Transcript Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar

 General
 Powerful
Public Speaker
 Had huge following among Rome’s poor
 60
BC- 1st Triumvirate – “rule of three”
(Caesar, Pompey [PAHM-pee], and
Crassus)—a political alliance

 59 BC—Caesar became consul
• Knew that he could not win power without a
loyal army
• Took a special military command—10 years
• Later, he brought Gaul (France) under Roman
rule
 Meanwhile, Crassus
died in battle in 53
BC.
 Pompey made sole consul in 52 BC.
 Pompey jealous of Caesar’s rising fame,
he ordered Caesar home without his
army.
 Instead, Caesar and HIS army march on
Rome.
 49
BC—Caesar declared war on the
republic- Jan. 10th
 Pompey and his followers fled to Greece,
where Caesar defeated him and then
marched into Egypt. He put Cleopatra
(daughter of the ruling family) on the
throne as a Roman ally.

 46
BC—returns to Rome triumphantly
 44
BC –declared
“Dictator for Life”
 Caesar increased the
Senate to 900 members
but reduced it power.
Many senators, fearing
Caesar’s ambition and
popularity, formed a
conspiracy against
him.
 On
March 15—the Ides of March—44 BC, the
conspirators killed Caesar in the Senate.
 Two were men that Caesar considered friends:
Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus.
 Note: Caesar
had chosen
his grandnephew,
Octavian, as his heir. A
struggle for power,
however broke out after
Caesar’s death.
 19
years old when Julius
Caesar was murdered

 Formed
the 2nd
Triumvirate—“rule of
three” (Octavian,
Antony—along with
Lepidus, Caesar’s
second-in-command)
 Marc
Antony led an army east,
reconquering Syria and Asia Minor from
the armies of Brutus and Cassius. Then he
joined his ally Cleopatra in Egypt.
 Meanwhile, Octavian
forced Lepidus to retire.
 Antony
and Octavian divide the Roman world.
Antony took the east, and Octavian the west.
 In time, Octavian persuaded the Senate to
declare war on Antony and Cleopatra.
 31
BC—naval battle at Actium, Greece,
Octavian defeats their fleet.
.

 30
BC—Octavian captured Alexandria,
Egypt. Antony and Cleopatra committed
suicide.

 Senate
declared Octavian consul—to
avoid Julius Caesar’s fate—Octavian did
not present himself as king or emperor.
Instead, he called himself princeps, or
“first citizen.”
 27 BC—the Senate gave Octavian the
title, Augustus, or “the revered one.”

 27
BC—the Senate gave Octavian the
title, Augustus, or “the revered one.”

 Historians
refer to him as the first Roman
emperor
 Because the Roman Republic became the
Roman Empire under his reign.
 Under
his rule, the empire stretched from Spain
in the west to Syria to the east, and from Egypt
and the Sahara in the south to the Rhine and
Danube in the north.
 The
reign of Augustus, known as Pax
Romana or “Roman Peace”—lasted for
200+ years
 The
political system that Augustus
created—reduced the powers of the
Senate, Assemblies, & Magistrates

 AD
14 Augustus died
death unspecified