JULIUS CAESAR INSTALL

'Not anywhere near a million were killed or enslaved, but it certainly illustrates that it was a pretty atrocious process,' says Billows. Rather than just fighting off these Germanic and Celtic hordes, Caesar decided to push north and conquer the whole of Gaul, which had roughly the same borders as modern France.īy Caesar's admittedly exaggerated account of his seven-year war in Gaul, his armies killed 1 million people, enslaved another 1 million, and subjugated the remaining 1 million. But if he was going to make his case for becoming the sovereign ruler of Rome, he needed to show his strength as a military leader.įor centuries, Rome and its territories had been terrorized by invading tribes from the north. He Viciously Conquered Gaul (Modern France)Ĭaesar proved his political genius early, forming pacts with political rivals and getting elected as consul of Rome in 59 B.C.E. In other words, Rome needed a dictator.'ģ. 'The rector needed to have the power to depose and punish generals and governors who didn't behave themselves. 'Caesar believed that ending corruption was not something you could do by moral persuasion you needed real power,' says Billows.

Caesar liked the rector idea but wanted to take it a step further.

JULIUS CAESAR INSTALL

The only way to root out corruption was to replace the incompetent elites with skilled governors and generals, some recruited from outside of Rome in its expanding foreign provinces.Ĭicero, the great writer and orator, argued that the best way to keep corrupt officials in line was to install a rector of impeccable personal standing to act as a kind of supreme judge. 'The corruption problem wasn't institutional or systemic, argued Cato the Younger, but a moral one.'Ĭaesar thought that was nonsense. 'Cato the Younger, the leading conservative, insisted that the traditional governing system ruled by the elites was absolutely fine as it was,' says Billows.

had become hopelessly corrupt, dominated by elite families called Optimates who doled out political favors for cash. Richard Billows, a history professor at Columbia University and author of ' Julius Caesar, The Colossus of Rome,' says that Rome in the first century B.C.E. 'Conservative' and 'progressive' are modern terms, but they're often applied to the partisan feud between Caesar's followers and those of his Roman political foe, Cato the Younger.

Julius caesar