CAESAR VS THE SENATE

We have all had our Rubicons to cross; we have all rolled the dice of fate, metaphorically if not actually. Important as these dilemmas are to us, they are nothing to what Julius Caesar agonised with: he was struggling with one of the most pivotal and challenging gambles in world history. We can of course only speculate, but as sleepless nights go, the night of 9/10 July 49 BCE for Caesar must have been the longest night of his life: to cross or not to cross…

The 51 BCE siege of Uxellodunum was the last major conflict of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. After the fall of the town and the decisive Roman victory, Gaul was under Roman rule at last. Caesar decided to set an example and dispensed with the usual punishment of execution or selling the survivors into slavery. Instead, he had the hands of all surviving men of military age cut off, dispersing the mutilated prisoners throughout the province as an all too vivid demonstration of what happened to those who rebelled against Rome and how they were unable to take up arms again. Caesar then took two legions and marched into Aquitania. Confident that there would be no further Gallic insurrection, he marched with the Legio XIII for Italy, the Rubicon and Rome in his sights.

To put Caesar’s achievement into perspective, the Transalpine Gaul he subdued and brought into Rome’s orbit was double the size of the whole Italian peninsula and more populous than the province of Hispania. Caesar got the military glory he wanted at a critical juncture in his career, and the prodigious booty he acquired paid off some of his enormous debts, allowing him to buy political favours and alliances on a scale that would not have disappointed a Crassus. Rome also got stability in Gaul, which lasted until the second century CE. Caesar returned to Italy, cast his die, crossed the Rubicon and eventually died amidst a salvo of stabbing daggers in the Forum on