Julius Caesar was one of the most famous rulers of Rome who became a dictator of the Roman Empire. However, his rule was shortened by the assassination of Caesar by his rivals. Julius Caesar was a man who was capable of many things due to the fact that he was born into a noble family and received a good education. Besides politics, his talents included military art, finance, and poetry (Plutarch). As a governor of Gaul, Caesar was able to accommodate the amount of wealth, power, and influence that became a threat to Pompey, who was his main political rival at the time.
After Caesar became a dictator, his first changes in the Roman Empire included the enlargement of the senate, certain governmental reforms, and a decrease of Rome’s debt. Other positive changes included Caesar’s sponsorship of the building of the Forum Iulium and two city-states, Carthage and Corinth (Plutarch). Due to being the governor of Gaul, Caesar understood and respected the importance of foreigners to the Roman Empire; therefore, he granted citizenship to those who lived within the Roman Republic.
The source that was used for this assignment is “The Life of Julius Caesar,” written by Plutarch, which is one of the main sources of Ancient Roman history on Julius Caesar. The cycle Parallel Lives that includes the lives of the famous Romans was written at the beginning second century AD, which is nearly 250 years after the death of Julius Caesar himself. In his writing, Plutarch allows himself to cite other sources extensively. For example, he uses Caesar’s own work de Bello Gallico and De Bello Civil along with Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars (Fraser.80). However, although “The Life of Julius Caesar” is a valid factual source, Plutarch, like many ancient historians, is biased towards Julius Caesar for him being an enemy of democracy.
Works Cited
Fraser, Robert. “Biography as Representation: Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.” After Ancient Biography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 73-98.
Plutarch. “The Life of Julius Caesar”. Parallel Lives. published in Vol. VII of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1919. Web.