Retired soldiers were given a pension and a plot of land in conquered territory. Marius also extended Roman citizenship to citizens of the allied Italian cities in return for service in the Roman army. While creating a much improved Roman standing army, Marius’s reforms tended to transfer the troops’ loyalty from the state to their general.
Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla, nicknamed Felix (Lucky), from an impoverished patrician background, who as quaestor (deputy commander) to Marius in the Jugurthine War managed by a stratagem to capture King Jugurtha himself in 105 BCE. But Marius and Sulla soon crossed swords, leading eventually to Sulla’s unprecedented march on Rome with his army in 88 BCE and again in 83 BCE. Sulla used his victory in 81 BCE to have himself appointed dictator legibus faciundis et reipublicae constituendae causa (dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution). This was the first time that Rome had a dictator since 202 BCE, but, unlike previous dictators, Sulla’s appointment was for an indefinite period. He held it for just over a year, using his power to enact some far-reaching constitutional reforms intended to strengthen the Senate against popular institutions, notably the tribunate of the plebs. He then resigned and retired into private life to write his memoirs and, if Plutarch is to be believed, to devote himself to debauchery (Plutarch, Sulla, 37). But no tinkering with the constitution could save the Republic. Sulla’s own career illustrated the fundamental truth that the future shape of the Roman government would be decided not by laws but by arms.
Pompey
The Roman Republic was now hurtling toward civil war, which was hastened by the fact that the Republic had become an unwieldy empire with trouble-spots needing urgent military attention. Sulla died in 78 BCE, and within less than ten years, most of his reforms would be rescinded by two of his former lieutenants on their return from successful military exploits: Gnaeus Pompeius, nicknamed Magnus and generally referred to in English as Pompey, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of the richest men in Rome, who were elected as joint consuls in 70 BCE.
Julius Caesar
The lineup for the final dénouement of the Republic took shape in 60 BCE, when the state was hijacked by an alliance between three strongmen in the so-called but unofficial First Triumvirate: Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar.
Gaius Julius Caesar was Marius’s nephew, and he remained true to his uncle’s populist politics. In Sulla’s final purge of Marian partisans in 83 BCE, the seventeen-year-old Caesar was spared only through the intervention of his mother’s family, which included supporters of Sulla and the Vestal Virgins because the young Caesar had been nominated as flamen Dialis (the high priest of Jupiter). In reluctantly sparing Caesar’s life, Sulla is said to have predicted that Caesar would prove the ruin of the aristocracy, “…for in that Caesar there are many Mariuses.”. (Suetonius, Julius, 1; Plutarch, Caesar, 1.)
Caesar early on showed his mettle. When captured by pirates, who demanded a ransom of twenty talents of silver, the young Caesar insisted that he was worth at least fifty. When released, he promised to return and crucify them all, which is exactly what he did. In 63 BCE, Caesar was elected against great odds to the prestigious position of Pontifex Maximus (chief priest) of the Roman state religion. After serving as praetor in 62 BCE, he was allotted the province of Hispania Ulterior (modern southeastern Spain), where he conquered two local tribes and, in 60 BCE, was hailed as imperator (commander) by his troops on the field of battle.
With the support of his partners, Pompey and Crassus, in the First Triumvirate, Caesar was elected consul in 59 BCE and successfully proposed a popular law redistributing public lands (ager publicus) to the poor. He also managed, in the face of “conservative” opposition, to be allotted as his proconsular command (the command that an ex-consul was given after his term of office) not one but three provinces: Illyricum (the Balkans), Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and later also Transalpine Gaul (southern France). (Suetonius, Julius, 19.2.)
Caesar expanded Roman territory by his conquest of what was known as Gallia Comata (long-haired Gaul or northern France), which he publicized himself in his book De Bello Gallico (The Gallic War), inflicted on generations of schoolchildren right up to the present day.
Caesar’s command had been extended to 50 BCE, by which time the Triumvirate had collapsed. Crassus had been killed in battle against the Parthians in 53 BCE; and Pompey had changed sides and become the champion of the Optimates, who now controlled the Senate and, unprecedentedly, made Pompey sole consul in 52 BCE. When Caesar’s command ended in 50 BCE, he was ordered to disband his army and return to Rome as a private citizen, exposing him to possible prosecution. Instead, on January 10, 49 BCE, he chose to cross the Rubicon (the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy) with an armed legion, famously remarking (apparently in Greek) “the die is cast”. (Plutarch, Pompey, 60.2; Plutarch, Caesar, 32.8.4; Suetonius, Divus Julius.)
Caesar was now at war with the Republic, which had entrusted its fortunes to Pompey. After Caesar’s decisive victory over Pompey at Pharsalus in Greece in July 48 BCE, Caesar entered Rome as a conquering hero. He was named dictator, then won a second consulship in an election presided over by himself, and resigned his dictatorship after eleven days. In 48 BCE, he was named dictator again, this time for a year. Then in 46 BCE, after a few foreign interludes, he was named dictator for a year yet again and was designated as dictator for nine further years. As if this was not enough, Caesar was also elected to serve as consul (simultaneously with his dictatorship) three more times, for 46, 45, and 44 BCE. Julius Caesar was now king in all but name. To drive the point home, in early 44 BCE, he was named dictator perpetuo or dictator in perpetuum (dictator in perpetuity), the precise meaning of which is explained below. In accepting this title, Caesar effectively signed his own death warrant. Caesar was seen by the Optimates as threatening to bring to an end the 450-year-old Republic, and about sixty of them conspired to assassinate him, which occurred on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BCE, one of the best-known dates in history.
It was Caesar’s undoubted popularity with the masses coupled with his arrogance and habit of plain speaking that caused his downfall. He is said, for example, to have remarked “…that the Republic was nothing but a name, without substance or form; that Sulla had acted like an idiot by laying down the dictatorship; and that people ought to be more careful when speaking with him, and should take what he says as law.”. (Suetonius, Ibid., 77.) Above all, not only was he unable to resist accepting most of the exceptional honours which were showered upon him, but he also did not seem to have recognized the likely backlash from the Optimates. According to Suetonius, among other honours accorded to him was the title Pater Patriae (Father of the Nation); several statues of himself, including one next to those of the seven kings of Rome; and a college of priests dedicated to himself. When, “…amidst the immoderate and unusual acclamations of the people….” (Ibid., 79), a man in the adulating throng placed on one of Caesar’s statues a laurel crown encircled with a white fillet, a symbol of royalty, and two tribunes ordered the fillet to be removed and the man responsible for placing it there to be imprisoned, Caesar reprimanded the tribunes and dismissed them from office. This gave the impression, welcomed by the populace and feared by the Optimates, that he aspired to make himself king although when hailed by the people as rex (king), he responded jocularly, “I am Caesar, not Rex”, Rex being a name as well as a title. And when his staunch supporter Mark Antony, as consul, on several occasions placed a laurel crown on Caesar’s head, Caesar waved it aside and ordered it to be taken to the temple of Jupiter. (Ibid., 79.)
Caesar probably did not cry “Et tu, Brute?” (“You, too, Brutus?”), as suggested by Shakespeare, nor even, in Greek, “Kai su, teknon?” (“You, too, my child?”), as rather skeptically suggested by Suetonius and Cassius Dio, when he was stabbed by Marcus Junius Brutus, whom Caesar had taken under his wing. (Suetonius, Divus Julius, 84; Cassius Dio, 44.19.)
So out of touch with reality were Caesar’s assassins that, according to Plutarch, they marched to the Capitol proudly brandishing their daggers full of confidence and fondly imagining