Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What years did Julius Caesar live?
Gaius Julius Caesar (13 July 100 BCE – 15 March 44 BCE), commonly known as Julius Caesar was a prominent general in the Roman army and a notable politician. He played a key role in transforming the flagging Roman Republic to the seemingly unstoppable Roman Empire. He was killed due to his Templar affiliations. Caesar gained his fame on military campaigns in Gaul, where he conquered what is present-day France, Germany, and Belgium. In 50 BCE, Caesar was called back to Rome, and he feared he might be prosecuted for insubordination and treason. Caesar brought one of his legions with him and started a civil war. During this conflict, Caesar was made Dictator of Rome. Roman Senators feared Caesar's in increasing military power, and also hated him due to the fact he was supported by the Templars. On March 15, 44 BCE, also known as the Ides of March, the Senators planned their strike. A group of Roman Senators, who were also Assassins, led by Brutus and Cassius, stabbed Caesar twenty-three times in the Roman Senate. The Senators thought that by ending Caesar's life, they had helped save Rome, but they actually put Rome in chaos. For the next thirteen years, civil war raged through the Roman Republic. The outcome was the birth of the Roman Empire, and the fall of the Egyptian Pharaohs.
Augustus' reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted, in one form or another, for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire and until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, and his title "Augustus" became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death, in use both at Old Rome and at New Rome. In many languages, "Caesar" became the word for "Emperor", as in the German "Kaiser" and in the Bulgarian and subsequently Russian "Tsar" (sometimes Csar or Czar). The cult of "Divus Augustus" continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391 by Theodosius I. Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first emperor. He had composed an account of his achievements, the "Res Gestae Divi Augusti", to be inscribed in bronze in front of his mausoleum. Copies of the text were inscribed throughout the Empire upon his death. The inscriptions in Latin featured translations in Greek beside it, and were inscribed on many public edifices, such as the temple in Ankara dubbed the "Monumentum Ancyranum", called the "queen of inscriptions" by historian Theodor Mommsen.
Commodus, the last emperor of the Antonine dynasty, remembered by contemporaneous chronicles as an unpopular ruler notorious for his extravagance and cruelty, was assassinated in 192. Without sons to be his heir, a struggle for power immediately broke out amongst the governors of the most important provinces. Pertinax was elevated to the purple and recognized by his peers, but following his murder by a restive Praetorian Guard, Septimius Severus decided to make his bid for power and usurped the throne. Although initially a usurper, Severus managed to remain in power for the next 18 years and died a natural death while campaigning in northern Britain. The death of Severus Alexander (the last emperor of the Severan dynasty) in 235 triggered what historians call the crisis of the third century. In this period, from 235 to the accession of Diocletian and the establishment of the Tetrarchy in 286, Rome saw 28 emperors of whom only two had a natural death (from the plague). However, there were also 38 usurpers who raised revolts across the Empire, a clear sign that the security of the frontiers was not the only problem within the Roman world. Usurpation attempts were a constant worry for the emperors in this period; it was a too common method of acceding the throne. Successful usurpers were usually either provincial governors, commanders of a large grouping of Roman legions, or prefects of the Praetorian Guard, which had control of Rome, where the Imperial palace still lay.
Rome's population declined after its peak in the 2nd century. At the end of that century, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Antonine Plague killed 2,000 people a day. Marcus Aurelius died in 180, his reign being the last of the "Five Good Emperors" and Pax Romana. His son Commodus, who had been co-emperor since AD 177, assumed full imperial power, which is most generally associated with the gradual decline of the Western Roman Empire. Rome's population was only a fraction of its peak when the Aurelian Wall was completed in the year 273 (in that year its population was only around 500,000).
Gaius Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC created an unstable atmosphere throughout the Roman Republic. Desperate to remain neutral as the disputes between the Caesarean faction and the Liberators worsened, Lucius Julius Caesar retired to Neapolis. This retirement was brief, as Lucius Caesar was back in Rome before the end of the year. He openly joined Marcus Tullius Cicero's senatorial faction, leading the Senate in repealing Antony's agrarian law. However, he did not utterly abandon his nephew, as he refused to allow for a state of civil war to be declared against Antony. More than anything else, he sought to avoid another civil war, and worked toward reconciling the various factions. In early March of 43 BC, he was one of five ex-consuls appointed by the Senate to form a second delegation to Antony, seeking to arrange a truce between Mark Antony and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. However, when two of the ex-consuls decided withdraw from the delegation (Marcus Tullius Cicero and Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus), the embassy was disbanded.
In 58 BC Julius Caesar launched the Gallic Wars and had conquered the whole of Gaul by 51 BC. He noted that the Gauls (Celtae) were one of the three primary peoples in the area, along with the Aquitanians and the Belgae. Caesar's motivation for the invasion seems to have been his need for gold to pay off his debts and for a successful military expedition to boost his political career. The people of Gaul could provide him with both. So much gold was looted from Gaul that after the war the price of gold fell by as much as 20%. While they were militarily just as brave as the Romans, the internal division between the Gallic tribes guaranteed an easy victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. After the annexation of Gaul a mixed Gallo-Roman culture began to emerge.
Flavius Romulus Augustus (c. AD 460 – after AD 476; possibly still alive as late as AD 507), known derisively and historiographically as Romulus Augustulus, was the Roman emperor who ruled the Western Roman Empire from 31 October 475 until 4 September 476. He is often described as the "last Western Roman emperor", though some historians consider this to be Julius Nepos. His deposition by Odoacer traditionally marks the end of the Roman Empire in the West, the end of Ancient Rome, and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Western Europe.
Another debated issue is turnout. No contemporary source indicates how many cast ballots in an election. One clue to an approximate number is the size of the voting area. As consul Julius Caesar began the construction of a structure on the Campus Martius to hold the population while voting. The size of the structure, if completely filled with voters could have held between 30,000 and 70,000 people. This is almost certainly a high estimate, as open spaces for conducting to polling itself would at the least have been required. Cicero mentions in one work that the voting for a single consul in 45 BCE took 5 hours, with the equites and the first and second classes voting. From what we know of how the voting was structured historians have estimated that at most between 6,000 and 16,800 could have voted in that election. With an electorate of 910,000, even the most generous guesses put voter turnout below 10%.
Julius Caesar is a 2003 mini-series about the life of Julius Caesar. It was directed by Uli Edel and written by Peter Pruce and Craig Warner. It is a dramatization of the life of Julius Caesar from 82 BC to his death in 44 BC. It is of note for being mostly historically accurate and one of the last two films of Richard Harris, released in the year of his death. The series was originally broadcast on TNT in two parts, airing June 29 and 30, 2003 and involved location shooting in Malta and Bulgaria. Run time is 178 minutes and the DVD has a making-of featurette. The slogan is "His Time Has Come". It was released on DVD, in 2004 in the United States and in 2005 in the United Kingdom. The film was nominated for 2 Emmys and has a 6.8 out of 10 stars with nearly two thousand votes on IMDB.
Diocletian was the first Emperor to divide the Roman Empire into a Tetrarchy. In 286 he elevated Maximian to the rank of "augustus" (emperor) and gave him control of the Western Empire while he himself ruled the East. In 293, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus were appointed as their subordinates (caesars), creating the First Tetrarchy. This system effectively divided the Empire into four major regions, as a way to avoid the civil unrest that had marked the 3rd century. In the West, Maximian made Mediolanum (now Milan) his capital, and Constantius made Trier his. In the East, Galerius made his capital Sirmium and Diocletian made Nicomedia his. On 1 May 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, replaced by Galerius and Constantius, who appointed Maximinus II and Valerius Severus, respectively, as their caesars, creating the Second Tetrarchy.
The reign of Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD) began a long period known as the Pax Romana, or Roman peace. Despite continuous wars on the frontiers, and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus enlarged the empire dramatically, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Raetia, expanded possessions in Africa, and completed the conquest of Hispania.
By the end of his reign, the armies of Augustus had conquered the Alpine regions of Raetia and Noricum (modern Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia), Illyricum and Pannonia (modern Albania, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, etc.).
The Ptolemaic army was the army of the Ptolemaic Macedonian kings that ruled Egypt from 305 to 30 BC. Like most of the other armies of the Diadochi, it was very much Macedonian in style, with the use of the long pike ("sarissa") in a deep phalanx formation. Despite the strength of the Ptolemaic army, evinced in 217 BC with the victory over the Seleucids at the Battle of Raphia, the Ptolemaic kingdom itself fell into decline and by the time of Julius Caesar, it was but a mere client-kingdom of the Roman Republic. The army by the time of Caesar’s campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean was a mere shadow of its former self: generally, a highly disorganized assemblage of mercenaries and other foreign troops.
In 395 Theodosius I, who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, would be the last emperor to preside over a united Roman Empire. The empire was split into two halves: the Western Roman Empire centred in Ravenna, and the Eastern Roman Empire (later to be referred to as the Byzantine Empire) centred in Constantinople. The Roman Empire was repeatedly attacked by Hunnic, Germanic, Slavic and other “barbarian” tribes (see: Migration Period), and in 476 finally the Western part fell to the Heruli chieftain Odoacer.
Gaius was born in Rome in 20BC to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder. He was a part of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and was related to all the Julio-Claudian emperors. On his mother's side, he was the oldest grandson of emperor Augustus. He was the stepson of Tiberius by his mother Julia’s marriage to him, and Brother in law of Claudius by his sister Agrippina the Elder's marriage to Germanicus. He also was the uncle of Caligula, who was the son of his sister Agrippina. The last emperor of the dynasty was Nero, who was Gaius' great-nephew and the grandson of Germanicus. An annual sacrifice on his birthday was granted in a decree.
The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117 CE), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization. By 285 CE the empire had grown too vast to be ruled from the central government at Rome and so was divided by Emperor Diocletian into a Western and an Eastern Empire. The Roman Empire began when Augustus Caesar became the first emperor of Rome (31 BCE) and ended, in the west, when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic King Odoacer (476 CE). In the east, it continued as the Byzantine Empire until the death of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE. The influence of the Roman Empire on western civilization was profound in its lasting contributions to virtually every aspect of western culture.
Discontent among the subjugated Gauls prompted a major uprising in the winter of 54–53 BC, when the Eburones of north-eastern Gaul rose in arms under their leader Ambiorix. Fifteen Roman cohorts were wiped out at Atuatuca Tungrorum (modern Tongeren in Belgium) and a garrison commanded by Quintus Tullius Cicero narrowly survived after being relieved by Caesar in the nick of time. The rest of 53 BC was occupied with a punitive campaign against the Eburones and their allies, who were said to have been all but exterminated by the Romans.
Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis was one of the ten members of the Second Decemvirate, presided over by Appius Claudius Crassus and elected for the purpose of drafting the Law of the Twelve Tables, first written law of the Roman Republic. At the instigation of Appius Claudius, the decemvirs illegally held onto power the following year, refusing to proceed with the election of consuls. That year, a war escalated with the Sabines who were based in Eretum and the Aequi camped under Mount Algidus. The Roman troops were divided into two armies so that they could fight on two fronts. Marcus Cornelius received the command of the army that fought the Aequi, with three other decemvirs; Lucius Minucius, Titus Antonius, and Lucius Sergius. Meanwhile, Appius Claudius and Spurius Oppius Cornicen remained in Rome to ensure the defence of the city, and the four other decemvirs fought against the Sabines.
Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate Emperor (the Tetrarchy). Confident that he fixed the disorders plaguing Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, and the Tetrarchy soon collapsed. Order was eventually restored by Constantine, who became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the eastern empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the Empire was divided along an east–west axis, with dual power centers in Constantinople and Rome. The reign of Julian, who under the influence of his adviser Mardonius attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion, only briefly interrupted the succession of Christian emperors. Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official religion of the Empire.
In the year 457, Leo I became the first emperor to be crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Anthemius (467-472), one of the last Western Roman emperors, seems to have planned a pagan revival at Rome. He was a descendant of Procopius, the relative of Julian. Anthemius gave Messius Phoebus Severus, a pagan philosopher who was a close friend of his, the important offices of Praefectus urbi of Rome, Consul and Patrician. Anthemius placed the image of Hercules, in the act of vanquishing the Nemean lion, on his coins. The murder of Anthemius (by Ricimer) destroyed the hopes of those pagans who believed that the traditional rites would now be restored. Shortly thereafter, in 476, the western emperor was deposed by Odoacer, who became the first barbarian king of Italy. In spite of this disaster, pagans made one last attempt to revive the pagan rites. In 484, the Magister militum per Orientem, Illus, revolted against Zeno and raised his own candidate, Leontius, to the throne. Leontius hoped to reopen the temples and restore the ancient ceremonies and because of this many pagans joined in his revolt against Zeno. Illus and Leontius were compelled, however, to flee to a remote Isaurian fortress, where Zeno besieged them for four years. Zeno finally captured them in 488 and promptly had them executed.
The Fall of Ravenna, capital of the Western Roman Empire, occurred in early September 476 after a minor confrontation between the Heruli under their King Odoacer and the remnants of the Western Roman Army in Italy. The Roman Empire had been in relative decline since the beginning of the barbarian invasions and Rome, the symbolical heart and largest city of the Western Empire, was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths and in 455 by the Vandals. By 476 the Roman Emperor was little more than a warlord having very little de facto control of any territory outside of Italy. The last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was not even recognized as a legitimate ruler outside of Italy; the Eastern Roman Empire recognized Julius Nepos as the true Western Roman Emperor.
The "Gallic Wars" were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against Gallic tribes, lasting from 58 BC to 51 BC. The Romans would also raid Britannia and Germania, but these expeditions never developed into full-scale invasions. The Gallic Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul. The wars paved the way for Caesar to become the sole ruler of the Roman Republic.
Gaius Julius Caesar, sometimes distinguished as "the Elder", was the father of the dictator. In 103 or 100 BC, he served on a commission for the distribution of land, which was then awarded mainly to veterans who had served under Marius. Caesar was praetor around 92 BC, and proconsul of Asia for at least two years, although he had never held the consulship. He seems to have departed his province before the Mithridatic War. Subsequently, he chose to lead a quiet life outside Rome. He died suddenly at Pisae in 85 BC. Caesar's wife was Aurelia Cotta. They had two daughters, known as Julia Major and Julia Minor, followed by a son, Gaius Julius Caesar, the future dictator. He was known to have remained a friend of his brother-in-law, Marius.
The series begins in 82 BC when Julius Caesar is a twenty-year-old. He is out in the town with his daughter Julia (who in real history was not yet born) when news comes that Lucius Cornelius Sulla is just outside the city walls and intends to take the city with his army. The guards sent with the news post death lists on the senate door. When he sees his father-in-law's name he rushes to his house to try to help him escape. Pompey arrests him and takes him to Sulla. Caesar's mother, Aurelia, asks Sulla to show him mercy; out of respect for her, he promises to let Caesar live if he divorces his wife, Cornelia but Caesar refuses. Sulla lets him go but orders Pompey to kill him and bring his heart to him. Pompey follows Caesar and tells him to leave Rome, which he does. Pompey buys a swine's heart from the market and tells Sulla that the heart is Caesar's.
On his return to Rome he was elected military tribune, a first step on the "cursus honorum" of Roman politics. The war against Spartacus took place around this time (73–71 BC), but it is not recorded what role, if any, Caesar played in it. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC, and during that year he delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia, widow of Marius, and included images of Marius, unseen since the days of Sulla, in the funeral procession. His own wife Cornelia also died that year.
In 79 BC, Sulla resigned his dictatorship, re-established consular government and, after serving as consul in 80 BC, retired to private life. In a manner that the historian Suetonius thought arrogant, Julius Caesar would later mock Sulla for resigning the Dictatorship—"Sulla did not know his political ABC's". He died later in 78 BC and was accorded a state funeral.