History of Julius Ceasar

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Julius Caesar. (2009). history.com

The statesman and general Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) expanded the Roman Republic through a

series of battles across Europe before declaring himself dictator for life. He died famously on the

steps of the Senate at the hands of political rivals. Julius Caesar is often remembered as one of

the greatest military minds in history and credited with laying the foundation for the Roman

Empire. Julius Caesar, one of the world’s greatest military leaders, was born into a senatorial,

patrician family and was the nephew of another famous Roman general, Marius. After the death

of Marius and the rise of Sulla, Caesar’s life was for a time in jeopardy, but in the early 60s b.c.

he launched his own successful political and military career. Rising rapidly, he campaigned

successfully for the consulship in 60 b.c. and struck a deal with two of Rome’s leading figures,

Pompey the Great and Crassus. Together the three of them became known as the First

Triumvirate and controlled Rome throughout the 50s b.c., until Caesar and Pompey, after

Crassus’s death, went to war against one another in 49 b.c. “Unlike in the Shakespeare play,

Caesar's last words were not "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?”) (History.com, 2009).” Instead

they were reported as "You, too, my child?”During the heyday of the First Triumvirate, Caesar

devoted his energies to the conquest of Gaul (modern France). After serving as consul in 59 b.c.,

Caesar became governor of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul (northern Italy and southern France,

respectively). In 58, when the Helvetii in Switzerland attempted to migrate into central Gaul,
Caesar decided that they would be a threat to the Roman province, and in a great battle he

stopped their advance and sent them back into their homeland. In the meantime he had become

friendly with the chieftains of central Gaul, and they urged him to protect them against a German

invader from across the Rhine, Ariovistus. So, in the summer of 58, after defeating the

Helvetians, Caesar marched against the Germans and drove them out of Gaul.

Caesar was by then inextricably involved in the affairs of Gaul. Over the next several years, in a

series of brilliant campaigns, the Roman general conquered all of Gaul and made it a Roman

province. The conquest required several difficult battles in northern Gaul and the crossing of the

Rhine over a trestle bridge constructed by Roman engineers. In the summers of 55 and 54 b.c.,

Caesar sailed across the English Channel, thereby securing his northern flank along the Rhine in

Gaul by precluding a Celtic attack from across the Channel, though Britain did not become a

Roman province for another hundred years. After dealing with a major revolt by Gallic

chieftains, including Caesar’s famous siege of Vercingetorix’s bastion at Alesia in 52 b.c., the

Roman leader brought resistance to an end in 51 and 50 b.c.

Early in 49, as his command in Gaul was coming to an end, Caesar began civil war with his old

associate, Pompey the Great, who had allied himself with the Roman Senate against Caesar. In a

surprising blitzkrieg, Caesar invaded Italy and drove Pompey into Macedonia in less than

seventy days. Since Pompey had a fleet and Caesar did not, Caesar decided to attack Spain,

where Pompey had strong support, while Caesar’s men constructed warships. Victorious in

Spain, Caesar then sailed to Macedonia, but he could not dislodge Pompey from his base at

Dyrrhachium (modern Durazzo). Caesar finally raised the siege, fell back into central Greece,

and defeated Pompey, who had pursued him, at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 b.c.
Caesar was then drawn into an affair with Cleopatra in Egypt and finally had to fight two more

battles with the Pompeians, one in North Africa (Thapsus, 46 b.c.) and another in Spain (Munda,

45 b.c.). Triumphant all over the Mediterranean, the great general was assassinated by political

rivals on the Ides of March in 44 b.c., as he prepared an invasion of the Parthian Empire. His

generalship was characterized by boldness, decisiveness, and a sometimes reckless willingness to

move ahead of his supply lines.

History of Malcolm X

(Hahn, S., 2012). MALCOLM X died in a hail of assassin's gunfire at the Audubon Ballroom in

February 1965, the mainstream media in the United States was quick to suggest that he reaped

the harvest of bloodshed he had brazenly sown. Calling him an "extremist," "a demagogue," a

"racist," and a "spiritual desperado," commentators often insisted that Malcolm advocated the

use of violence, regarded whites as "devils," and was an embodiment--as a television series on

the Nation of Islam had put it in 1959--of the "hate that hate produced." At best, the press

acknowledged Malcolm's oratorical skills and razor-sharp intelligence, and found him to be

personally impressive but politically misguided; at worst, they regarded him as an opportunist

and religious zealot intent on stirring the cauldron of racial conflict, the polar opposite of the

increasingly admired Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Several months later, with the posthumous publication of The Autobiography of Malcolm X

(produced in collaboration with Alex Haley), a more complex portrait began to emerge. It

depicted a life of major and unexpected transformations, from a young street-hustling, drug-

peddling burglar to a born-again member of the Nation of Islam and finally to an activist whose

simultaneous spiritual and political reawakenings tragically presaged his death. The vehicle of
this veritable transubstantiation was the penitentiary to which he was confined for seven years

and where, owing to the initiatives of a fellow inmate and family members, Malcolm embarked

on a journey of re-education, which included his embrace of the spiritual guidance of Elijah

Muhammad.

EARL LITTLE WAS NOT a model father; he physically abused his wife and children. But

Malcolm appears to have escaped much of this cruelty, and was instead introduced to his father's

political passions. Although Earl drilled all of his children in Garveyite principles and spoke to

them regularly about "what was going on in the Caribbean area and parts of Africa," he often

brought Malcolm with him to UNIA meetings, where his enthusiasm and leadership were amply

on display. "The meetings always closed up," Malcolm later wrote, "with my father saying

several times and the people chanting after him, 'Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what

you will!'"

The political life continued to be a peripatetic one for the Littles. They moved from Omaha to

Milwaukee, from Milwaukee to East Chicago, in Indiana, and then from East Chicago to

Lansing, Michigan. There Earl bought a small farmhouse for the family, and not only mobilized

support for the UNIA in the area but also helped to transport the UNIA faithful from many of

Michigan's small towns to larger assemblies in nearby Detroit, by then a hub of Garveyism and

black working-class activism more generally. But Earl's political troubles also worsened. White

neighbors tried to have the Littles evicted and, failing, firebombed their house. Earl thought to

put his carpentry skills to use in building a new house in another part of town, though not before

being legally outmaneuvered. Not surprisingly, Louisa sensed the peril they were in and begged

Earl to exercise vigilance. It was to no avail. In September 1931, off to run an errand across
town, Earl met a violent death under suspicious circumstances that the local police ruled

accidental. Malcolm was all of six years old.

Earl Little's death threw his family into desperate circumstances. Louisa would end up

institutionalized (Marable speculates this may have encouraged Malcolm to believe that women

were by nature weak and unreliable), and Malcolm was placed in a juvenile home near Lansing,

by which time he had earned the nickname "Red" owing to his hair color. Into this maelstrom,

sometime in late 1939 or 1940, stepped Malcolm's half-sister Ella, who had been born and

abandoned by Earl in Georgia, and later moved to Boston. Having heard of the family's troubles,

she took it upon herself to see how the children were faring. By early 1941, she brought Malcolm

(the youngest at age fifteen) back east with her, beginning what Marable calls the "first major

reinvention" in Malcolm's life.

But if Malcolm was not quite a full-fledged criminal, theft did prove to be an important way of

getting by. When, especially down on his luck, he returned to Boston in late 1945, he formed a

gang that included his white girlfriend and her younger sister to rob homes in affluent

neighborhoods. Careless in fencing some of the stolen goods, Malcolm was caught and convicted

after the girlfriend turned state's evidence (which further stimulated his misogynist tendencies).

The court, amused neither by Malcolm's exploits nor by his involvement with "white girls,"

threw the book at him, imposing four concurrent eight-to-ten year sentences and three concurrent

six-to-eight year sentences on burglary and weapons charges. By the spring of 1946, he was

doing time in the wretched Charlestown State Prison, among the oldest penitentiaries in the

world.

II.
TWO SIGNIFICANT THINGS happened to Malcolm Little while he served out his prison

terms. The first was that he met a fellow inmate, twenty years his senior, named John Elton

Bembry, who introduced him to a new world of ideas and self-discipline. Convicted of burglary

like Malcolm, Bembry's knowledge ranged so widely that Malcolm--obviously intellectually

inclined--was nothing short of awestruck and envious; even some of the prison guards eagerly

sought to hear Bembry speak. Recognizing the connection, Bembry encouraged Malcolm to

enroll in correspondence courses and make use of the small prison library. Malcolm responded

with avidity, completing the requirements for university extension courses, studying Latin and

German, reading in linguistics and etymology, and memorizing word definitions in the

dictionary. In the process he gained in self-confidence, and determined to change his life.

A letter from Malcolm's brother Philbert in early 1948 set the direction of change. Philbert

explained that he and the other members of the Little family had become members of the Nation

of Islam, and hoped that Malcolm would join them. Initially Malcolm scoffed, later joking that

Philbert "was forever joining something," but the family refused to relent. His brother Reginald

and his sister Hilda soon visited Malcolm in prison, told him more about the Nation and their

attraction to it, and urged him to contact the supreme leader known as Elijah Muhammad. Long a

non-believer, Malcolm was increasingly impressed by his siblings' devotion, and by the Nation's

project of enabling African Americans--especially the men--to find dignity and self-respect.

When he finally decided to embrace the Nation, his commitment to it was already very deep.

The Littles' gravitation to the Nation of Islam was less surprising than it may seem. Scholars

have demonstrated that Islam established a broader base among African Americans, from early

on, than has previously been imagined, and by the second decade of the twentieth century a

North Carolinian calling himself Noble Drew Ali founded the Moorish Science Temple of
America, with an initial base in Newark, New Jersey. The organization then established temples

in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Petersburg, Cleveland, Youngstown, Chicago,

Milwaukee, and Lansing--all cities where the UNIA had popular followings--and seems to have

attracted Garveyites as the UNIA began to unravel in the late 1920s.

He became something of an evangelist-in-training while in prison, developing his indictments of

white supremacy, sharpening his critiques of Western institutions and values, and honing a

distinctive speaking style marked by some of the cadences of jazz. He also began to convert a

few of his fellow inmates to the Nation, and by the time of his release on parole in the summer of

1952 he was signing his name "Malcolm X."

Although he initially found work at a Ford assembly plant (and became a member of the United

Auto Workers), within a year Malcolm became assistant minister at the Nation's Detroit Temple

No. 1. He then moved on to Boston, Philadelphia, and Harlem, where, in 1954, he was named

minister of Temple No. 7. His travels and his sense of commitment seemed reminiscent of his

father's, but his skills and his stature as an organizer clearly set him apart.

When Malcolm left prison and took the ministerial path, the Nation of Islam was struggling with

a tiny membership and a problematic message--not so much in its spiritual orientation, its

Manichean theology, or its ideas of community as in its rejection of worldly engagement. Elijah

Muhammad strongly discouraged civic and political involvement, whether public protests

against Jim Crow or even voter registration, and counseled a full withdrawal from the life of civil

society. In part this reflected Muhammad's opposition to integrationism, and in part his fears

about losing power over the membership; but the timing of his secessionist doctrine was not very

good, given the upsurge in civil rights activism that was spreading among African Americans,

north and south.

Malcolm contributed a new energy and dedication, a clear-minded outlook, and a deep charisma

to the cause, and they proved increasingly irresistible. He brought his prison learning to bear in

constructing a historical narrative of white sin and black resistance, his Garveyite perspectives in

representing racial destiny and empowerment, and his street wisdom in communicating with his

audiences. Tall, lean, handsome, strait-laced, and savvy, Malcolm became the Nation's most

magnetic figure. He helped boost membership from around 1,200 in 1953 to around 6,000 in

1955, and then to as many as 75,000 in 1961. It was nothing short of astonishing, and it put the

Nation on the political map of the United States.

Malcolm's organizational gifts were related to an evolving worldview that took notice of the

changing political pulse in black America and the intensifying struggles against Western

colonialism across the globe. This is where Marable allows us to see the intellectual growth and

dexterity that make Malcolm such a significant figure of the mid-twentieth century. Malcolm was

extremely demanding of Nation members while holding himself to the strictest standards of

comportment. As Louis Farrakhan (at the time known as Louis X) recalled, "I never saw

Malcolm smoke. I never heard Malcolm curse. I never saw Malcolm wink at a woman. I never

saw Malcolm eat in between meals. He ate one meal a day. He got up at 5 o'clock in the morning

to say his prayers. I never saw Malcolm late for an appointment. Malcolm was like a clock." And

Malcolm's sermons usually had political resonance: rather than simply confining himself to the

doctrines of Elijah Muhammad or to the Garveyite principles of his father, he wrestled with the

implications of an explosive world around him.

Malcolm took special notice when, in 1955, representatives from twenty-nine African and Asian

countries, many of them newly independent, met in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss political

cooperation at a time when the Cold War was intensifying, hatching a non-aligned movement.
Here, he imagined, were possibilities for unifying African Americans with followers of Islam

elsewhere in the world. He quickly called for "a Bandung Conference in Harlem." "More than

any other NOI leader," Marable writes, Malcolm "recognized the religious and political

significance of Bandung."

Before long, Malcolm became even more engaged in the tumultuous political atmosphere of

Harlem. Reacting to the beating of several black men, including two Nation members, by New

York police in the spring of 1957, Malcolm succeeded in mobilizing several thousand local

blacks, conducting a march down Lenox Avenue, and pressing the police to provide medical

treatment for one of the victims. So formidable was Malcolm's demeanor and so orderly was the

demonstration that one of the police officers gasped, "No one man should have that much

power." Eventually bail was posted, the arrested men were acquitted in court, and the NYPD was

forced to pay more than $70,000 in damages, the largest police brutality settlement ever awarded

in the city. Malcolm now saw that the Nation would only grow by becoming immersed in the

daily struggles of the black community. Unfortunately, this epiphany put him on a collision

course with Elijah Muhammad and many of the Nation's members. To the end, Malcolm--unlike

King--regarded himself as something of an outsider to the country in which he lived, as "a person

of African descent who happened to be a United States citizen." What he offered was not, like

King, a narrative of political realization and redemption, but a withering critique of an American

racism that was structurally embedded. It remained a disconcerting and pessimistic perspective.

And critics could sensibly argue that, in resisting integrationism, Malcolm never identified a

realistic way forward for African Americans in a society in which they were a distinct minority

(Hahn, S., 2012).

Comparison

Reference:

Julius Caesar. (2009). history.com Staff. Retrieved From:

http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/julius-caesar. Access Date: January 24, 2018.

Publisher: A+E Networks

Baker, H. J. (2012). Manning Marable. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. African American

Review, (1-2), 239.

Hahn, S. (2012). IF X, THEN WHY?. New Republic, 243(6), 37.