Julius Caesar

Summary

Summary of "Julius Caesar" Episode on Dan Snow's History Hit

Podcast Information:

• Title: Julius Caesar
• Host: History Hit (Dan Snow)
• Release Date: June 5, 2025

Overview: In this compelling episode of Dan Snow's History Hit, host Dan Snow delves deep into the life and legacy of Julius Caesar, examining his role as arguably the greatest Roman figure. Joined by esteemed Roman historian Dr. Simon Elliot, Snow explores Caesar's military prowess, political maneuvers, and the lasting impact he had on the Roman Republic and subsequent history.

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Introduction to Julius Caesar

Dan Snow introduces the episode by questioning Julius Caesar's status as the greatest Roman, suggesting that other figures like Augustus may rival or surpass him. He sets the stage for an in-depth discussion with Dr. Simon Elliot, a Roman history expert, aiming to uncover whether Caesar truly deserves his legendary status.

Notable Quote:

Dan Snow [01:48]: "But who truly deserves the title of the greatest Roman of them all?"

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The Early Life and Rise of Julius Caesar

Dr. Simon Elliot begins by contextualizing Caesar within the tumultuous political landscape of the late Roman Republic. Born in 100 BC, Caesar grew up during a period dominated by bitter factionalism between the Optimates (the aristocratic, senatorial elite) and the Populares (the populares advocating for the common people).

Key Points:

• Family Background: Caesar hailed from the Julii family, an aristocratic clan with limited wealth. His father, Gaius Julius Caesar, served as proconsul of Asia but died when Caesar was only 15, leaving him to manage the family's financial and political aspirations.
• Military and Political Beginnings: At a young age, Caesar became involved with the Populares, aligning himself with the faction led by figures like Marius and Cinna. His early entanglements in Roman politics set the foundation for his later ambitions.

Notable Quote:

Dr. Simon Elliot [04:04]: "So Julius Caesar was one of the greatest PR men of history, almost certainly the greatest PR man of the ancient world."

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Julius Caesar’s Military Campaigns

The conversation shifts to Caesar's remarkable military career, particularly his conquest of Gaul, which he achieved in just six years—a feat unmatched by contemporaries like Augustus.

Key Points:

• Gallic Wars: Starting in 58 BC, Caesar led a series of campaigns that expanded Roman territory into modern-day France, Belgium, and parts of Germany. His strategic brilliance and ability to inspire loyalty among his troops were pivotal.
• Invasion of Britain: In 55 and 54 BC, Caesar launched invasions of Britain, showcasing his boldness by crossing the English Channel— a perilous endeavor for the Romans. Although his initial incursions met resistance, his second expedition successfully established a Roman presence.
• Siege of Alesia: One of Caesar's most celebrated military triumphs, the Siege of Alesia, exemplified his tactical genius. Surrounded by Gallic forces led by Vercingetorix, Caesar's forces overcame formidable defenses, cementing his dominance in Gaul.

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Simon Elliot [25:43]: "He conquers Gaul in six years when the Romans invade Britain took 40 years."

Dr. Simon Elliot [35:05]: "There's only been one opposed invasion of Britain, and that was the first one that we know about."

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Political Maneuvering and the First Triumvirate

The episode explores Caesar's political strategies, particularly his formation of the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus. This alliance allowed them to dominate Roman politics by leveraging their combined military and financial power.

Key Points:

• First Triumvirate: Formed in 60 BC, this unofficial alliance between Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus facilitated mutual support in political ambitions, bypassing senatorial opposition.
• Governorship and Wealth Accrual: Granted the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and Provincia, Caesar leveraged the rich mines of Spain to amass wealth, which he used to secure loyalty and finance further military campaigns.

Notable Quote:

Dr. Simon Elliot [23:01]: "Money, money, money, money. Caesar driven by power and by money."

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The Crossing of the Rubicon and Civil War

A pivotal moment in Roman history occurs when Caesar defies the Senate's orders by crossing the Rubicon River with his legions in 49 BC, igniting a civil war that ultimately leads to the fall of the Roman Republic.

Key Points:

• Crossing the Rubicon: By bringing his army into Italy, Caesar directly challenged senatorial authority, famously declaring, "Alea iacta est" ("The die is cast").
• Civil War: The ensuing conflict saw Caesar confront Pompey in key battles such as Pharsalus, where his strategic acumen secured decisive victories despite being outnumbered.
• Assassination: In 44 BC, fearing Caesar's accumulation of power and potential dictatorship, a group of senators, including notable figures like Cassius and Brutus, assassinated him on the Ides of March.

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Simon Elliot [42:19]: "It's the dice is rolled, isn't it?"

Dr. Simon Elliot [43:24]: "He gets told, you've got to come back. And he says, I'm not coming back. You've got to come back."

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Caesar’s Legacy and the Transition to the Roman Empire

The discussion concludes with an analysis of Caesar's enduring legacy and how his actions paved the way for the rise of Augustus and the establishment of the Roman Empire.

Key Points:

• Reforms: Caesar instituted numerous reforms, including the Julian calendar, which had a lasting impact on Roman society and beyond.
• Augustus and the Empire: After Caesar's death, his heir Octavian (Augustus) consolidated power, defeating remaining rivals and establishing the framework of the Roman Empire. Augustus emulated Caesar's image, ensuring his legacy endured through the ages.
• Cultural Impact: Caesar's name has transcended history, influencing titles such as "Kaiser" and "Tsar," and his image remains emblematic of military and political prowess.

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Simon Elliot [56:35]: "If you wanted to have a banker of a Hollywood movie, the one you go for is something about Caesar."

Dr. Simon Elliot [57:10]: "Probably you have two goats, symbiotically linked sea Caesar and Augustus."

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Conclusion

Dan Snow and Dr. Simon Elliot encapsulate Julius Caesar's multifaceted legacy, highlighting his unmatched military achievements, political ingenuity, and the profound transformations he initiated within the Roman state. Caesar's blend of charisma, strategic brilliance, and ambition not only elevated him to legendary status but also set the stage for the end of the Roman Republic and the dawn of the Roman Empire.

Final Insights:

• Greatest Roman: While acknowledging Augustus's significant role, Dr. Elliot posits that Caesar's consistent leadership, both militarily and politically, cements his position as arguably the greatest Roman.
• Enduring Influence: Caesar's actions and reforms have left an indelible mark on Western civilization, from language and law to political structures and cultural memory.

Notable Quote:

Dr. Simon Elliot [59:04]: "To a huge extent, yes. So let's look at very briefly parts of the Roman world which we've touched on."

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End of Summary

This episode offers a thorough exploration of Julius Caesar's life, emphasizing his strategic mind, charismatic leadership, and the pivotal role he played in shaping the course of Roman and world history. Whether you’re a history enthusiast or new to the subject, this detailed discussion provides valuable insights into one of history’s most influential figures.

Transcript

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[Dan Snow]

Hi folks. Welcome to Dan Snow's history. They forged a massive empire. They smashed enemies and shaped history. Sometimes, well, often with a sword, Sometimes with a stelas or a pen, if you like. From innumerable battlefields to the marble clad colonnades of Rome, a handful of leaders emerged. You got Pompey, Scipio, Augustus Trajan, Marcus Aurelius. But who truly deserves the title of the greatest Roman of them all? A lot of people would say Julius Caesar, the daring general who added millions of square miles to the empire or the Republic before crossing the Rubicon and breaking that republic. But is that true? Is there someone more deserving? The one person who can answer this question for me is the esteemed Dr. Simon Elliot, expert in all things Roman. And you're about to hear that conversation right here on the podcast. But before you listen, I have some exciting news for you. You're going to go crazy. It's all available for you to watch this episode on YouTube. Yep. Dan Snows history has launched on YouTube. Our Friday podcasts will be available to watch. So head over to our new YouTube channel and make sure you subscribe now. To make that super easy. You can find the link in our show notes. But now, friends, now it is time to decide whether Julius Caesar really was the goat. Let's get into it. Enjoy.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

T minus 10. Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King. No black white unity till there is first some black unity.

[Marc Maron]

Never to go to war with one another again.

[Verizon]

And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Simon Elliot, welcome to the podcast.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Thank you for having me. Love working with you, Dan.

[Dan Snow]

Let's get it done straight away. Julius Caesar, greatest of all time or not.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Yes. So we can go to the pub. In the world in which we live today, we see Julius Caesar as the greatest Roman.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Not just the greatest Roman leader, but the greatest Roman that's through the prism of a couple of millennia, a very positive PR for him. So remember, firstly, Julius Caesar was one of the greatest PR men of history, almost certainly the greatest PR man of the ancient world.

[Dan Snow]

Wrote up his own accounts of his adventures. Exactly.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Yeah, totally. So most of what we know about him, he wrote. So if you're to believe that, then the answer is yes.

[Dan Snow]

Now, Shakespeare gave him a nice little glow up as well.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Certainly did. Gave him a nice buff.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

To the Romans, he wasn't. So to the Romans, actually, the greatest Roman was Augustus. So Octavian, Julius Caesar's great nephew, who becomes the first Roman emperor. So to the Romans, Augustus is the greatest Roman. Julius Caesar is the second greatest Roman to the Romans. And that is why in the late Roman Empire, when you have a senior and a junior emperor, the senior one's called Augustus, the junior one is called Caesar. So for us, in our world, Caesar was the greatest Roman. For the Romans themselves, it was Augustus.

[Dan Snow]

Right, well, let's get into his backstory first of all. Then we'll hash out what he might have achieved and whether he deserves some of those plaudits, whether he's even. Whether he's the greatest or second greatest. Still not bad. Good podium. When's he born?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Caesar was born in 100 BC, so by the time he was assassinated, he was 65.

[Dan Snow]

Great. And Rome at 100 BC, is it a republic that we. Is it a sort of community of aristocratic sort of luminaries who sit around in the Senate debating the best course of policy?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

If you look at Roman politics, around the time he was born, the Senate was dominated by two political factions, and those political factions shaped his entire life and indeed his death. So you have the Optimates who are the pro senate reactionary party, and you have the Populares who are the radical pro plebeian party. And it was very black and white. You couldn't sit on. You had to be one or the other in the senate. And those two factions effectively ensured that until Augustus was declared the first emperor in 27 BC, 2/3 of that century was dominated by civil wars. Really, really brutal, awful civil wars between various factions. You had times of peace, but mostly civil wars between the optimates and the populares.

[Dan Snow]

A great republic brought down by savage partisan politics, you say. Fascinating stuff.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And money as well is important by now because you're getting towards the end of the 2nd century BC into the begin of the 1st century BC. Rome now is the master of not only the Italian peninsula, but the eastern and western Mediterranean. So through the Punic wars, they've dominated the western Mediterranean, through the wars against Hellenistic kingdoms, and in the east they've dominated the eastern Mediterranean. The latter is very important because dominating the eastern Mediterranean gives them access to the incredible wealth inherited by all the rulers of the Hellenistic kingdoms, the successors of Alexander the Great.

[Dan Snow]

So what is now Syria and all that sort of part?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

So there's a super wealthy senate divided savagely along partisan lines, who are in a battle for the sort of heart and soul of the Republic.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And the battle is led by what are in effect, and I call them bluntly warlords.

[Dan Snow]

So Caesar growing up, grand family. Which of these two sides do you slide into?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So Caesar is part of the populares sort of factions. So the first thing to look at with Caesar is to consider the gens or clan which he's born into. So at the aristocratic level for Romans, senators and equestrians, they're aligned from birth with a clan, not necessarily like a voting tribe, as it were, which the Romans also confusingly had. But these are familial ties and they stick together through thick and thin. And he's in the July. Okay, so another one will be the James Claudia. So the Claudians. That's why later when you get them coming together, you have the Julio Claudians. So the July are his clan, his gens, and that's reflected in his name. So he's got a classic trinoman of a Roman senatorial level noble he's caught called Gaius. His friends called him Gaius. That's his first name, right? Gaius Julius. So Julius is his clan name and then Caesar. And Caesar is the nickname.

[Dan Snow]

And what's it mean?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Well that's the interesting thing. So most people have their own pet theory about where Caesar comes from. What we do know is that Caesar first appears as the cognomen, the nickname at the end of his family. Trinoman. Always remember, by the way, the eldest son of a Roman elite family carry the name of the father exactly the same. Caesar's father was called Guy's Julius Caesar. So the first time Caesar appears is in the context of the Second Punic War. And one of my favorite theories is something which one or two classical historians mention that a forebear called Gaius Julius was fighting at the Battle of Zamma.

[Dan Snow]

In the second Punic they're fighting Hannibal, the Carthaginians, North Africa.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. And single handedly kills an elephant.

[Dan Snow]

Oh that's good.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And the Punic, so Phoenician name for elephant is Kaiser. So the Latinization of Kaiser is Caesar, which I love because then you go all the way through to the 20th century and you have Kaiser Bill, the leader of Imperial Germany in the First World War called the Kaiser, which is named after an elephant.

[Dan Snow]

So that's. So you kill an elephant, you get that as your honorific nickname and then it's kept.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

It cascades through the generations. So this is the name that Caesar inherits. Certainly doesn't come from Caesarean birth because there's no evidence whatsoever that Caesar had a Caesarean birth with his mother Aurelia, because his mother almost certainly outlived him. And if you had a Caesarean birth in the ancient world, you'd die.

[Dan Snow]

His father did not outlive him though.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

No, I mean Caesar's father dies as far as Caesar's concerned, young. So Caesar is obsessed in his own lifetime with two things, wealth and power. And they both become obsessions. From his experiences early in life, Caesar's branch of the July with his father, Gaius Julius Caesar was an elite sort of senatorial family, you know, full fat part of the Julia Jens clan. However, they weren't that well off. And then his father gets a big break and his father becomes the governor, the pro consul of Asia, one of these fabulously rich eastern provinces.

[Dan Snow]

Sort of modern day Turkey, sort of that.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

That absolutely, yeah, sort of western Turkey. It's a license to print money. Basically. If you become the pro consul of one of these provinces in the former Hellenistic world, it's a license to print money. But his father dies when Caesar's 15, when he's bending down allegedly tying his shoelace and has a heart attack. So Caesar from a very early part of his life and he's the only son in the becomes the head of the family at the age of 15.

[Dan Snow]

And this is a Roman, as you say, because if you're pro consul of Asia, you make a ton of money. So people like Caesar's father can make lots of money in Asia. And this new massive empire that suddenly sprung up, you can then come back to Rome and use that money in your political battles against your hated enemy in the Senate. So it's highly partisan, lots at stake and the wealth of the empire. Also, you're trying to get the best jobs for you and your mates, right?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely right. Except that Caesar's father dies on the job, so he's all set to make the money and doesn't. So the family are impecunious from that point on. So one of the things that you always see in any narrative about Julius Caesar is that he's borrowing money all the time and then he's always basically one step ahead of his creditors. Well, the reason is because the family should have been very wealthy, but his.

[Dan Snow]

Father died young, but his dad's lived long enough to give him that ambition. I want to be pro consul, I want to go and run chunks of the empire expand. He wants to live that aristocratic life and that costs a bit of cash.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Well, I think he's one of these characters in history which had a sense of destiny, destiny from a very young age, which has been heightened within his own family because he's the only son, and then heightened again because he becomes the head of the family at 15 and then he gets dropped straight in to the next round of sort of civil wars between the optimates and the populares.

[Dan Snow]

And this isn't really politics, this is civil war. There are warlords vying for control of Rome.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

There are. I mean, basically civil wars are awful and brutal. We know in the world in which we live today, they're awful and brutal. And they're brutal. They're zero sum games where if you lose, you lose everything. And so frequently throughout the first century bc, you have Roman warlords leading aristocrats with their own military forces who lose. And the whole family line goes, they lose everything, prescriptions, etc. So with Caesar at the age of 15, he gets dragged to the front line with the populares and very, very young, becomes the high priest of Jupiter at the age of 15. And then also Mar is very, very young. His first wife, who is the daughter of Cinna, the leading member of the Populares, because the. The granddaddy of the Populares, Marius, has just died.

[Dan Snow]

And why on Earth, is Caesar sort of plucked? Has he just got the right name, the right bloodline?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

He's in the right place, or maybe expendable, we don't know. But basically he's dragged and he's put front and center. Now, these names we're beginning to use here. We've used Marius, we've used Sulla, we've used Sinner. Those we can later add Caesar, we can add Pompeii, we can add Mark Anthony, we can add Octavian Augustus. These are warlords. And the reason why they become warlords in the first century, because of the military reforms of the legions by probably the greatest of all the popularities before Caesar, who is Marius, seven times consul, died in 86 BC, a year before Julius Caesar's own father died. What Marius did was recreate the legions. So they're all 5,500 legionaries, all equipped the same, all trained as engineers, and all can do everything the legion needs to be in the field. So it makes it highly mobile. 1, 2. He removes the financial qualification to become a legionary. So the legion suddenly open to the poor.

[Dan Snow]

Previously, they'd been sort of people of a little bit of substance, like almost you think about a, you know, militia and revolutionary era America, for example. These were sort of men of some standing who would be able to, who were figures in their own community.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And they had to buy their own kit.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So they had to spend money, basically, to become a Roman legion, which a lot of people couldn't. Now it's all given to them. And also because you have this round of civil wars, you start getting legions created one after another. And When Augustus won October1, eventually, as the last man standing after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, he inherited 60 legions. Okay. So what these warlords are doing now is that they're setting themselves against each other, creating these legions. As they build a new legion, they then promote the officers and junior officers from one existing one into the new one. So suddenly they have very, very, very reliable troops who will only follow them because they're being paid by the warlord.

[Dan Snow]

They're utterly dependent on the warlord.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Totally, totally. And also they've got promotion through them as well. And these legions are independent. They can operate without sort of a baggage train. Actually is a recipe for disaster for the Republic, because the Republic falls eventually.

[Dan Snow]

So you've got these political figures who are also military figures, and they've each got their private armies.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. And you can describe traits that these warlords have, to a greater or lesser extent, grit this Roman ability To come back from adversity. Strategic and tactical leadership, bravery, the ability to communicate well, the ability to make difficult decisions and be brutal if necessary. And ultimately, the only one who had all of them was Caesar.

[Dan Snow]

All of the above.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

All of the above.

[Dan Snow]

So he's 15, he's got married, and he's a priest. So he's straight out the blocks.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. A big priest, but he's basically on the front line. But it's a really bad time to do it because Marius has just died and the pendulum is swinging back in favor of the optimates. And suddenly Sulla. And Sulla is a big deal military warlord, okay, the equivalent of Marius. Quite a terrifying individual, actually. Famed for the prescriptions. And the prescriptions means just sort of.

[Dan Snow]

Putting people's names on a list and saying they are now cast out of Roman society.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Oh, they're killed, killed, killed. They lose property confiscated, they lose everything. It's a totally zero sum game. So Caesar flees and he flees to the Apennine Mountains. And he hides in the Apennine Mountains. But his mother, Aurelia, pleads his case with Sulla so he can come back. And she does very well. She actually pulls a few strings with some family members who are optimates. And ultimately Sulla says, yes. You have this classic quote where Sulla says to him, look, I'll let him come back, but mark my words, he's a bad un and we'll all regret it. And from a Sullan perspective, from an optimate perspective, it's absolutely true.

[Dan Snow]

So Caesar thinks it's a matter of destiny. Sulla seems to potentially agree.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And Sulla's a man of destiny himself as well. Sulla knows how to spot them.

[Dan Snow]

There's too many men of destiny around this period. Room's too small for too many men of destiny.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

There are two things as a member of the Roman aristocratic classes, senators are questioned that you need to be able to do to survive. Because often you are in these zero sum games. One's fight and lead men in battle, and the other one is practice law. Cause you're always gonna get sued by people who want to dominate you in the Senate. And you know if there's a weakness, they'll exploit it. And often that. So Caesar, still a very bright guy, is back with Sulla, but he still knows he's not safe. All it takes is sort of to change his mind. So he flees again, but this time he joins the military, goes to Asia, where his father was the pro consul previously, and then serves on the front line as A junior officer, and does amazingly well. And he wins the Corona Civitas, the Crown of Oak Leaves, which is the Victoria Cross of the Roman world. This is this incredible, incredible bravery that is only given when a Roman military officer or ranker saves another Roman citizen's life. So it's a big deal. So actually, he does amazingly well.

[Dan Snow]

And he's learning the trade as well.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

He is.

[Dan Snow]

He's kind of also keeping out of Rome's politics a little bit.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

He is.

[Dan Snow]

He's safe ish out there.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

He is. However.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

There's always a however with Julius Caesar, like many great figures in world history. So remember the two things you have to be good at as a Roman aristocrat. You need to be good at fighting and leading many battle, and you need to be good at the law. So he's proved one, so he's going to prove the other. Sulla dies and he goes back to Rome. Turns out he's amazingly good at practicing law as well. So good. So good that actually he makes a lot of enemies. So he has to flee again. So where does he go? Oh, he goes back to Asia again. Well, he goes to Rhodes. So he decides he wants to improve his rhetoric.

[Dan Snow]

So that's his speaking skills.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. Which enables him to lead men in battle and also practice and speak in the Senate. So he decides to go see one of the leading rhetoricians in the Roman world and goes to Rhodes. It's on the way. They have this famous event with the Cilician pirates.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. What happens? He gets snagged.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So he and his mates. So he's got a band of brothers, his mates, with him. They're on the. Probably a merchant ship, a Roman merchant ship. Might be a war galley, but we'll say a merchant ship, and it's on its way to Rhodes and they get captured by Cilician pirates. Now, the interesting thing there is that although we call them pirates, remember, the Romans have spent the last 50 years defeating all the Hellenistic kingdoms in the Eastern Mediterranean. A lot of these pirates are former sailors, former marines, so they're actually fairly good troops, actually. And he's captured. And then you get this amazing potpourri of anecdotes where he sends all his friends to the regional cities, Ephesus, Pergamum, to go and raise capital to pay the ransom. He himself is kept by the pirates. So he's with the Cilician pirates, and there they are. And he befriends them, you know, and he wins them over. But he does say hann. But remember, when I'M freed, I'm going to capture every single one of you and I'm going to crucify you. They all go, oh, he's a bit of a card, isn't he? Except that that's exactly what he does. So the money comes in, he's freed. He then goes to Pergamum, the regional capital, raises more money, hires mercenaries, goes back, captures the pirates, takes them back to Pergamon, leaves them with the governor. The governor's meant to execute them, but doesn't. So Caesar goes back, gets them and he executes them by crucifixion. Except being a nice guy, because he enjoyed their company, he slit their throats first. So, you know, all well and good.

[Dan Snow]

What'S amazing about this. There's so many endings to this story that could have involved Caesar dying as a young man at the hands of the pirates or his political enemies or in Asia. I mean, it's just remarkable he survives.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Remember, by the way, we're reading about this, a lot of this through his own words. The greatest pure man of the ancient world. However, there is this inherent sense of destiny driving in him. You know, when you meet somebody in the world of politics or the world of military, who's got this sense of self belief, they can lead men in battle and they do it easily and naturally. And that's exactly what you have with Caesar. People know he's lucky, they know he's good, but he's lucky. Remember all those traits that the warlords had. He's the only one that's got the lot and he knows it.

[Dan Snow]

Including the luck. Including the luck which every great commander needs. So he's freed from the pirates.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

What happens next?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So he ends up going back to Rome again. So it's this swinging between sort of like being in the Roman world and then going to one of the provinces, then going back. But he then gets a very good post and he goes to Spain. So goes to Hispanio Alteria, which is southwestern Spain, and serves through various levels of the Curse of Sonorum, which is the career path of a Roman aristocrat, until he's ultimately effectively the governor of the southwest of Spain. And here, sort of in the early 60s BC, you get this amazing anecdote where Caesar's in Cadiz, Gadez, the great port, originally founded by the Phoenicians. There's a temple there to Alexander the Great with a statue of Alexander there. Remember, every great leader, not only in the modern world, but certainly in the classical world, all wanted to style themselves on Alexander the Great. And he looks at the statue and weeps because at the time he's 33, and that's the age when Alexander most likely died. And he weeps because he's not achieved anything.

[Dan Snow]

Nothing.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I've achieved nothing.

[Dan Snow]

Come on.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I've achieved nothing. This guy, at the age of 33, conquered the entire known world. The entire known world. And I've done nothing, however relatable. You can almost see that sort of like meeting with a statue of Alexander the Great. Re Accelerating, we say, right, time to crack on.

[Dan Snow]

Is he adding more territory to the Roman worlds of conquered territory, or has it already been conquered? That part of Spain.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

That part of Spain's already been conquered. But basically the Roman world at the time, remember the Roman world later, the empire is a Mediterranean world empire. So you have the western eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, a fully functioning part of the Roman world, playing a very important part in Caesar's later life, actually. And Spain is now, not all of it, but a chunk of Spain is now beginning to join the Roman world as well. What we don't have at the moment is northwestern Europe. Okay, and that comes next in the Caesarean narrative.

[Dan Snow]

Julius will play a big part in conquering northwest Europe. So take me there. How did he come to from Spain? What's he do after that?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Goes back to Rome, becomes a consul in 60s B.C. and quite a dirty allegedly series of elections, but becomes a consul of 60s B.C. by that point, he's forming the first triumvirate. So you have Pompey, Magnus, Gnaeus Pompey, who is another great commander totally, and the leader of the optimates. So the inheritor of the leadership of the optimates from Sulla, you have Caesar, who has effectively inherited it from Marius and Cinna. And then the third one is the richest man in Rome, who's Crassus, can play between the two. And the three of them form this triumvirate within the Senate, where they agreed not to block any of their legislation. So effectively they stitch up the Roman political system and then they accrue themselves really good positions of power.

[Dan Snow]

So we say, Caesar's jumped a bit, hasn't he? So one minute he's a prisoner of the pirates. So Spain must have been important, really important for Caesar because he comes back and he's able to form this transfer. What's the key element there? It feels like he's passed through a bit of a threshold world.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Money, money, money, money. Caesar driven by power and by money. And when you're in Spain, you have some of the Most fabulous Metalla in the Roman world. So mines gold, silver, lead, iron, tin. It's basically sort of an opportunity to make vast amounts of money.

[Dan Snow]

So he comes back, he's got loads of cash now, so he can buy votes, you can buy loyalty and also.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

With loads of cash you can get loans. Because his money's good for this point in his life. Not always, but this point in his life. So basically he's accruing a treasure chest, ready to do a big thing. And the big thing, the opportunity comes in 59 BC, when in the context of the first triumvirate, he's granted the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul. So that is the north of Italy, north of the Po Valley and the.

[Dan Snow]

Rubicon, just under the Alps, in that sort of curve.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Under the Alps, Absolutely right, yeah. So where Milan and Turin are today and you know, are in Venice. So basically a potential powerhouse and also is given Provincia. Provincia is the Roman province which is on the southern coast of Gaul, which by that point is a Roman province. So with Provincia and with Cisalpine Gaul together, put the two together and actually that is actually a real opportunity for him. He's already made some money in Spain, but he can look north from Provincia, from the Mediterranean coast of modern France and he can see all these unconquered territories to the north. Gaul basically with hundreds of different tribes, many of whom are siding with the Romans, trading with the Romans. But he knows there's wealth to be made. Now remember, he also needs military glory. And to date he's got his Victoria Cross from his first campaign in Asia. He's done well in Spain, but doesn't.

[Dan Snow]

Have the big victory to his name as a commander.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And then he just goes way over the top and gets the biggest of victories of all. He conquers Gaul. Gaul.

[Dan Snow]

Unbelievable.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

The interesting thing, Dan, is he conquers Gaul in six years when the Romans invade Britain. And we'll talk about Caesar and Britain in a minute. But when the Romans invade Britain to conquer a province from the southeast coast to the line of the Solway Firth Tyne, later become Hadrian's wall. That took 40 years. Right. Caesar conquers continental France, the Low Countries and some of the western parts of modern Germany in six. Right. And also this is a very rich, very wealthy territory that he's conquering as.

[Dan Snow]

Well, you know, with quite sophisticated opponents.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Totally long standing tribal elites, making their own money, etc. And yet he does it in six years.

[Dan Snow]

How do you do that?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I think it's because he really knew probably more than anybody of the generation before his or after the one after, how to lead these Marian legions on the battlefield. So Caesar is a serial creator of legions. So he starts the campaign with force and ends up with 14. And every campaign is incrementally over the winter, going back to South Bengal, building new legions. Building new legions.

[Dan Snow]

And a recruit's flocking to him. Cause they're hearing there's bounty, there's money to be made, there's loot, there's slaves. Are people happy to turn up and take the shilling.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Wealth and glory for Caesar and his men. They're ultra loyal. They're ultra loyal. So he's got his own pet Legion, the 10th Legion, Legiotena questris, as an example. But all his legions are pet legions. When the 14th Legion is destroyed, he recreates it. And also he's very, very, very, very good at logistics. The first campaign in 58B series against the Helvetiu in the north of the Alps, which is a huge campaign, actually. And the forces against him are far larger than the ones he's seen.

[Dan Snow]

Mountain passes and which he deals with.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

When he's campaigning against the German Suebi. He crosses the Rhine and builds the famous bridge across the Rhine. His 57 BC campaign, he says, right, I'm going for it this time. I'm going into the lands of the Belgian. So it goes right onto the Rhine, where the most troublesome of the Gallic tribes and confederations are. Fights the Battle of the Samba or the Sabis, where, you know, he almost loses, but wins, famously using Roman special forces, speculatories and exploratories as part of his campaign. And then as the wars come to an end, as he's beginning to conquer the whole of continental Gaul, modern France, et cetera, there's a series of revolts. And it culminates sort of in the Great Gallic Revolt. But crucially, in the middle of it, he invades Britain.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. So he takes Roman legions across that western ocean for the first time.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Dan. It's crazy.

[Dan Snow]

It's crazy, crazy.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

What's he doing, you know, to the Romans? This is the Mediterranean Roman world, where you have Mayor Nostrum. The Mediterranean, they're having to cross Oceania, the Channel, the Atlantic approaches the North Sea. That's terrifying for the Romans. And also until Caesar's invasions, although the Romans knew of Britain, they didn't know much. So it's a fairly terrifying land. So to invade Britain, it's crossing a terrifying ocean into a terrifying land. The great Augustus planned to invade Britain three times, but very sensibly came up with an excuse each time. The mad and bad Caligula also planned to invade Britain and didn't because his troops refused to go across the Claudian invasion in 43, which did succeed. The legionaries initially refused to cross. So it's scary. So for Caesar to get get two invasions over, I call them incursions because he never overwintered. Don't think he wanted to overwinter. That was an amazing feat.

[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

The incursions, raids on powerful raids and there's fighting. It's not easy when they get there, there's fighting in the beach, in the shallows. Caesar has to lead the way. It's extraordinary leadership.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So firstly the 55 and 54 BC, they're in the context of the Gallic campaigns. So for Caesar it's an addition, a bolt on to his Gallic campaigns. He's using legions which are part of his Gallic campaigns. Why is he going PR a win glory. This is wealth and glory potential wealth from the metalla in Britain, etc. Capturing slaves as well. He's doing something which no Roman's ever done before in terms of invading, so that gives him this massive PR win. Also, if you're a Gallic elite aristocratic member and you've lost to Caesar, where are you going to run to? Can either run to the Germans north of the or east of the Rhine or go across to your mates in Britain. So they're all going across to the mates in Britain. So you can almost imagine the situation where these Gallic aristocrats being booted out of their own territories, are fermenting trouble. So it's lots of opportunities for Caesar. Interestingly though, Danny's first campaign in 55 I think is the worst one he ever planned.

[Dan Snow]

Why so?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Caesar, throughout his entire military career, has a reputation, rightly so, of being amazing at logistics. The planning, the reconnaissance, using special forces, building fleets. He nails it every time, apart from 55 BC when he doesn't. So he underestimates his enemy, he only takes two legions. He then does a very poor reconnaissance and the fleet turns up off the.

[Dan Snow]

Rocks, up off the White Cliff, Dover.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Doesn'T it, basically, which are covered in sort of like Britain's atop them, saying, come on. So you end up with this like wacky racers scene where Caesar sends the fleet up the coast, probably to the. I think the invasion beaches were on the east coast of Kent, sort of around Walmer and deal up into Pegwell Bay on the Wan Channel near Thanet. But the Britons follow them. So Caesar has to mount that most difficult of military operations, an amphibious assault against a defended shore. And it's quite a close run thing. I mean, you get this anecdote where the Aquila, so the eagle standard bearer from the 10th Legion, his own legion, leaps into the water because no one will jump in the water. And they all have to follow him. But they win. But his cavalry don't arrive, so he's got 10 to 11,000 legionaries. The carry don't arrive, so he's got nothing which can do reconnaissance for him. He's got nothing who can chase a broken enemy. So therefore they just spend a while in the marching camps doing a bit of prodding and poking around locally, lose some ships to bad weather and then they go back again. Caesar, of course, writes, it's an amazing success. The greatest pure man of the ancient world, but he doesn't let it go. So it goes back in 54 BC, this time with five legions, 25, 000 men and cavalry. The invasion this time isn't against the defended shore and ends up campaigning all the way through to probably modern Hertfordshire and does win a victory and gets peace agreements from the Britons, goes back again, never winters cracks on finishing off Gaul. But Britain's now in the Roman that.

[Dan Snow]

My favorite fact about British history.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Go on.

[Dan Snow]

Is that in the long, long history, the litter, the list of invasions of these islands, there has only been one opposed invasion. And that was the first one that we know about.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I know. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing.

[Dan Snow]

65. It's very weird.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

By chariots.

[Dan Snow]

By chariots and subsequently people would just land, you know, like Edward II's wife just landed and marched in land. Duke William of Normandy just marched. So it's weird. Okay, so let's finish off Gore, because we should talk about Alesia, this astonishing victory that he besieges the Gauls, doesn't He builds a huge siege, works around them, and then he gets besieged. Talk to me about this donut siege. I've always been fascinated by it.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So the context is towards the very end of his conquest, which was 58, 52, there's a massive Gallic revolt led by Vercingetorix, who's one of the major tribal leaders, one of the great figures actually sort of in classical history. And Caesar by now with a lot of legions, besiegers, Vercingetorix in Alicia, which is the major tribal capital. I mean, the Romans do the same everywhere. So it's a classic Roman siege technique. You build the circumvallation around it.

[Dan Snow]

It's a big wall all the way around.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

All the way around.

[Dan Snow]

I think it gets in and out.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. And then the siege begins. And this is where you see Caesar being brutal, by the way, because Vercingetorix thinks, you know what, I don't need to feed the women and children. So he pushes them out into no Man's Land between the walls of Alicia, which was a sort of an oppida. So a very heavily defended series of Are very deep ditches and banks with palisades on top, multiple of them with interconnecting fields of fire. So it's a very sophisticated system of defenses, as was Caesar. Circumvallation as well, which is ditch. There's probably two or three ditches, banks, Roman field obstacles and defences. On top of the bank, you're gonna have the palisades as well as the Gauls and then towers as well, and gateways. So Vercingetorix kicks the women and children out into no Man's Land, expecting Caesar to let them through, and he doesn't. He lets them starve. Brutal. Brutal. Although, remember, for a Roman, if you're part of the Roman world, you're in, and if you're not, you're out. And if you're out, it's in the most brutal way. But nevertheless, even in that context, that is a brutal thing for Caesar to do. One of the reasons being he knew his rear wasn't protected and soon gets word that the Gauls are coming to try and relieve Elisha. So he builds another ditch and bank, triple ditch and bank, this time facing out, facing outwards. It turns out to be a close run thing, actually two or three times. The Gaul's trying to relieve Alicia, sort of break in. But Caesar here again showing one of the traits of the warlords leading from the front, fighting in the front line. Hold the line because.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. So the Gauls try to break in and the other Gauls trying to break out.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

And Caesar sticks in the middle wearing a red cloak or something, so everyone can see him.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And also with. He's got his scutum shield, he's got his gladius sword, so he's fighting as a legionary. He's actually literally fighting the front ranks. So, you know, this thing with the traits of these warlords, this is again him demonstrating bravery. So he's showed brutality, showed tactical and strategic skill, and he's shown personal bravery and eventually wins the day.

[Dan Snow]

And he's generous to his men, always.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Generous to his men, which all Roman military leaders from that point, learn the that if you are in power because of the military or military success, always be nice to the military.

[Dan Snow]

Spread the love. Spoils of war.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Spread the love of the many.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. So at this point, here's a microcosm of what is wrong with the republic is you can't have a republic of sort of senators all chatting and voting on legislation. When these senators are by themselves sort of regional despots, superpowers. They have their own armies. They're now wealthier than any Roman has ever been in history, any European has ever been in history.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

We've had two, two big political developments taking place before the siege of Alicia in Rome. Firstly, Caesar's only child through a wife, his daughter Julia, who married Pompey, dies in childbirth.

[Dan Snow]

So his daughter has married his political rival slash partner for the time being.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

Pompey the Great.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

So that relationship starts fading from that.

[Dan Snow]

Point and their baby dies. Yeah, so that baby could have unified the dynasties. Yeah.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Quirk of history. One of those sliding door moments. But also Crassus.

[Dan Snow]

Crassus decides because he's jealous, because you got Caesar conquering Gaul. Pompey's an absolute legend, great cv. So Crassus decides he turns out to.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Be a really rubbish soldier. So he decides he's going to try and conquer Parthia. Parthia is what later becomes Persia, so it's modern Iraq and Syria and into modern Iran. And the Parthians have emerged in the last century as being the great Roman opponents on the eastern frontier. So draw a line through modern Syria, Parthia to the east, Rome to the west. So he decides he's going to defeat Parthia and he leads this heavy infantry based sort of late republican Roman army into the deserts of Syria and hey presto, the Parthians, who are either heavily armored, cataphract cavalrymen, 1/10 of their armies, or light mounted horse bowmen, 9/10 of their armies. Annihilate him.

[Dan Snow]

Just swarming around these big infantry formations and just slowly annihilate them.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Battle of Cara. And it's a really sad event actually, because the way it's described, he'd got his oldest son with him and his oldest son was killed the day before the main engagement took place. So actually he was grieving for his son, who he was very close to and he wasn't match fit to lead his troops in battle by the sounds of it, probably very understandably. And the Romans get annihilated. So Crass is gone as well. So politically, Pompeii is dropping out the picture and the links with Caesar are being cut and cut and cut. Caesar's a long way away as well. Remember, the nearest he's been at any time here is in Cisalpine Gaul in the north of Italy. And Crassus is dead. So you get to the end of the 50s, and Caesar is very heavily leveraged, borrowing money to raise these legions. Doesn't want to go back to Rome because he knows that when he goes back to Rome, the creditors are going to be after him if he doesn't have the military at his back. But he's not allowed legally to go back to Rome, ever, with military.

[Dan Snow]

He can't take his own private army, march directly.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

It's illegal in the Roman world to bear arms in a city within the religious boundaries, so he can't do it. The optimates are increasingly in the dominance in the Senate as Pompey drifts back to his battle ways from a Caesarean perspective. But the Senate knows if they can drag him back to Rome, then they can really sue him because of all the money he owes, et cetera. They can finish him off legally, maybe even finish him off militarily. But Caesar refuses to leave his position. So he gets told, you've got to come back. And he says, I'm not coming back. You've got to come back. I'm not coming back. And if you come back, you can't bring any troops. Troops. Well, I'm not coming back. But if I do come back, I will bring some troops. So eventually, in 49 BC, he's had enough. So this is where you get this fantastic vignette in history, the crossing of the Rubicon. The Rubicon is the river near Ravenna which separates Cisalpine Gaul from Italy on the eastern coast of Italy. And he crosses it with a 13th legion. He takes a legion with him. Pompeii's got more troops in Rome than Caesar. Caesar. But he bottles it. Yeah, Getting on, but bottles it. Flees and he legs it to Greece.

[Dan Snow]

Why do we have the expression crossing the Rubicon? Is this the beginning of the end of the Republic?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

It's the dice is rolled, isn't it? I mean, basically, he's told he's not allowed to enter Italy, so south of the Po, or the Rubicon, with troops under arms. And he does. He absolutely does. He says, you know what? I've had enough of this. I'm the big man. The big man with the money's dead. I've got no political familial ties anymore with Pompeii. I've been bullied around here. I know they want to finish me off because I've actually got more martial success than any of them. So I want to ignore you. And he just goes for it.

[Dan Snow]

What is he thinking at this point? Is he thinking, I want to be like Marius, I want to be like Sulla, I want to be like Sinner, I want to be the dictator for the rest of my life?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I don't think he's thinking in terms of being the dictator for the rest of his life. I think there's a degree of real politic in it. Remember is looking at the resurgence of another round of civil wars, which are zero sum games. So he's not going to win that by hiding. So he's basically showing personal bravery here. Warlord trait by fronting up to the threat. And the threat is the optimalities in Rome. So says, look, I've had enough of this. Let's do it. Come on, bring it on.

[Dan Snow]

There's going to be a war. Let's fight it.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Remember, his favorite favorite Latin phrase is ut venient omnes, which means bring it on, let them all come. And also, if you psychologically think about what he's achieved, going to Britain is like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. That's how unbelievably fantastical it is. And he's done it twice. And second time he's won. He's conquered the wealthiest part of northwestern Europe in Gaul. He's captured the biggest leader there is in Gaul versus in Guetarix. He's done a deal with the biggest leader, probably at least in the southeast of Britain. He's done it, you know, wealth and power.

[Dan Snow]

So he takes Rome. But Pompey and his allies are going to fight for control of the Roman world.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

But Caesar again shows how great a warlord military leader he is, because he doesn't let it lie. So Pompey flees to Greece and Caesar follows him straight away. He actually crosses to Greece from Italy in the middle of winter, so it's a high risk naval crossing. But he does it because he's got to keep on the tail of Pompey, because he knows Pompey's got a lot of loyal legionaries in Greece and the east. Pompey actually calls a lot of them to his colors. The titanic battles in 48 BC at Pharsalus in central Greece. And it's a battle Caesar should have lost. Pompey got more troops, got more allied troops, got more cavalry. But Caesar ultimately came up with a very good strategy to force the engagement and then series of tactics to win. And he wins. And Pompeii flees again. But Pompeii makes a big mistake, which has big implications for the way we see the end of the republican world. And also Shakespeare, because he flees to Alexandria, which is the capital of Ptolemaic, Egypt. As Pompey steps off the boat in Ptolemaic, Egypt, he has his head chopped off by Ptolemaic king, who is keen to show that he's a friend of Caesar. But that's a mistake as well, because Caesar is hot on the heels traveling from Greece to Alexandria. And when he arrives, he's incandescent that a Roman has been beheaded by a barbarian king.

[Dan Snow]

That's the end of that particular pharaoh of Egypt.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. So. And he's replaced by, well, his sister, Cleopatra. Yeah, so you end up with the later Ptolemy's being a very dysfunctional, very, very, very dysfunctional dynasty.

[Dan Snow]

We're not even going to try and explain the family tree of the late.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I just want to say that Ptolemy xii, Cleopatra's father and the father of the Ptolemy who beheaded Pompeii, was the grifter of grifters of the classical world who spent his life going around the eastern Mediterranean trying to borrow money from the Romans. And he was only Caesar, who finally, with Pompeii, acknowledged that Ptolemy XII was actually the proper Hellenistic king. Pharaoh. Pharaoh of Egypt. But this is what puts Caesar into the orbit of Cleopatra.

[Dan Snow]

More on Julius Caesar coming up.

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[Dan Snow]

All right, so Caesar lands. He's very unhappy with the King of Egypt, but he doesn't mind the king's.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Sister Cleopatra and ends up having an intense affair with her which results in their son Caesarion being born. So in terms of the Roman world, that's a big deal. But Caesar doesn't stay in Egypt very long. So you have this Alexandrian war where he's besieging the imperial palace for a while, etc, but ultimately he's most of his troops come over, ultimately the Romans are victorious and then he hot foots it back after spending a bit of personal time with Cleopat. Not to the Western Mediterranean, but he goes north. So he goes to thank the Judean kingdoms which have been supporting him, but then he has to go.

[Dan Snow]

And that's in what is now Israel, Palestine.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

So then they're, what do we call them, clients. They're not totally independent of the Roman world, but they're also not just incorporated into our own province.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I'd say Dan, that's absolutely spot on client states. And then he goes north for his next campaign. So he's one at Farsalus. He's won the Alexandrian war, he's done a parade of victory effectively through on the eastern Mediterranean coast in the last.

[Dan Snow]

Uncontested leader of the Roman world.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

No, this is an interesting thing, but he doesn't turn to the Romans first. So then he goes to Pontus, which is the kingdom around the Black Sea where Pharnaces II is rebelling against Roman rule. So this is effectively the fourth Mithridatic War. And that's when Caesar goes up there very briefly, wins very quickly. And that's where the phrase venividi vici comes from. So I came, I saw, I conquered. And then he goes to pursue the final optimate opponents who by this time in North Africa. So it goes to Tunisia, fights the battle of Thapsus, which he wins, tough battle, but wins. And that's 46 BC. They then flee the survivors and they go to Spain, of course. So he fights the battle of Munda, which is a really, really nasty brutal civil war battle where one of the leaders of the optimates was Pompey's eldest son. He gets killed there, that's it. Basically pockets of resistance here and there, but that's it.

[Dan Snow]

So you're fighting from Greece, Egypt, Black Sea, North Africa, Spain. It's extraordinary.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Starting off in Gaul through Rome, but absolutely normal for the Romans. I mean it's me nostrum the Roman Sea. Then this is where he goes back to Rome. In the middle of the 40s BC Cleopatra comes over with Caesarion and although the entrance isn't as glamorous as you have in Anthony and Cleopatra, it is still exceptionally grand. Egypt becomes a thing. And this is when Caesar, Caesar reforms the Roman calendar, using the astronomers from the Ptolemaic court, for example. So you have the Julian calendar.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, interesting. So these Greek, Egyptian astronomers come over with a Cleopatra and Caesar goes, well.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

You'Re bringing some interesting ideas and bamboozles the Romans.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

However, Caesar now is starting to make political mistakes. So we're in 46, 45 into 44 BC, and he's making political mistakes, but.

[Dan Snow]

He'S ruling the Roman world at this point.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

He is really ruling it.

[Dan Snow]

And is he. Is he different to those other warlords you mentioned at the start? Is somehow this rule deeper and even more powerful? Or does he look a bit. If at the time you're like, oh, yeah, he's just like that guy Sulla. Is there something different about him?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

There's no one that can stand up to him at that point. And that's dangerous because suddenly, as he's increasingly gathering dictatorial powers, dictator means that you're granted by the Senate the power of full authority over the Roman world. More or less, yeah.

[Dan Snow]

Dictator's not just us being rude, it's actually a title that was given.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Yeah. But for a year, right, so. So he gets bump, bump, bump. So still acting as the dictator and eventually more or less gets told he can be dictator for life. So in effect, he's not an emperor, but he's ruling as a king or an emperor, which the Romans don't like. This unifies the optimates and populares in the Senate against him. So he's got everybody against him, so he's got supporters, Mark, Anton, etc, but broadly, a lot of people now are against him. And then it culminates on the ides of marching 15th of March, March 44 BC, when he's assassinated in the most brutal fashion as he's entering the Senate. And the interesting thing there, of course, is the building that he's entering isn't the Senate, because the Senate, the Curia and the Forum Roman was being rebuilt. So part of the theater of Pompeii, which is visible today, the steps of it are visible today in the Lago d' Argentina, that's where he's assassinated. And he gets about 60 stab wounds, only one of which, by the way, way, probably based on the autopsy at the time, was fatal, but it really was fatal and he's dead.

[Dan Snow]

So these other senators just having a little prod just to get in on.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

The action, doesn't end well for them either though.

[Dan Snow]

Well, I bet. So he doesn't rule Rome for that long.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

No. And again, remember we're seeing his career through the prism of history and if you were to ask most people what the high points in terms of narrative are, they'd start off with his assassination. So in an odd way we're looking at Caesar's chronological narrative backwards through the fact that he was assassinated when he was the big man.

[Dan Snow]

He's just too powerful. People are jealous of him. What kind of mistakes is he making?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

I think, you know, you get that maxim, don't you, that political power corrupts and total political power corrupts totally. And you can see a degree of that in the story of Caesar's demise. He's got very few people around him who are gonna tell him the truth. He's got very few people around him who can stand up to him personally on a personal level. He's got nobody who can stand up to him in terms of rep. As a military leader. And he's got ultra loyal troops as well. Absolutely ultra loyal troops, which nobody to that point has. He's defeated the optimalities. He's won in Greece, he's won in Alexandria, he's won on the Black Sea, he's won in North Africa, he's won in Spain. Snow can stand up to him.

[Dan Snow]

Are the other senators just angry that he seems to be building this dictatorship for? Are they just jealous of him? Is it just old fashioned partisan politics? Or some of them motivated by the desire to, to return Rome to the proper republican rule?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

You know, the Romans like doing things properly, right? They like things in order. There's a way of doing it. They're not that fond of the Easterners from the Hellenistic kingdoms, etc. Cleopatra is not that popular in Rome, for example. The Romans like doing things properly and by this point Caesar's really not doing things properly. He's having dictatorial powers year after year and also it looks as though he might accrue them for life, right? Which means he's a king or an emperor. He's not the first among equals. He's not the leading sort of Roman of the time, ready to pass the shining beacon of romantic onto whoever's going to follow him. And that doesn't sit well with the Roman senators.

[Dan Snow]

So a big group of them decide to kill him.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And the interesting thing, it is a big group and it's also not just from the optimate side as well. You get populares joining them as well. I mean the famous ones, you know, Cassius And Brutus, etcetera, We know through. Principally through Shakespeare, in actual fact, to be blunt, but there's a lot of them. So you can almost imagine the sort of the cork of the bottle of the pressure of the Roman political system being exploded out the top by this sort of like, really, really devastatingly brutal event.

[Dan Snow]

Actually, there's then a couple more rounds of civil war, which we'll just gloss over. But eventually the key thing is that Caesar's heir, his great nephew Octavian, becomes Augustus, becomes the first emperor. So Augustus is sort of riding on the coattails of Caesar. Is that why we talk about Caesar as this kind of og orig, almost an emperor in, but not in name?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. Okay, so one thing that Augustus inherits from Caesar is the ability to be a brilliant communicator and to be blunt, a PR man. So Augustus makes sure once he becomes the emperor in 27 BC, he's the last man standing at the end of the civil wars in 31 BC when he defeats Anthony Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. So there's no more Roman warlords. He's the only one left. So he's the Last man standing. 27 BC, the Senate says, is Augustus. He's the emperor. The Republic's dead, the empire begins. And from that point, Augustus is brilliant at creating the image he wants people to see. And part of that is to bask in the glory of Julius Caesar, which drags Caesar's reputation into the imperial age, and it lasts all the way through the imperial age as well. So that's why you have Augustus and Caesar for senior and junior emperors. They're symbiotically linked.

[Dan Snow]

That's why we get the Kaiser, the leader of the German Reich. That's why we get the Tsar.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely right.

[Dan Snow]

Name has just echoed down the centuries.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

And it still cascades down the centuries. I mean, if you wanted to have a banker of a Hollywood movie, the one you go for is something about Caesar. If you ask anybody in the street, name me a Roman and they'll say Caesar. Many say Cleopatra, actually, because I've actually done it. But most people say Caesar.

[Dan Snow]

So are people on the street. Right. I mean, why that memory? He was a. You cannot lay a glove on him. In terms of military commander. He was an extraordinary military commander around.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Was Caesar the goat in the Roman Republic? Yes, in the Roman Empire. I personally would put him on a par, probably with Augustus. Augustus is the person which all subsequent Roman emperors wanted to emulate and do better than. Very few, if any, succeeded. So I'd say probably you have two goats, symbiotically linked sea Caesar and Augustus.

[Dan Snow]

So military commander for short. Did he have a big impact? Did he change life for civilians? Would it felt different under Caesar's rule?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Absolutely. From that point on in the Roman world, for example, on an absolutely daily basis, because he changed the Roman calendar, the Julian calendar. That's only one tiny example. Caesar carried out many reforms in public life, many reforms of their own economy. Roman society would have felt the impact of many of the reforms as well. But certainly, although intriguingly, in our world today, when he is considered the greatest Roman Roman, mostly it's in the context of military success.

[Dan Snow]

So he's a little bit like Polian Bonaparte. He was as active off the battlefield as he was on it.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

It's a very interesting analogy because Napoleon is a divisive individual in terms of a military leader and a political leader, probably in the same way, certainly, that Caesar was at the time of his death. So it gives us some insight actually into why people were worried about him seizing too much power.

[Dan Snow]

Was the Roman Republic doomed? Even if there hadn't been a Julius Caesar, there have been someone else. It ended up just metastasizing into an empire.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

That's a really great question, actually. I would imagine if you were to look at the Julio Claudian emperors in particular were absolutely obsessed with staying in power. And one of the reasons was they were terrified that there'll be a return back to the republic. So the Republic, one, going wasn't a given and two, not coming back wasn't a given. We're just fortunate to have history so we can see what would have happened. But all it would take is a sliding door moment and things could have changed totally.

[Dan Snow]

So the language of the Roman Empire is all around us, the architectural inspiration of the Roman Empire all around us. Every day as we walk through the cities of so much of the world, people, I suspect, like you, we now know, think about the Roman Empire an indecent amount when they should be thinking about other things. Is that all because of Julius Caesar?

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

Well, to a huge extent, yes. So let's look at very briefly parts of the Roman world which we've touched on. Spain, Gaul, the Low Countries. These are parts of the world today which speak a Romance language that's based on Vulgar Latin. So they became part of the Roman world either at the time of or because of Julius Caesar, and they still speak a Romance language. The law codes of many continental legal systems include, including France and Spain, is based on the Roman 12 table system of law. So even there, the Law of these nations is based on the world of Rome, in parts of the world where Caesar played a key role in either incorporating the Roman world or in the terms of Gaul conquering. So even in the most physical way, the answer is absolutely right. Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so let's expand out. Well, let's be naughty right here at the end. Is he the goat of the whole of ancient history? Egypt, Greece, Persia, the works.

[Dr. Simon Elliot]

The two people whose names are most often mentioned as the goat of the ancient world. If we'd say to somebody who's the greatest person in the ancient world would be Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. And Alexander the Great conquered his own known world by his early 30s. And he's the guy in defeating Achaemenid Persia, which gathered the wealth which later led led to the Hellenistic kingdoms being formed in the Eastern Mediterranean, which then allowed that wealth to fuel the late republican civil wars, because that's where the money came from originally. So Alexander the Great was incredibly successful. To me, it's Julius season Alexander very, very clearly, because Alexander the Great, for me, inherited the finest military machine of his own known world, which nothing could stand up against, which was the phalanx and lance arm cavalry army developed by Philip ii. His father. Caesar fought other people who were symmetrically just as good as he was. And Caesar fought throughout his entire life. His entire life. So he was always on campaign in battle. Once he was a major political leader. Whereas Alexander the Great's conquest was over a much shorter period of time. And the sense of jeopardy, if Caesar had lost, Alexander the Great, if he'd not die, could have gone back to Macedon etc and said, I've done a good job. Still, Caesar couldn't. He'd have lost everything. So the sense of jeopardy was even more heightened. So for me, it's Julius Caesar.

[Dan Snow]

Tough to argue with that. Thank you very much, Dr. Simon Elliot, brilliant as always. Fluent has always been a great pleasure. Love having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's history hit. You know, you could have watched this episode and others on YouTube. That's right. You can peek behind the curtain of how we record this podcast on our YouTube channel. Very exciting new development here. Just click the link in the show notes and head over to subscribe. New YouTube releases every Friday. Friends, don't miss out.

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