Sources
- Erich S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974), p. 537 online et passim.
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The Lex Trebonia was a Roman law passed in 55 BC during the second joint consulship of Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pompey, as part of their informal political arrangement known as the First Triumvirate. Sponsored by the tribune of the plebs Gaius Trebonius, the legislation granted each outgoing consul an extended five-year proconsular command, similar to the one granted to Julius Caesar for his conquest of Gaul. Crassus received the province of Syria, with the barely disguised intention of launching an invasion of Parthia. Pompey received the provinces of Nearer Spain and Further Spain, but remained in Rome and conducted his administration through legates.
At the same time, Gaius Julius Caesar's term as governor of the provinces Transalpine Gaul, Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum was extended, hostilities in Gaul having reignited. By law, Caesar could not run for a second consulship until ten years after his first, and he wished not to return to Rome as a private citizen.
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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.
Marcus Antonius, commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire.
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. Early in his career, he was a partisan and protégé of the Roman general and dictator Sulla; later, he became the political ally, and finally the enemy, of Julius Caesar.
This article concerns the period 59 BC – 50 BC.
Marcus Licinius Crassus was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is often called "the richest man in Rome".
Year 54 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Appius and Ahenobarbus. The denomination 54 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
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.
Marcus Porcius CatoUticensis, also known as Cato the Younger, was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. His conservative principles were focused on the preservation of what he saw as old Roman values in decline. A noted orator and a follower of Stoicism, his scrupulous honesty and professed respect for tradition gave him a powerful political following which he mobilised against powerful generals of his day.
Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus was a politician of the Roman Republic. He was a conservative and upholder of the established social order who served in several magisterial positions alongside Julius Caesar and conceived a lifelong enmity towards him. In 59 BC, he was consul alongside Julius Caesar. Their partnership was contentious to the extent that Caesar's supporters assaulted Bibulus in Rome's main forum on the eve of an important vote. Bibulus withdrew from public politics for the rest of his term.
The Battle of Carrhae was fought in 53 BC between the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire near the ancient town of Carrhae. An invading force of seven legions of Roman heavy infantry under Marcus Licinius Crassus was lured into the desert and decisively defeated by a mixed cavalry army of heavy cataphracts and light horse archers led by the Parthian general Surena. On such flat terrain, the Legion proved to have no viable tactics against the highly-mobile Parthian horsemen, and the slow and vulnerable Roman formations were surrounded, exhausted by constant attacks, and eventually crushed. Crassus was killed along with the majority of his army. It is commonly seen as one of the earliest and most important battles between the Roman and Parthian Empires and one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history. According to the poet Ovid in Book 6 of his poem Fasti, the battle occurred on 9 June.
Gaius Trebonius was a military commander and politician of the late Roman Republic, who became suffect consul in 45 BC. He was an associate of Julius Caesar, having served as his legate and having fought on his side during the civil war, and was among the tyrannicides who killed the dictator.
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.
Commentarii de Bello Civili(Commentaries on the Civil War), or Bellum Civile, is an account written by Julius Caesar of his war against Gnaeus Pompeius and the Roman Senate. It consists of three books covering the events of 49–48 BC, from shortly before Caesar's invasion of Italy to Pompey's defeat at the Battle of Pharsalus and flight to Egypt. It was preceded by the much longer account of Caesar's campaigns in Gaul and was followed by similar works covering the ensuing wars against the remnants of Pompey's armies in Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. Caesar's authorship of the Commentarii de Bello Civili is not disputed, while the three later works are believed to have been written by contemporaries of Caesar.
The early life of Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, began at his birth in Rome on September 23, 63 BC, and is considered to have ended around the assassination of Dictator Julius Caesar, Augustus' great-uncle and adoptive father, on 15 March 44 BC.
The history of the Constitution of the Roman Republic is a study of the ancient Roman Republic that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC until the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The constitutional history of the Roman Republic can be divided into five phases. The first phase began with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Kingdom in 509 BC, and the final phase ended with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Republic, and thus created the Roman Empire, in 27 BC. Throughout the history of the Republic, the constitutional evolution was driven by the struggle between the aristocracy and the ordinary citizens.
The military campaigns of Julius Caesar constituted both the Gallic Wars and Caesar's civil war. The Gallic War mainly took place in what is now France. In 55 and 54 BC, he invaded Britain, although he made little headway. The Gallic War ended with complete Roman victory at the Battle of Alesia. This was followed by the civil war, during which time Caesar chased his rivals to Greece, decisively defeating them there. He then went to Egypt, where he defeated the Egyptian pharaoh and put Cleopatra on the throne. He then finished off his Roman opponents in Africa and Hispania. Once his campaigns were over, he served as Roman dictator until his assassination on 15 March 44 BC. These wars were critically important in the transition of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
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.
