Comparison Of Julius Caesar And Augustus

The Roman empire will forever hold a legacy as the greatest and longest standing empires in history. The reasons that a powerful empire such as Rome stood for so long holds a direct link towards two men, Julius Caesar and Augustus. Rome was a fierce and intimidating empire for many, and it ironically has similar attributes to the powerful figures who shaped it. Caesar and Augustus both single handedly changed the empire in the ways they knew best, the empire was not always known as an empire though. Throughout the era of Julius Caesar and the 500 years before him, it was known as the Roman republic. Caesar achieved a lot during his time, but he could not achieve what his son Augustus did. If Caesar was not assassinated, than it would be very

Caesar was born into a senatorial family; his uncle was Gaius Marius, a highly respected general in his own right. After the death of Marius, Caesars life was in a crisis as his legacy was threatened by Sulla, an up and coming general. We know that Caesar had little hope for himself during this time for a few reasons, but the most convincing reason was when Caesar had wept at the statue of Alexander The Great. He was 31 at the time and when asked why he did this he said he had felt that his life had been wasted up to this point, because when Alexander was 31, he had already conquered the known world (Bleicken

This meant that Augustus was already ahead of Caesar in his ambitions for glory, but it was because of Caesar that Augustus pushed himself like this. He was simply chasing Caesars standard. The next reason and most likely the biggest difference between the two is their political minds. Julius Caesar was a brilliant military commander but was arguably not very politically minded, whereas Augustus was.

This meant that Augustus could make progress much faster and more efficient then Caesar did. This does not mean that Caesar wasn’t good at this though, but Augustus was on another level. Augustus simply outsmarted everyone around him to gain power, even from his teenage years. Augustus wasn’t a selfish minded leader either. Records make us believe that Caesar was a bit self centred, and focused solely on his military career, rather than building Rome. Caesar was trying to expand the Roman Republic, and succeeded. But what good is expanding your civilisation, if its under developed.

Augustus focused on gaining the publics trust and appreciation, because he knew that having the publics side would influence the senate. He achieved this by focusing on improving the publics living conditions, through growing a network of roads and expanding Roman architecture to greater standards. Again, Caesar was not concerned about