Gaius Julius Caesar 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. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
The First Triumvirate was an informal political alliance among three prominent politicians in the late Roman Republic: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gaius Julius Caesar. The republican constitution had many veto points. In order to bypass constitutional obstacles and force through the political goals of the three men, they forged in secret an alliance where they promised to use their respective influence to support each other. The "triumvirate" was not a formal magistracy, nor did it achieve a lasting domination over state affairs.
The point of no return is the point beyond which one must continue on one's current course of action because turning back is no longer possible, being too dangerous, physically difficult, or prohibitively expensive to be undertaken. The point of no return can be a calculated point during a continuous action. A particular irreversible action can be a point of no return.
The Rubicon is a shallow river in northeastern Italy, just south of Cesena and north of Rimini. It was known as Fiumicino until 1933, when it was identified with the ancient river Rubicon, famously crossed by Julius Caesar in 49 BC.
Titus Labienus was a high-ranking military officer in the late Roman Republic. He served as tribune of the Plebs in 63 BC. Although mostly remembered as one of Julius Caesar's best lieutenants in Gaul and mentioned frequently in the accounts of his military campaigns, Labienus chose to oppose him during the Civil War and was killed at Munda. He was the father of Quintus Labienus.
Aulus Hirtius was consul of the Roman Republic in 43 BC and a writer on military subjects. He was killed during his consulship in battle against Mark Antony at the Battle of Mutina.
Cisalpine Gaul was the name given, especially during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, to a region of land inhabited by Celts (Gauls), corresponding to what is now most of northern Italy.
Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther was a Roman politician and general. Hailing from the patrician family of the Cornelii, he helped suppress the Catilinarian conspiracy during his term as curule aedile in 63 BC and later served as consul in 57 BC. Denied the opportunity to invade Egypt the following year, he nevertheless won some victories in his province of Cilicia and celebrated a triumph over it in 51 BC.
Lucius Marcius Philippus was a politician and senator in the late Roman republic. He was governor of Syria from 61 to 60 and later served in the consulship of 56 BC. He was also step-father of the emperor Augustus.
Caesar's civil war was a civil war during the late Roman Republic between two factions led by Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), respectively. The main cause of the war was political tensions relating to Caesar's place in the republic on his expected return to Rome on the expiration of his governorship in Gaul.
Publius Vatinius was a Roman politician during the last decades of the Republic. He served as a Caesarian-allied plebeian tribune in the year 59 – he was the tribune that proposed the law giving Caesar his Gallic command – and later fought on that side of the civil war. Caesar made him consul in 47 BC; he later fought in Illyricum for the Caesarians and celebrated a triumph for his victories there in 42 BC.
Alea iacta est is a variation of a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on 10 January 49 BC, as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance of the Senate and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase, either in the original Latin or in translation, is used in many languages to indicate that events have passed a point of no return. It is now most commonly cited with the word order changed rather than in the original phrasing. The same event inspired another idiom with the same meaning, "crossing the Rubicon".
The career of Julius Caesar before his consulship in 59 BC was characterized by military adventurism and political persecution. Julius Caesar was born on 12 July 100 BC into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. His father died when he was just 16, leaving Caesar as the head of the household. His family status put him at odds with the Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who almost had him executed.
The military campaigns of Julius Caesar were a series of wars that reshaped the political landscape of the Roman Republic, expanded its territories, and ultimately paved the way for the transition from republic to empire. The wars constituted both the Gallic Wars and Caesar's civil war.
Lucius Roscius Fabatus was a military officer and politician of the late Roman Republic.
Roman Republican governors of Gaul were assigned to the province of Cisalpine Gaul or to Transalpine Gaul, the Mediterranean region of present-day France also called the Narbonensis, though the latter term is sometimes reserved for a more strictly defined area administered from Narbonne. Latin Gallia can also refer in this period to greater Gaul independent of Roman control, covering the remainder of France, Belgium, and parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland, often distinguished as Gallia Comata and including regions also known as Celtica, Aquitania, Belgica, and Armorica (Brittany). To the Romans, Gallia was a vast and vague geographical entity distinguished by predominately Celtic inhabitants, with "Celticity" a matter of culture as much as speaking gallice.
The Roman expansion in Italy covers a series of conflicts in which Rome grew from being a small Italian city-state to be the ruler of the Italian region. Roman tradition attributes to the Roman kings the first war against the Sabines and the first conquests around the Alban Hills and down to the coast of Latium. The birth of the Roman Republic after the overthrow of the Etruscan monarch of Rome in 509 BC began a series of major wars between the Romans and the Etruscans. In 390 BC, Gauls from the north of Italy sacked Rome. In the second half of the 4th century BC Rome clashed repeatedly with the Samnites, a powerful tribal coalition of the Apennine region.
The Luca Conference was a 56 BC meeting of the three Roman politicians of the First Triumvirate — Caesar, Pompey and Crassus — that took place at the town of Luca, near Pisa. Luca was the southern most town in the then Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul, where Caesar was serving as Governor. The meeting renewed the fraying political alliance, and further cemented the three men's increasing consolidation of power in the Roman Republic.
The lex Vatinia also known as the lex Vatinia de provincia Caesaris or the lex Vatinia de imperio Caesaris, was legislation which gave Gaius Julius Caesar governorship of the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for five years. It was named after and proposed, in the Tribal Assembly, by plebeian tribune Publius Vatinius. Along with the provinces, it also gave him the three legions already present there and the privilege of naming his own legates. Caesar also received Titus Labienus as legatus cum imperio in the law; Labienus' appointment may have been, according to Syme, a sign of friendship between Pompey and Caesar.
The Bellum Octavianum was a Roman republican civil war fought in 87 BC between the two consuls of that year, Gnaeus Octavius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Cinna was victorious by late 87 BC.
