Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Roman Republic

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How was it possible that under the dictatorship and after the deification of Julius Caesar the Roman republic fell, when it had been structurally sound for four centuries before? When the republic was established around the end of the 6th century B.C.E., the Romans made clear that they wished to avoid all semblance of the monarchy that had ruled for two centuries before. (T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC), London and New York: Routledge, 1995; p. 215) The rule of the Republic was to be split into powers of the senate and consuls, a system that worked for over four centuries. The republic would face problems with the rise of the first triumvirate in 60 B.C.E., involving Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. The triumvirate gained power that was intended to be in the hands of the senate and Roman assembly. This paved way to a situation in which a single man could sweep up the political power that previously belonged to the entire senate. Julius Caesar would use this tactic, following his campaigns of Gaul and Britton, to take sole dictatorship over Rome. While there were previous cases which individuals had been appointed as dictator, usually by the senate to serve for six months in a time of war, Caesar was appointed dictator three separate times.. After declining his first dictatorship, Caesar was awarded two more reigns as dictator for one and ten years, respectively. At this point Caesar was praised by the Roman people for his various military victories and had been awarded several awards and honors by the senate. Having conquered much of the surrounding territories, spanning from northern Africa to Greece, and enacting several reforms, Caesar was in the pro...

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...would stand for a few years after Caesar’s death, praises would not stop and the Republic would soon fall seventeen years later to the man that inherited Caesar’s name and fortune.

Works Cited

T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC), London and New York: Routledge, 1995
Stefan Weinstock, Divus Julius, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971
Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus, Yale University Press, 2006
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Suetonius’ Divus Julius
Vergil’s Eclogue the Fifth “Daphnis”
Plutarch’s Parallel Lives
Plutarch. Caesar. ed. by Christopher Pelling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
J.F.C. Fuller, Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant,
James Sabben-Clare, Caesar and Roman Politics 60-50 B.C., London: Oxford University Press 1971
http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses15.html#6

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