GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Gaius Iulius Cæsar HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 100 BCE July 12: Gaius Iulius Cæsar, who would become Dictator Perpetuus of Rome (and, it must be pointed out, a god), was born — on what would become, famously, a number of centuries later, Henry David Thoreau’s birthday. HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Gaius Iulius Cæsar “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 71 BCE Death of Marcus Antonius Creticus, father of Marcus Antonius. (His mother, Julia, a 2d cousin of Julius Caesar, would remarry with Cornelius Lentulus Sura, consul in 71, who would in 63 be executed at the instigation of Marcus Tullius Cicero on account of his participation in the conspiracy of Catiline.) DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Gaius Iulius Cæsar “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 63 BCE In about this year Mark Antony got married with his cousin Antonia (the first of several wives). Cato the Younger was elected as tribune of the plebs for the following year. Lucius Sergius Catilina, a patrician, was leading a rebellion inside Rome with the purpose of making himself king. Cato assisted the consul, Marcus Tullius Cicero, in dealing with the Catiline conspiracy. Cato proposed to set an example by executing all the conspirators, over the objection of Gaius Julius Caesar, who advocated exile for the conspirators while their comrades were still in arms, possibly for the duration of their lives. The senate voted for execution and the rebellion was utterly crushed. When Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius died, Caesar became Pontifex Maximus in charge of Roman religion. He was Papa Caesar, the Pope of Rome, and you could kiss his ring, or perhaps his foot. (The head of the Roman Catholic religion would not be referred to as Pontifex Maximus until at least four additional centuries HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR had passed, which is to say, at the very earliest the 4th Century of our Common Era.) ITALY September 23: Octavian was born at Rome to Gaius Octavius and Atia. He would receive early training from a great uncle, Gaius Iulius Cæsar, and in 27 BCE would become the Emperor Augustus Caesar. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Gaius Iulius Cæsar HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 60 BCE The 1st Triumvirate (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gaius Iulius Cæsar). In this period Marcus Antonius and his intimate friends such as Scribonius Curio and Publius Clodius were preoccupied not by politics or by warfare but in having themselves expansively riotous good times. Cato the Younger required Caesar to choose between consulship and triumph. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Gaius Iulius Cæsar “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 59 BCE At Pompeii in 80 BCE, the builders of the Small Theater had dug out an amphitheater at the extreme east of the city. The earth removed from the hole had been used to fashion bleachers for the crowd — this is now the oldest known such amphitheater. In this year there broke out in this arena a riot between the Pompeians and the Nocerians that was completed by a famous massacre. After a fight of gladiators organized by the Livineis Regolo who had been banished from the Senate, the incident began as rock throwing and went on to the use of metal weapons to destroy trapped spectators. In result the Roman Senate would exile those who had been prominent in the massacre and, for the following decade, ban all such exciting spectacles. THE PAX ROMANA Cato the Younger opposed Gaius Iulius Cæsar’s laws. Politically, Marcus Terentius Varro had supported Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, reaching the office of praetor after having been tribune of the people, quaestor, and curule aedile. In this year he was one of the 20-member commission that was carrying out the great agrarian scheme of Cæsar for the resettlement of Capua and Campania. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Gaius Iulius Cæsar HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 58 BCE Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Bibracte the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar defeated the Helvetii under Orgetorix and at the Plain of Alsace these legions defeated the Germans under Ariovistus. On the way to his conquest of “Helvetica” (Switzerland) and the three parts of Gaul in the creation of the Pax Romana (a task which he would complete in 50 BCE), he established his castrum or main legion camp atop the Fourvière hill at what is now Lyon. In about this year, the Julian Law on Agrarian Matters. READ THE FULL TEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 57 BCE Yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Sabis River the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar defeated the Nervii, creating the Pax Romana.1 1. You will note that in these records of battles leaving fields littered with corpses, the terms “creating the Pax Romana” and “disrupting the Pax Romana” are terms of art — and are employed arbitrarily. Please don’t try to figure out why sometimes the term “creating” is selected, and sometimes the word “disrupting,” as this won’t get you anywhere at all. HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 55 BCE August 26: Gaius Iulius Cæsar arrived for the 1st time in south-eastern Albion (England, we say), bringing with him some 8,000 Roman soldiers to create a Pax Romana. HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR The gracious people of the island would emplace a coastal marker (as pictured — although they wouldn’t emplace this coastal marker until a long long long long long period of healing had been allowed to occur). HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 53 BCE Mark Antony, who had been serving with Aulus Gabinius in Judaea and Egypt, joined the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar in Gaul. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Gaius Iulius Cæsar HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 52 BCE During the Gallic War, the siege and massacre of the 40,000 residents of the Gallic oppida at Avaricum. Vercingetorix commented that “the Romans did not conquer by valor nor in the field, but by a kind of art and skill in assault, with which they [Gauls] themselves were unacquainted.” Also, during this year, the broken siege of the Gallic oppida at Gergovia, and the circumvallation and battle of the Gallic oppida at Alesia, in which women and children were evicted from the encircled city to conserve food for its active defenders, only to die of starvation between the opposing walls of the defenders and the besiegers (Vitruvius offers us some information about these sieges). Mark Antony was elected quaestor for 51, in which capacity he acted as one of Gaius Iulius Cæsar’s quartermaster generals, with command over legions in the field. HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR Yet more altercations involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Gergovia the Gauls of Vercingetorix defeated the legions of Gaius Iulius Cæsar, but at Lutetia Parisiorum the legions of T. Labienus defeated the Gauls under Camulogenus and near Dijon and at Alesia the legions of Iulius defeated the Gauls under Vercingetorix, restoring the Pax Romana. HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 51 BCE Cato the Younger made an unsuccessful run for consul. During the Gallic War, the siege of the Gallic oppida at Uxellodunum (Vitruvius offers us some information about this siege). Mark Antony, left by Gaius Iulius Cæsar in the northern sector in charge of 15 cohorts, accepted the surrender of Commius, leader of the Atrebates. Ptolemy Auletes died leaving his Egyptian kingdom to his teenage daughter, Cleopatra, and her prepubescent brother Ptolemy XIII, with whom for reasons of tradition she would need to marry. She would become the only pharaoh of the Ptolemy family ever to familiarize herself with the language of her subjects. After the death of Ptolemy XIII and the birth of Caesarion, she would marry another younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, again of course for pharaonic reasons. WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Gaius Iulius Cæsar “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 50 BCE At about this point, the Funeral Oration for Octavian’s grandmother Julia. Curio, as tribune of the people, represented the interests of Gaius Iulius Cæsar. Mark Antony was elected augur, and also was elected to function as tribune of the people for the following year. HDT WHAT? INDEX GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR GAIUS IULIUS CÆSAR 49 BCE 2d Period of the Roman Civil Wars (Caesar versus Pompey, until 45 BCE). The siege of Massilia (Vitruvius offers us some information about this siege). At the beginning of the civil war between the party of Gaius Iulius Cæsar and the party of Gnaeus (Cneius) Pompeius Magnus, Iulius would drive Pompeius out of Italy, conquering his forces in Spain and then passing into Greece, where Pompeius and the other aristocratic chiefs had assembled a large army.