TH E ROMAN REPUBLIC

Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civi lization I: Ancient Foundations Unit FOUR BD

* The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• In the century to follow, Rome wrestled with social unrest, assassination, dictatorship, and, of course, slave revolt.

• Slave Revolts

• In 134 BCE, over 70,000 slaves rebelled in Sicily.

• They decimated an entire Roman army before finally being quelled, only to revolt again in 104 BCE.

• But the most terrifying slave revolt occurred in 73 BCE, when a gladiator named Spartacus led a band of fugitive slaves on a rampage across southern Italy.

• Unlike previous slave revolts, this one had a core of trained fighters in Spartacus and his fellow gladiators.

• As Spartacus defeated legion after legion, more and more slaves flocked to his army, swelling its ranks to nearly 70,000. It took Rome nearly three years to defeat Spartacus. When his army was finally routed in 71 BCE, Romans wanted to make sure no slave ever got the thought of rebellion into their head again. 6,000 slaves were crucified along the Appian Way, from Rome to Capua, to serve as a grisly reminder of the price of rebellion. Clashing Classes Terrifying as the Romans found these slave revolts, they were only the most obvious symptom of the slave problem. Slaves were not the only people dissatisfied with their lot in the Roman Republic. The city of Rome was divided into four classes, of which slaves were at the bottom. At the top were the Senators, 300 ancient and wealthy aristocratic families who ran the Senate. Beneath these were the Equites, a slightly larger class comprised of the lesser nobility and wealthy commoners. Beneath this class were the Plebs, or common citizens of Rome. Though this class comprised the vast majority of the Roman population, they controlled only a small fraction of its land and wealth. The plebs still ranked better than slaves, in that they were free. However, this freedom meant very little to the thousands of poor plebs inhabiting Rome, to whom freedom meant choosing whether to starve in the city or to starve in the country. The Land Monopoly How did things get so bad for the common plebs of Rome? Well, for the last couple centuries, while the plebs had been out conquering new territories in the Roman army, the upper classes had been buying up all the good land in Italy, using slaves from newly conquered lands to farm huge plantations. This left many plebs with no land to support themselves in the country, so many of them moved to the city. Yet, the story was the same in Rome. The Senators and Equites took control of the city's many trades, and staffed them with slaves. By the mid 2nd century BCE, the vast majority of Italy's farms, mines, mills and manufacturing ran on slave labor. This left most plebs with no land, no job and few prospects. The Gracchi In 133 BCE, a pair of brothers, Tiberius and Gaius of the House of Gracchus, tried to remedy this situation. These brothers, or the Gracchi as they're called, were of the plebeian nobility, meaning that their family was plebeian, but had been raised to the aristocracy. Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs. Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves. Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands. Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Slave Revolts

• As Spartacus defeated legion after legion, more and more slaves flocked to his army, swelling its ranks to nearly 70,000.

• It took Rome nearly three years to defeat Spartacus.

• When his army was finally routed in 71 BCE, Romans wanted to make sure no slave ever got the thought of rebellion into their head again.

• 6,000 slaves were crucified along the Appian Way, from Rome to Capua, to serve as a grisly reminder of the price of rebellion.

Clashing Classes Terrifying as the Romans found these slave revolts, they were only the most obvious symptom of the slave problem. Slaves were not the only people dissatisfied with their lot in the Roman Republic. The city of Rome was divided into four classes, of which slaves were at the bottom. At the top were the Senators, 300 ancient and wealthy aristocratic families who ran the Senate. Beneath these were the Equites, a slightly larger class comprised of the lesser nobility and wealthy commoners. Beneath this class were the Plebs, or common citizens of Rome. Though this class comprised the vast majority of the Roman population, they controlled only a small fraction of its land and wealth. The plebs still ranked better than slaves, in that they were free. However, this freedom meant very little to the thousands of poor plebs inhabiting Rome, to whom freedom meant choosing whether to starve in the city or to starve in the country. The Land Monopoly How did things get so bad for the common plebs of Rome? Well, for the last couple centuries, while the plebs had been out conquering new territories in the Roman army, the upper classes had been buying up all the good land in Italy, using slaves from newly conquered lands to farm huge plantations. This left many plebs with no land to support themselves in the country, so many of them moved to the city. Yet, the story was the same in Rome. The Senators and Equites took control of the city's many trades, and staffed them with slaves. By the mid 2nd century BCE, the vast majority of Italy's farms, mines, mills and manufacturing ran on slave labor. This left most plebs with no land, no job and few prospects. The Gracchi In 133 BCE, a pair of brothers, Tiberius and Gaius of the House of Gracchus, tried to remedy this situation. These brothers, or the Gracchi as they're called, were of the plebeian nobility, meaning that their family was plebeian, but had been raised to the aristocracy. Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs. Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves. Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands. Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar

* The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Clashing Classes

• Terrifying as the Romans found these slave revolts, they were only the most obvious symptom of the slave problem.

• Slaves were not the only people dissatisfied with their lot in the Roman Republic.

• The city of Rome was divided into four classes, of which slaves were at the bottom.

• At the top were the Senators, 300 ancient and wealthy aristocratic families who ran the Senate.

• Beneath these were the Equites, a slightly larger class comprised of the lesser nobility and wealthy commoners.

• Beneath this class were the Plebs, or common citizens of Rome. Though this class comprised the vast majority of the Roman population, they controlled only a small fraction of its land and wealth. The plebs still ranked better than slaves, in that they were free. However, this freedom meant very little to the thousands of poor plebs inhabiting Rome, to whom freedom meant choosing whether to starve in the city or to starve in the country. The Land Monopoly How did things get so bad for the common plebs of Rome? Well, for the last couple centuries, while the plebs had been out conquering new territories in the Roman army, the upper classes had been buying up all the good land in Italy, using slaves from newly conquered lands to farm huge plantations. This left many plebs with no land to support themselves in the country, so many of them moved to the city. Yet, the story was the same in Rome. The Senators and Equites took control of the city's many trades, and staffed them with slaves. By the mid 2nd century BCE, the vast majority of Italy's farms, mines, mills and manufacturing ran on slave labor. This left most plebs with no land, no job and few prospects. The Gracchi In 133 BCE, a pair of brothers, Tiberius and Gaius of the House of Gracchus, tried to remedy this situation. These brothers, or the Gracchi as they're called, were of the plebeian nobility, meaning that their family was plebeian, but had been raised to the aristocracy. Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs. Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves. Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands. Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Clashing Classes

• Beneath this class were the Plebs, or common citizens of Rome.

• Though this class comprised the vast majority of the Roman population, they controlled only a small fraction of its land and wealth.

• The plebs still ranked better than slaves, in that they were free. However, this freedom meant very little to the thousands of poor plebs inhabiting Rome, to whom freedom meant choosing whether to starve in the city or to starve in the country.

• The Land Monopoly How did things get so bad for the common plebs of Rome? Well, for the last couple centuries, while the plebs had been out conquering new territories in the Roman army, the upper classes had been buying up all the good land in Italy, using slaves from newly conquered lands to farm huge plantations. This left many plebs with no land to support themselves in the country, so many of them moved to the city. Yet, the story was the same in Rome. The Senators and Equites took control of the city's many trades, and staffed them with slaves. By the mid 2nd century BCE, the vast majority of Italy's farms, mines, mills and manufacturing ran on slave labor. This left most plebs with no land, no job and few prospects. The Gracchi In 133 BCE, a pair of brothers, Tiberius and Gaius of the House of Gracchus, tried to remedy this situation. These brothers, or the Gracchi as they're called, were of the plebeian nobility, meaning that their family was plebeian, but had been raised to the aristocracy. Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs. Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves. Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands. Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• The Land Monopoly

• How did things get so bad for the common plebs of Rome?

• Well, for the last couple centuries, while the plebs had been out conquering new territories in the Roman army, the upper classes had been buying up all the good land in Italy, using slaves from newly conquered lands to farm huge plantations.

• This left many plebs with no land to support themselves in the country, so many of them moved to the city.

• Yet, the story was the same in Rome. The Senators and Equites took control of the city's many trades, and staffed them with slaves.

• By the mid 2nd century BCE, the vast majority of Italy's farms, mines, mills and manufacturing ran on slave labor. This left most plebs with no land, no job and few prospects. The Gracchi In 133 BCE, a pair of brothers, Tiberius and Gaius of the House of Gracchus, tried to remedy this situation. These brothers, or the Gracchi as they're called, were of the plebeian nobility, meaning that their family was plebeian, but had been raised to the aristocracy. Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs. Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves. Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands. Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• The Land Monopoly

• How did things get so bad for the common plebs of Rome?

• By the mid 2nd century BCE, the vast majority of Italy's farms, mines, mills and manufacturing ran on slave labor.

• This left most plebs with no land, no job and few prospects.

• The Gracchi

• In 133 BCE, a pair of brothers, Tiberius and Gaius of the House of Gracchus, tried to remedy this situation.

• These brothers, or the Gracchi as they're called, were of the plebeian nobility, meaning that their family was plebeian, but had been raised to the aristocracy.

• Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs. Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves. Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands. Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• The Gracchi

• Despite their noble upbringing, the Gracchi tried to find ways to help the plebs.

• Perhaps they did this out of sympathy for the plebs, being just a few generations from being plebs themselves.

• Or maybe the Gracchi simply had the foresight to see what so many Roman aristocrats refused to see: unless Rome found a way to give the plebs a greater stake in the Republic, they were going to have a revolution on their hands.

Tiberius Gracchus The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE. Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis. He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child. The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans. With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again. The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Tiberius Gracchus

• The first of the Gracchi to take a stab at the situation was Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune in 133 BCE.

• Tiberius came up with a controversial solution to Rome's land crisis.

• He proposed that each Roman citizen could own no more than 300 acres, with another 150 acres for every child.

• The remaining land would be divided into small plots and given to poor plebs and veterans.

• With this new law, Tiberius hoped to break up the huge plantations of the upper class, and give the plebs a way to support themselves again.

The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes. They had Tiberius and his followers killed. Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted. Gaius Gracchus Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE. As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed. He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Tiberius Gracchus

• The senatorial class was outraged by this new legislation, which threatened their fortunes.

• They had Tiberius and his followers killed.

• Yet, despite this murder, or perhaps even because of it, Tiberius' legislation was still enacted.

• Gaius Gracchus

• Undaunted by his brother's murder, Gaius Gracchus, ran for tribune a decade later in 123 BCE, and again in 122 BCE.

• As tribune, Gaius enacted more laws for the benefit of the poor and the oppressed.

• He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs. He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors. Again, the senatorial class struck back. The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw. Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge. A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Gaius Gracchus

• He tried to stabilize grain prices in Rome by building public granaries along the Tiber and establishing a grain subsidy for poor plebs.

• He also tried to minimize the exploitation of people in the provinces by establishing controls on provincial governors.

• Again, the senatorial class struck back.

• The Senate declared Gaius Gracchus an outlaw.

• Gaius and 3,000 of his followers were murdered in a political purge.

A Broken Political System The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down. The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate. They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune. They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered. Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules. The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered. Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• A Broken Political System

• The plebs took this as evidence that the Roman system of law had broken down.

• The plebs had their own legislative assembly, which was supposedly just as powerful as the Senate.

• They also had plebeian government positions, like the tribune.

• They had attempted reform through these normal, legal channels, and what had happened? Their leaders got murdered.

• Though the Republic had matured to allow plebs more power, the aristocracy refused to play by the rules.

• The plebs needed to find a leader that could stand up to the aristocrats of Rome without getting murdered.

Gaius Marius They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa. In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs. Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi. Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader. Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back. Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Gaius Marius

• They thought they'd found such a leader in the ambitious general Gaius Marius, who had won great fame campaigning in Africa.

• In 107 BCE, Marius was elected consul by the plebs.

• Because Marius had an army at his back, the Senate could not just dispose of him as they had the Gracchi.

• Unfortunately for the plebs, Marius was no great leader.

• Though he did remove the property restrictions for military service, allowing Rome's poorest a new way out of poverty, Marius' main achievement during his seven years in office was demonstrating that a man could defy Roman law and hold a position indefinitely, so long as he had an army at his back.

Sulla This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves. In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years. In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate. He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs. He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate. Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Sulla

• This lesson was not lost on the senatorial class, who decided to try out this tactic themselves.

• In 82 BCE, the Senate named general Lucius Cornelius Sulla absolute dictator of Rome, a position he would hold for three years.

• In that time, Sulla did whatever he could to break the power of the plebs and increase the power of the Senate.

• He greatly decreased the authority of the tribune, traditionally the defender of the plebs.

• He also gave the Senate veto power over the pleb assembly, leaving the plebs' only legislative body powerless against the aristocratic Senate.

• Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate. A Boiling Pot of Revolution If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken. By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression. With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved. With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• Sulla

• Having done all the damage he could, Sulla gave up the dictatorship and retired to a country estate.

• Sulla and Marius, fought for control of Rome in a back and forth war, where when one controlled the city they killed the supporters of the other decimating the political leadership of the generation, and forcing many others into hiding when their side was not in power, leaving their property and wealth behind for the state to seize and resell to whomever was in power’s supporters.

• With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated. It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release. When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• A Boiling Pot of Revolution

• If the Senators thought that Sulla's dictatorship would solve their problems, they were sorely mistaken.

• By destroying the tribune and the assembly, they had blocked the plebs' only avenues to legitimate political expression.

• With no way to address their concerns, the grievances of plebs went unresolved.

• With no outlet for these problems, the plebs grew increasingly frustrated.

• It's as if the Senators were annoyed by a whistling teapot, and instead of taking the teapot off of the fire, they just shoved a cork in the whistling vent.

• The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release.

• When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever. Cicero: The Greatest Mind of His Age Meet Cicero, the greatest mind of his age. Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar * The Republic

• The Late Republic

• Crisis in the Late Republic

• A Boiling Pot of Revolution

• The pressure of hundreds of thousands of angry plebs continued to build and build, begging for release.

• When this monumental pressure at last burst free, it released a wave of destruction that would consume much of the Senate and shatter the Republic forever.

• Cicero was a Roman politician, orator, lawyer and philosopher. His political career spanned some of the most turbulent times in Roman history. His speeches are considered some of the greatest examples of oration to this day. His philosophy brought the Greek philosophical tradition to Rome, and through the Romans, transmitted Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. More than 2,000 years after his death, Cicero remains one of the most influential writers in Western history. Biography: Early Career Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 BCE. His father was a member of Rome's growing middle class, known as Equestrians. A weak and sickly youth, Cicero was ill suited to military service, so he sought to expand his mind instead. He learned Greek at an early age, and studied in Athens for several years. Cicero's focus on improving his mind, rather than his might, proved a wise choice. The Rome of his age would see the rise of many great military leaders, but no one of an intellectual caliber to match Cicero. Yet Cicero was not just a great thinker, he was also a great speaker. Cicero's life is an example of that age-old adage, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' With his pen, Cicero destroyed his enemies, and did all he could to protect the Republic from the series of ambitious generals who sought to rule Rome as tyrants. Cicero's political career began in 75 BCE, when, at age 31, he served as quaestor for the province of Sicily. During his time there, the people of Sicily persuaded Cicero to bring charges against their old governor Gaius Verres, who had used his position to plunder the populace. For his defense, Gaius Verres hired Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, then the greatest lawyer of his age. Cicero's case for the Sicilians was so solid, his speeches so persuasive, that he defeated Hortalus completely, earning him great fame, and making him one of the most sought-after lawyers in Rome. His fame bolstered, Cicero climbed the Roman political system with surprising speed. He served as an aedile in 69 BCE (age 37), and praetor in 66 BCE (at age 40). And in 63 BCE, he attained the highest honor a Roman citizen could hope for, being elected consul at the incredibly young age of 43. As consul, Cicero had to deal with the Catiline Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Republic with a foreign army. He rallied the Senate against Catiline and his co- conspirators in a series of speeches called the Cataline Orations, which survive to this day. After assembling a mountain of evidence against the conspirators, Cicero had them all summarily executed. The execution of Roman citizens without trial led the Senate to exile Cicero to Thessalonika in Greece, but the same Senate brought him back the next year. The Senate found themselves dealing with another political powerhouse, Julius Caesar, who also seemed to be threatening to overthrow the Republic. The Death of Cicero and the Republic If the Senate had hoped Cicero would help deal with Caesar, they were sadly mistaken. Caesar was far too popular at that point and had powerful allies in Pompey and Crassus. Though Cicero tried to reign in Caesar, his measures were defeated, and Cicero retreated to the literary life. When Caesar brought his army to Rome, Cicero fled with the other senators and Pompey. Yet Cicero need not have fled, since Caesar was actually very keen on having Cicero as an ally. In 60 BCE, Caesar had invited Cicero to join his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, but Cicero refused, seeing this triumvirate as a danger to the Republic. Before Cicero's flight in 49 BCE, Caesar again tried to court the great orator's support. Upon Cicero's return to Rome in 47 BCE, Caesar pardoned him without reservation, hoping to bring Rome's great orator into his camp. Cicero did his best to rebuild the Republic under Caesar, but his fellow senators could not bring themselves to make the same compromises. They murdered Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. After Caesar's assassination, Rome divided into two camps: the Senatorial camp, who supported the aristocracy and strove to restore the Republic, and the Caesarian camp, who supported Caesar and his many reforms. Cicero became the foremost representative of the Republic and the Senate, while Caesar's right hand man, Mark Antony, led the Caesarian camp. This marks the height of Cicero's political power. When Caesar's heir, the young Octavian, came on the scene, Cicero attempted to turn Octavian and the Republic against Mark Antony, with a series of speeches known as the Philippics. Cicero succeeded at first. He got Mark Antony declared an enemy of the state, and sent Octavian with an army to defeat him. But Octavian and Antony eventually united and turned against the Senate. Antony returned Cicero's dislike with interest, and had the great orator labeled an enemy of the state. Cicero's name was added to the list of proscriptions, and in 43 BCE, Cicero was dragged from his litter and summarily executed at the age of 63. Upon his murder, his hands were nailed to the rostrum of the Roman Forum. Cicero's Philosophy Though Cicero played an important role in Roman political life, his greatest impact on Rome was in his philosophical writings. Cicero's philosophy was largely derivative. Clearly, he was heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, though he did differ with the Stoics on the importance of public service. In this respect, Cicero's main contribution was not any great philosophical innovation. Instead, Cicero's role in the history of philosophy was in transmitting the philosophical tradition of Greece to Rome. To express Greek philosophy in the largely utilitarian language of Latin, Cicero needed to invent new words like Humanitas, Qualitas and Quantitas. In this light, Cicero formed the vocabulary of thought that carries on to this day. Cicero's only really original philosophical concept was that of natural law. Cicero held that the laws of nature were more important than the laws of men and governments. He believed that any leader who defied natural law was, by definition, a tyrant. In Cicero's own words, 'natural law is right reason, consonant with nature, common to every man, constant, eternal. Religion forbids us to make enactments infringing on this law. It may not be repealed even in part, nor do we have the power through the Senate or people to free ourselves from it.' This take on natural law as granting inalienable rights, common to every man, would provide inspiration to the Founding Fathers of America. Cicero's Legacy Cicero's legacy began forming even before his death. Caesar is said to have said of Cicero, 'it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman Empire.' Cicero was considered 'the father of Roman eloquence.' His engaging style and accessible prose made his writings a staple of the classical curriculum. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, students of law, rhetoric and philosophy would all be compelled to read Cicero. Cicero did not just bring Greek philosophy to the Romans. He is, in large part, responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy to medieval Europe. Cicero was one of the few classical authors to survive the Dark Ages. Like Virgil, Cicero was considered a virtuous pagan, and his works were not proactively destroyed like so many others. His impact on medieval scholarship is quite clear. St. Jerome followed Cicero's example of translation from Greek to Latin by translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Ambrose's book, On the Duties of Ministers, was based, in title and content, on Cicero's ethical book On Duties. St. Augustine credited Cicero with his conversion to Christianity. St. Erasmus was hailed as the greatest writer since Cicero, despite living more than 1,500 years after Cicero's death. After creating his own movable-type printing press, Gutenberg first published a copy of the Bible. The second work he published was a book of Cicero's. 18th century Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hume and Montesquieu would all look to Cicero when framing their own arguments. And the Founding Fathers of the United States would borrow heavily from Cicero's philosophy of natural law when designing their own novel form of government. Crisis in the Late Republic In the last century before the Common Era, the Roman Republic was ready to tear itself apart. The Republic was gripped by civil war, as those who supported the rights of the plebs, known as populares, tried to wrest the Republic from the hands of the optimates, who sought to protect the privileges of the aristocracy. The battle was not going well for the populares. Plebs had lost most of their political power, and their leaders had been rounded up and slaughtered. Defeated in the field, oppressed on all sides, and politically powerless, the plebs of Rome were desperate for a savior. Pompey Magnus The first object of their hope was Gnaeus Pompeius, known today as Pompey Magnus, or Pompey the Great. His name was well earned. Pompey was from a pleb family. His father was the first in his family to serve as consul under the dreadful Sulla. Despite his lowly origins, Pompey was acclaimed as one of Rome's greatest generals. Everywhere he went he brought victory. He'd won campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Spain, and Syria and even cleared the pirates from the seas. These achievements led to Pompey being elected consul in 89 BCE. If the plebs were hoping Pompey would use his newfound authority to restore their political rights, they were sadly mistaken. Pompey was a conservative at heart. He had worked very hard to join the upper class, and he was as jealous of its privileges as any ancient patrician family. Pompey might intimidate the Senate now and again with the threat of his legions, but he had no real interest in undermining the upper class, now that he was a part of it. Bread and Circuses Instead of giving the plebs real political power, Pompey gave them presents. Every time Pompey came back from campaign, he showered the plebs with gifts. He threw festivals, financed feasts, and even handed out money. This kept the plebs content temporarily, despite their lack of rights and political power. This practice proved so effective that it survived long after the Republic had fallen. Buying off the plebs with presents and festivals became so prevalent in the Roman Empire that, a century later, the playwright Juvenal would complain that, 'The people, who once handed out military commands, public offices, legions, everything... now restrain themselves in the anxious hope of being handed Bread and Circuses!' Pompey had proven that you didn't need to actually help the plebs to gain their support; you just had to buy them. He'd also demonstrated that a victorious general with an army at his back could cow the Roman aristocracy. The First Triumvirate As Pompey was reaching the height of his power, an aristocrat named Gaius Julius Caesar started making waves in the Roman political scene. Unlike Pompey, Caesar was from an ancient patrician family. But he was also the nephew of Gaius Marius, the leader of the populares, whereas Pompey had been fighting on the side of the optimates. In many ways, both men were trying to be a part of both worlds. Pompey was a pleb fighting for the aristocracy, and Caesar was an aristocrat fighting for the plebs. Despite their different origins, both of these men tried to straddle the growing gap between the two classes. And they both used the same strategies to get what they wanted: appeasing the populace with presents while intimidating the aristocracy with soldiers. Recognizing this kinship, Caesar formed an unofficial alliance with Pompey by marrying his daughter, Julia, to the aging general. With this marriage, Caesar elevated Pompey to the senatorial class and cemented their alliance. Caesar persuaded Pompey to include a senator named Crassus into their scheming. Crassus had earned some fame putting down the slave rebellion led by Spartacus, but his most notable achievement was that he was the richest man in Rome, perhaps the richest man in all of human history. These three came together to form the First Triumvirate: an alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Julius Caesar Of these three, Caesar was the least powerful. He was a sort of junior member of the Triumvirate. His few military exploits, though successful, were not really noteworthy. His family was ancient but bankrupt. Caesar's role in the First Triumvirate was to ally the wealth of Crassus with the political power of Pompey. With the help of his new allies, Caesar ran for consul in 59 BCE. Once Caesar was in office, the three men worked together to redistribute public lands to plebs and veterans. This move may have been motivated by sympathy, political maneuvering, or even simple economics. Whatever the reason behind this legislation, it earned Caesar and his allies the devotion of many plebs and veterans. When Caesar's term as consul was up, he headed to Gaul to do some conquering. When his term ran out, he persuaded Pompey and Crassus to give him five more years for more conquering. When these five years ran out, the Senate recalled Caesar to Rome, but he stayed in Gaul for still more conquering, until he'd conquered all of Gaul and made himself fabulously wealthy and popular in the process. While Caesar was out conquering Gaul, things were turning sour back at Rome. Caesar's daughter, Julia, died. Without her marriage to Pompey, the Triumvirate was on shaky ground. The next year, Crassus died in battle in Parthia. This shattered the old Triumvirate and deprived Pompey of his wealthiest supporter. With less money to fling around, Pompey could no longer keep the plebs happy and distracted. The old class struggles came to a head, and the city was descending into riots. Civil War Afraid of Caesar's growing power, Pompey turned against his old ally and formed an alliance with the Senate. The Senate declared Pompey sole consul and declared Caesar an outlaw. It is unclear whether the Senate and Pompey truly meant to threaten Caesar, or if this was all meant to be a bluff to bring Caesar in to line. But Caesar took it as a threat and, in defiance of Roman law and custom, marched his army on Rome. Caesar moved faster than anyone had expected, and in 49 BCE, he marched his army across the Rubicon. Unprepared and with only raw recruits at hand, Pompey and the Senate fled Rome, surrendering the city without a fight. As Caesar established himself in Rome, the Senate and Pompey fled to the Eastern provinces to raise an army. With Rome secure, Caesar chased after them. In 48 BCE, the two sides met at the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece. Though Pompey led the larger force, Caesar's superior tactics won him the battle. His army destroyed, Pompey fled to Egypt, with Caesar hot on his heels. Caesar Victorious We're not sure what Caesar intended to do with Pompey when he caught him, but when Caesar arrived in Egypt, he found that Pompey was already dead. The Pharaoh of Egypt, a boy named Ptolemy XIII, presented Pompey's head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not amused. Caesar may have fought Pompey viciously, but the man was still his son-in-law and a consul of Rome. Caesar's displeasure may have been real or feigned, but he took the excuse to meddle in Egyptian politics. He supported a rebellion by Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra. After a brief siege and a couple of pitched battles, Cleopatra was queen of Egypt and, according to ancient rumor, carrying Caesar's baby. Caesar now had a client state in Egypt, to provide barges of grain for the hungry plebs in Rome. Egypt seems to have given Caesar a taste for absolute power and some of the luxuries of kings. Done with Egypt, Caesar completed Pompey's earlier conquest of Asia Minor in an astoundingly short time, then swung back to Africa to mop up the last few senators who stood against him. In 46 BCE, Caesar returned to Rome, glorious with victory and rich with plunder. With a delicate balance of amnesty and military threat, Caesar got the Senate to name him absolute dictator of Rome for ten years. The Death of the Republic In the years that followed, Caesar began dismantling the Roman Republic. Instead of a few aristocratic families vying with one another for power, Caesar slowly began funneling all of the power to himself. Ironically, his task had been made much easier by the very aristocrats who had opposed him. Rome's aristocrats had already taken political power away from the common people, who now hated the aristocracy with a passion. This meant that the majority of Romans had no stake in the government anyway and did not care if Caesar took power from abusive aristocrats. Yet, Caesar did not just seize these powers from the aristocracy. Instead, he usurped them in very subtle ways. For example, years of civil war had severely thinned the ranks of the Senate. Rather than refilling it with his natural enemies - the rich and powerful men of Rome - Caesar granted citizenship to the peoples of Hispania and Gaul and used their leaders to fill in the Senate. Since these new senators owed their new positions to Caesar, this effectively stacked the Senate in Caesar's favor, removing the last restrictions on his power. Caesar's pet senate showered him with titles and honors, and in 44 BCE, they named Caesar dictator for life. And Rome, which had been without a king for nearly 500 years, now had a king again. He might not have called himself a king, he might not have dressed like a king, but Caesar was a king. There was no doubt about it. The Republic was dead. The Death of Caesar In a vain attempt to restore the Republic, a few desperate senators plotted Caesar's assassination. The coup was led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, on the one hand, a close friend of Caesar's, but on the other hand, a direct descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, who had overthrown the last king of Rome five centuries earlier. History won out over friendship, and on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, Brutus and his fellow senators ambushed Caesar. They stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to die on the Senate floor. Yet, killing Caesar could not bring the Republic back to life. The Republic was dead. It had been dying for almost two centuries. Without Caesar's intervention, Rome's great empire would likely have fallen apart on its own. By taking power from squabbling aristocrats and establishing himself as a sole ruler, Caesar placed Rome on a more stable foundation, allowing the Roman Empire to prosper and grow for centuries more. Not long after his death, Julius Caesar was deified, meaning that the Romans revered him as a god. This established the Imperial cult that would endure unto the end of the Empire. Since then, Caesar has been alternately lionized and vilified by poets, authors, philosophers, and scholars, as each generation has dealt with this larger-than-life figure. Caesar's legacy lives on even today in the 365-day calendar, with a leap year, which Caesar used to form his own Julian calendar. We can see his mark in our calendars today. Two thousand years later, the month of July still bears the name of Julius Caesar