Julius Caesar

From Encyc

Julius Caesar (102 or 100 - 44BC) was a Famous self-declared Roman dictator. He was murdered by his friends who were senators. He is famous for saying "e tu Brutus", his final words before litterally being stabbed in the back.

As a Roman general he conquered Gaul and then turned against the Roman Republic and the Senate. He was stabbed in the back by Senators worried that he had become dictator for life. He worked towards the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.

His father was Gaius Julius Caesar, a praetor. He died when Caesar was about 15. At age 18 he married Cornelia; she bore him his only legitimate child, a daughter, Julia. In 72BCE, Caesar was elected military tribune. Cornelia died in 69BC. In 68BC, he was elected quaestor and obtained a seat in the Senate; in the same year, he married Pompeia.

His campaigns in Gaul, though militarily brilliant, were marked by cruelty towards prisoners and noncombatants.

He defeated Pompey the Great, a rival Roman general in a civil war that was decided in Greece. Pompey fled to Egypt, where the Egyptions killed him thinking that is would make Caesar happy. Caeser killed them in turn, because they should have recognized that Pompey was a great Roman and they should be more respectful of the Roman Republic and its representatives.

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