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Gaius Julius Caesar [a] (12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC.
Oct 25, 2024 · Written in 1599 (the same year as Henry V) or 1600, probably for the opening of the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames, Julius Caesar illustrates similarly the transition in Shakespeare’s writing toward darker themes and tragedy.
- Overview
- Family background and career
Julius Caesar's family was old Roman nobility, but they were not rich. His father died when he was 16, but he received significant support from his mother.
How did Julius Caesar change the world?
Julius Caesar was a political and military genius who overthrew Rome’s decaying political order and replaced it with a dictatorship. He triumphed in the Roman Civil War but was assassinated by those who believed that he was becoming too powerful.
How did Julius Caesar die?
Julius Caesar was murdered in the Roman Senate House by a group of nobles on March 15, 44 BCE. The assassination plot was led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus.
How did Julius Caesar come to power?
Caesar’s gens, the Julii, were patricians—i.e., members of Rome’s original aristocracy, which had coalesced in the 4th century bce with a number of leading plebeian (commoner) families to form the nobility that had been the governing class in Rome since then. By Caesar’s time, the number of surviving patrician gentes was small; and in the gens Julia the Caesares seem to have been the only surviving family. Though some of the most powerful noble families were patrician, patrician blood was no longer a political advantage; it was actually a handicap, since a patrician was debarred from holding the paraconstitutional but powerful office of tribune of the plebs. The Julii Caesares traced their lineage back to the goddess Venus, but the family was not snobbish or conservative-minded. It was also not rich or influential or even distinguished.
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A Roman noble won distinction for himself and his family by securing election to a series of public offices, which culminated in the consulship, with the censorship possibly to follow. This was a difficult task for even the ablest and most gifted noble unless he was backed by substantial family wealth and influence. Rome’s victory over Carthage in the Second Punic War (218–201 bce) had made Rome the paramount power in the Mediterranean basin; an influential Roman noble family’s clients (that is, protégés who, in return, gave their patrons their political support) might include kings and even whole nations, besides numerous private individuals. The requirements and the costs of a Roman political career in Caesar’s day were high, and the competition was severe; but the potential profits were of enormous magnitude. One of the perquisites of the praetorship and the consulship was the government of a province, which gave ample opportunity for plunder. The whole Mediterranean world was, in fact, at the mercy of the Roman nobility and of a new class of Roman businessmen, the equites (“knights”), which had grown rich on military contracts and on tax farming.
Military manpower was supplied by the Roman peasantry. This class had been partly dispossessed by an economic revolution following on the devastation caused by the Second Punic War. The Roman governing class had consequently come to be hated and discredited at home and abroad. From 133 bce onward there had been a series of alternate revolutionary and counter-revolutionary paroxysms. It was evident that the misgovernment of the Roman state and the Greco-Roman world by the Roman nobility could not continue indefinitely and it was fairly clear that the most probable alternative was some form of military dictatorship backed by dispossessed Italian peasants who had turned to long-term military service.
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Oct 17, 2024 · Julius Caesar, tragedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, produced in 1599–1600 and published in the First Folio of 1623 from a transcript of a promptbook. Based on Sir Thomas North’s 1579 translation (via a French version) of Plutarch’s Bioi parallēloi (Parallel Lives), the drama takes place in.
- David Bevington
Jul 31, 2015 · Shakespeare may have written Julius Caesar as the first of his plays to be performed at the Globe, in 1599. For it, he turned to a key event in Roman history: Caesar's death at the hands of friends and fellow politicians.
Author William Shakespeare. Type of work Play. Genre Tragedy. Language English. Time and place written 1599, in London. Date of first publication Published in the First Folio of 1623, probably from the theater company’s official promptbook rather than from Shakespeare’s manuscript.
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Oct 27, 2009 · Julius Caesar was a general, politician and scholar who became dictator of ancient Rome until he was assassinated in 44 B.C., inspiring a play by Shakespeare.
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