Julius Caesar

He was born Gaius Julius Caesar around 100 BC, into an old but no longer wealthy Roman family. Rome in his youth was a republic, not a kingdom: power was meant to be shared, held for short terms, and above all never handed to one man for life. Yet the republic was cracking. Rich generals bought armies loyal to themselves, and the streets ran with the violence of rival mobs.

Caesar was clever, charming and dangerously ambitious. A gifted orator, he won crowds with his speeches and won friends by spending money he did not have, sinking deep into debt to fund public games and grand gestures. To rise faster, he formed a private alliance with the two most powerful men in Rome — the immensely rich Crassus and the great general Pompey. Together, unofficially, they carved up the state between them.

Caesar's share was command in Gaul, roughly modern France. Over eight years of hard campaigning he conquered it for Rome, becoming spectacularly rich and, more importantly, the beloved commander of a battle-hardened army. But his rivals in the Senate had grown afraid of him. As his command ended, they ordered him to give up his army and return to Rome alone — as a private citizen, with no protection from his many enemies.

By law, no general could bring an army out of his province into Italy itself. The northern boundary was marked by a small river called the Rubicon. To cross it under arms was treason — a declaration of war on his own country. Caesar knew that to obey the Senate meant ruin, and perhaps death; to disobey meant civil war. For a long moment he hesitated on the bank.

Then, in January of 49 BC, he made his choice. Leading a single legion across the water, he is said to have declared that the die was cast — the dice were thrown, and there could be no going back. That small stream has echoed down the centuries: to this day, "crossing the Rubicon" means passing a point of no return, taking a step you can never undo.

What followed was a civil war that spread across the whole Roman world, from Italy to Greece, Egypt and Africa. Caesar pursued his old ally Pompey, now his greatest rival, and defeated him. Everywhere he proved himself a brilliant and ruthless commander. Within a few years he stood without equal. The Senate, cowed and defeated, named him dictator — first for ten years, and then, in an astonishing break with every Roman tradition, dictator for life.

As dictator, Caesar used his power to reform Rome. He reorganised the calendar — giving us, in time, the month of July, named after him — settled his veteran soldiers on land, relieved debt, and extended Roman citizenship. To many ordinary people he was a hero. But to a proud circle of senators, one man ruling for life was exactly what the republic had been built to prevent. They feared he meant to become a king in all but name.

A conspiracy formed among some sixty senators, led by Cassius and, most painfully for Caesar, by Brutus, a man he had trusted and favoured like a son. Roman writers tell of warnings ignored: a soothsayer who told him to beware the middle of March — the Ides — and troubling omens in the days before. Caesar, dismissive of the danger, went to the Senate as planned on 15 March, 44 BC.

There, the conspirators surrounded him and killed him. It is said that when he saw Brutus among them, he ceased to resist. He died at the foot of a statue of Pompey, the very rival he had defeated. But the killing did not save the republic the senators hoped to restore. Instead it plunged Rome into fresh civil wars, out of which Caesar's adopted heir, Octavian, emerged as Augustus — Rome's first emperor. The republic was gone for good; the age of emperors had begun, and Caesar's name would be carried by rulers for two thousand years.