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World history
Course: World history > Unit 2
Lesson 6: From Roman Republic to Roman EmpireCaesar, Cleopatra and the Ides of March
Julius Caesar installs Cleopatra as Pharaoh in Ptolemaic Egypt and becomes Dictator for Life, only to be assassinated by Brutus on the Ides of March.
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- Caesar had one legion before coming back to Rome, and "several" when he marched on to Greece. How did this happen? Did he recruit troops in Rome or people voluntarily joined his legion?(5 votes)
- Caesar had many legions before coming back to Rome. He only took one back with him. Two more legions were waiting a days march from the Rubicon. Even more legions were waiting in Gaul.(10 votes)
- So ( sorry if Sal said this already and I just missed it) what happened to Ptolemy the 13th?(6 votes)
- He was killed while leading the Ptolemaic army against Julius Caesar's forces in the final stages of the Alexandrian War.(6 votes)
- You indicate that Egypt was a client state. Were there other client states under loose Roman control?(4 votes)
- There were indeed many client states of Rome at the time. Numidia, Judea, and Armenia are famous examples, but there were even more in that time period and the rest of Roman history.(6 votes)
- Did Julius Caesar have enemies in the Senate because of his progressive, populist position on things? Or was there another reason why his enemies were so impassioned to kill him?(5 votes)
- So, Julius Caesar was killed and no one was protecting him no one tried to stop his enemies didn't he have someone protecting him?(4 votes)
- The kind of "executive protection" that is necessary in the 21st century was not deemed necessary those many millenia ago. We do well when we refrain from imposing the standards of "now" onto the past.
Consider, as a parallel, the case of US President William McKinley, who was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.(2 votes)
- Didn't Julius Caesar have bodyguards to protect him from his enemies at the Senate?(2 votes)
- Julius Caesar probably did have bodyguards, but they most likely would have left him a short distance from the Senate so they would be unable to overhear what was discussed. Also, even if they were there, they probably would not attack the other senators because of their status.(6 votes)
- Did the Ptolemaic Egypt really bribe so that they could keep their independence?(4 votes)
- Was it lawful for Caesar to take over Rome with his legion? Did the people agree with that?(3 votes)
- It wasn't lawful, but he basically changed the rules. And in those days, an overthrow was basically just like an election. Some people were all for Julius Caesar, and other people were counting down the days till his death.
Great Question!(3 votes)
- So, what does "client state" mean?(2 votes)
- A "client state" has nominal independence from an imperial center, but really doesn't have much room to do things itself without risking Imperial ire. Twentieth century examples include much of Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1990, Cambodia (as related to Vietnam) from 1978 onwards, and Bangladesh as related to India. The Benelux nations (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemborg) might be termed "client states of NATO", but they wouldn't appreciate being called such. Andorra is most certainly a client state, alternately, of Spain and France. Eswatini and Lesotho are client states of South Africa.(4 votes)
- Out of curiosity, does Julius Caesar have anything to do with Caesar Salad?(1 vote)
- No. Caesar Salad is named for a chef in Tijuana, Mexico, who developed it. His name, in Spanish, was Cesar. You could look it up!(6 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Where we
left off in the last video, we saw Julius Caesar had
conquered Gaul as proconsul. And, near the end of
his term as proconsul, the senators in Rome were afraid of him. He was this popular,
populist, charismatic figure, he had just had these
significant military victories in Gaul, and they said, all right, Caesar, why don't you just leave your
position, leave your army, and return to Rome? Well Caesar is sitting over here saying, well, that doesn't really
make a lot of sense. If I were just to return to Rome, they already are threatened by me, who knows what they're going to do to me? So he decides to cross the Rubicon and enter Rome. And so the Roman senators, they
say, okay, let's get Pompey, the famous general, who used to be part of Caesar's triumvirate
but had switched sides, to engage with Caesar. But Pompey says, you know what, I'm not so sure if Caesar
is beatable right now, he wasn't aware that
Caesar only had one legion, maybe there was a trick up
Julius Caesar's sleeves. So Pompey takes his forces and retreats
across the Adriatic to regroup, with the intent of coming back and retaking Rome. And so you can imagine,
a lot of the senators, especially the powerful
senators who were in opposition to Julius Caesar, go along with Pompey. So Julius Caesar, even
though he's now in control of Rome, he knows that
this isn't the end of it, that a civil war has begun,
that it's only a matter of time before Pompey's forces
and these senators return and retake Rome. So he decides to take the fight to them. He puts his second in
command, Marcus Antonius, often known as Mark Antony,
who was one of his generals in the Gaelic Wars, he
puts him in charge of, he puts him in charge in Italy. And then Julius Caesar
leads several of his legions off across the Adriatic, and
it's a pretty interesting story in its own right. They cross during the
winter, which was a bit of a surprise attack, because no
one would've expected them to cross the winter in the Adriatic, and to break the blockade of Pompey, 'cause Pompey controlled the navy. But he's able to engage
Pompey several times, and then, finally, in 48 BCE, he is able to decisively beat Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus,
which is right over here in central Greece. So his enemies, his opponents,
Julius Caesar's enemies are now defeated, and
Pompey is in retreat. He tries to escape to Alexandria. And this is where the story
gets even more interesting. So this is a little bit of background. In 51 BCE, so right about
there on that timeline, and right about here on this timeline, Ptolemy XII, who was the
pharaoh of Egypt, dies. Ptolemy, Ptolemy XII passes away. And this is a little bit of background. It was called Ptolemaic
Egypt, and even this guy was called Ptolemy, because,
you might remember that Alexander the Great,
when he conquered Persia in the 330s BCE, he also conquered Egypt. And then, once Alexander the
Great passed, once he died, one of his generals, Ptolemy, Ptolemy I, established a Ptolemaic Empire over Egypt, established Ptolemaic Egypt. And so this is Ptolemaic
Egypt right over here, which was significantly less
powerful than the Roman Empire, and the historical accounts say
that they essentially bribed their way to maintain their
independence up to this point. But Ptolemy XII, when he dies in 51 BCE, dies in 51 BCE, in his will he wants two
of his children to co-rule Ptolemaic Egypt, and they were young. One of them, Ptolemy,
creatively named Ptolemy XIII, was 10 years old. And his daughter, the other
one that he wanted to co-rule, Cleopatra, was 18 years
old, and this is a picture of Cleopatra, and this
is now the Cleopatra. In popular culture, the movie Cleopatra, when people talk about
Cleopatra, this is the Cleopatra they're talking about. But, you can imagine, this
co-rule thing doesn't really work out that well, and
civil war has broken out in Ptolemaic Egypt, with the
supporters of Ptolemy XIII, you can imagine, this is only
a 10-year-old, young kid, it's really the adults that
are probably running the show, but the supporters of Ptolemy
XIII are the ones that seem to have the upper hand at the time that Pompey is running away to Alexandria, which is the seat of power, a city established by Alexander the Great, and the seat of power in Ptolemaic Egypt. Now, the supporters of Ptolemy XIII, they say, okay, we don't wanna mess around with Julius Caesar, who
seems to be quite powerful, with his legions. So why don't we do him a favor. When Pompey comes, why don't we kill him? And so, in 49, or 48 BCE, this is after, remember, Pharsalus, Pharsalus
was in August of 48 BCE, you have Pompey leaving,
and in 48 BCE, he is killed. So Pompey is now killed in 48 BCE by the supporters of Ptolemy XIII, thinking that this is
gonna curry favor with them with Julius Caesar. Well Julius Caesar really
does not like this. He likes to establish his
reputation as a magnanimous ruler, someone who likes to forgive his enemies, someone who wants to
unify the people of Rome. And so he's in pursuit of Pompey. When he gets to Alexandria and
realizes that he was killed by Ptolemy XIII supporters, he decides to take the
other side and join forces with Cleopatra. And, not only is he able to
support her in a political, military sense, he helps
her defeat her enemies and become, and come onto the
throne, become the pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt. He also has an affair with Cleopatra. And, at the time, this is now 48 BCE, 48 BCE, where you have, so let's
see, this is 50, 49, 48 BCE, which is roughly late 48 and early 47 BCE, when
Julius Caesar was actually in Alexandria, they actually have an affair. And this is a Julius Caesar
who is in his early 50s, and this is a Cleopatra
who is in her early 20s. And through that affair,
they have, by most accounts, a child, Caesarion, later on. But this affair puts, or I guess
this support for Cleopatra, puts Cleopatra on the throne. And, even though Julius
Caesar does not take control of Ptolemaic Egypt, it makes
Ptolemaic Egypt something of a client state, something of a client state of the Roman Empire. And then Julius Caesar
returns back to Rome. He does several other things,
engaging in the east here, but, eventually, he gets back to Rome. And, over several periods, he gets himself declared dictator. And dictator today has a
term of someone who kind of takes power, maybe
unlawfully, someone who just runs the show. Under Roman law, under the Roman Republic, there was actually a
position called dictator, that could be appointed
for these six-month terms, especially when they was
in times of emergency, that they could do
whatever they needed to do. But now he got appointed
dictator multiple terms and for more than six months. And in 46, he gets elected
dictator for 10 years. So now 46 BCE is, let's see, this is 45, 46 BCE, he gets elected dictator
for a term of 10 years. And then in 44 BCE, he gets, he gets declared dictator for life. Now, this whole time, even
though he tried to be someone somewhat conciliatory against his enemies, his enemies were kind
of brooding and saying, what can we do to get back at this? And so, on March 15th, 44 BCE, and this is one of the most famous dates in history, his opponents in the senate, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, literally attack Julius Caesar in Rome, and this is an artist's
depiction of that attack, and they kill him. You might have heard of the Ides of March. Ides of March, that is
the date March 15th, and it's referring, when
people say it today, they're referring to that
event that happened on March 15th, 44 BCE, where the dictator of Rome, and he was really emperor,
even though he wasn't declared emperor yet, he had
absolute power over Rome, Julius Caesar was killed by his enemies, and that those enemies were
led by Marcus Junius Brutus. And, as you can imagine,
this then puts Rome into another phase, I guess you
could say, of the civil war. Or you could say into another civil war. Now, before we leave Julius
Caesar, it is worth saying some of the things he did. He did try to do some of
these populist reforms. He's also well known for
establishing the Julian calendar. Julian calendar. The Roman calendar before
the Julian calendar got pretty off on an annual basis, but the Julian calendar got
a lot closer to our current Gregorian calendar that we use today, so the days didn't shift as much as Earth orbited around the Sun. So I'll leave you there, and in the next few
videos we'll talk about what happened after Julius Caesar, the civil war, I really
could say the civil wars, that broke out, and how
they really culminated with Rome officially going
from being a republic to an empire.