Words for Board: Brutus

Caesar had great power by 45 BC. He was the winning general of the day. The Senate and Assemblies voted him lots of jobs and extra titles and he's eventually in charge of everything. The month "July" was named for him. He had all the power of being a king without the title. The title "king" was bad news to Romans ever since the Etruscans. Caesar was supposedly offered the title at a fertility ceremony and he refused. Marc Antony offered a laurel crown. He was a junior officer of Caesar's. (Gotta watch those junior officers!)

Caesar began working on the major problems of the day. Biggie problem #1 was unemployment. There were 320,000 people in the city of Rome on the welfare list for free grain. Caesar checked the relief lists and got rid of cheaters. He gave them farms in the provinces. But it was too late. These people are generations after Gracchus and the land law bill. They haven't even seen a farm, let alone grown anything. They were used to relief. They didn't want to farm. Caesar started new building projects of public buildings. He began the construction of a new Forum (similar to a shopping center) named the Julian Forum. Caesar passed a law that large estates could only use 2/3 slaves and had to hire the other 1/3 from free farmers. The rich grumbled at that. He revised the calendar. The Romans had been using a lunar calendar which will give you about another month every so often and will mess up the season. The Greeks were using a solar calendar. Caesar imported scientists from Alexandria to put the solar calendar into effect. It had 365 1/4 days per year and was similar to ours. Ours was revised in the 1600s. Caesar began draining swamps for health and more farm land. People who lived by swamps usually got the "fever" (malaria) and he knew that draining the swamps got rid of the disease. He was getting ready to change the tax structure. He wanted to use a fixed percentage system of collection. It was already in effect in Gaul. He also wanted the people to use their own tax collectors. The Gauls were already similar to Romans. He didn't put any pressure on them to change. But they weren't stupid and saw that the Romans were better. Within 100 years, you couldn't tell a Gaul from a Roman.

He didn't get around to lots of stuff. He was planning a new war. He was getting ready to take on the Parthians and the barbarians up north. That's the trouble with generals. They can't lead in peacetime so they always plan wars. Caesar had a great mind. He could dictate 4 letters and carry on a private conversation at the same time. That's not so hard today with shorthand people. But back then there were scribes so he had to start a letter and wait for the scribe to catch up and, in the meantime, start another one and so on. He could call by name every man in his army during the Gallic Wars.

There were lots of people unhappy with Caesar–especially Senators. He went too fast. He didn't pay attention to their feelings and didn't ask opinions. He was telling them what to do and not leading them or guiding them. People hinted that he was trying to be king.

Caesar had a son by Cleopatra. She had a difficult time with the birth and it had to be taken surgically. That operation is called a Caesarean section! Caesar also had epilepsy which is mild electrical short circuits in the brain. Occasionally, he lost track of things.

There were 60 Senators in on a plot against Caesar's life. He never had any bodyguard so he was easy to kill. He was killed in 44 BC (on the Ides of March–March 15th). One of the assassins was Brutus. He was supposed to be a close friend of Caesar's. He was supposed to be the most honorable man in Rome. The Senators got him in on the plot cuz they appealed to his honor and said Caesar was ruining the Republic. Caesar was, according to their definition. But the Republic really hadn't functioned for a long time so he couldn't really destroy it.