An outstanding strategist, politician and writer in ancient Rome, a dictator at the end of the Republic of China. Born into a famous julius family in Rome, his father was the chief executive. As a teenager, he studied rhetoric and oratory, received a good education, and was a democratic leader in the early days of politics, opposing optimates. He has served as financial officer, supervisor, chief priest and chief justice. In 6 BC, they formed a three-headed alliance with Pompeii and crassus, and * * * ruled Rome * * * Republic, which was called "the first three heads" in history. In 58 BC, he obtained the position of governor of Gaul and conquered the whole territory of Gaul within a few years. He not only has a lot of wealth, but more importantly, he has trained a strong army loyal to himself. In 49 BC, Kaiser defeated Pompeii and seized power (crassus had died in a foreign war). In the next few years, he gained the power of dictatorship indefinitely, combining the power of consul and dictator, and became a veritable military dictator. * * * and the country exists in name only, and the power of the Senate is decreasing day by day. Some measures implemented by Caesar, such as distributing provincial land to 8, veterans, reducing the debts of debtors, and punishing corrupt and extortionate officials, touched the interests of the elders and aroused their dissatisfaction. On March 15th, 44 BC, in the Senate Chamber, he was stabbed to death by the opposition led by Brutu and Cassio. Caesar left two works of historical value, namely "The Battle of Gaul" and "Notes on Civil War".
Julius Caesar was born in 12 BC, which was the era of serious political crisis in Rome. At this time, Rome's economic base has undergone tremendous changes, and it has become the most developed country in the western classical era. The original small farmers have been completely replaced by large manors that use slave labor on a large scale. The direct military plunder and the squeezing of conquered areas by means of tribute have made wealth from all over the Mediterranean coast flood into Italy, accelerating the social differentiation of Rome.
Great economic changes will naturally affect the political life of Rome. The conquered land is expanding day by day, the standing army composed of mercenaries is expanding constantly, the slave population is increasing sharply, and the homeless class composed of unemployed small farmers and freed slaves is also flocking to the capital in large numbers, which requires greatly strengthening the state machinery to cope with, but at this time the Roman state system is basically the same as that of the small commune on the Tiber River. Its civilian government, which is re-elected every year, its bloated citizens' assembly and its Senate, which is monopolized by a few generations of powerful nobles, can't adapt to this situation at all. Since the 193s BC, people have been putting forward various schemes of democratic reform from different angles, but all of them were opposed by a handful of so-called aristocrats in the Senate because they violated the interests of the rich and noble, and failed. Since then, people who advocate democratic reform have fought endlessly, and the democratic movement has gradually developed from a legitimate demand for improvement to a conspiracy, rebellion and even civil war. In 82 BC, Sura, the protector of the rich and noble family, suppressed the opposition with a bloody massacre, and the democratic movement was temporarily silent. However, the massacre could not eliminate the root cause of the demand for reform. Soon after Sura's death, the democratic movement made a comeback. At this time, the Roman aristocracy, the incompetence of the government, the turmoil of social order, and the bossiness of the soldiers have greatly weakened the power of the country. By the 197 s BC, the situation had finally developed to a very worrying level. The attacks of the strong neighbors in the east and the separatist regimes in the western provinces are still second, and the serious ones are the piracy in the Mediterranean and the slave uprising led by Spartacus. Piracy not only makes people in coastal areas miserable, but even Rome is in danger of being cut off because of the lack of overseas food. The slave uprising made Italy suffer the heaviest military disaster since Hannibal War, and it shocked the slavery system in Rome and hit the slave economy. The slave uprising forced the slave owners to make some changes in the way of exploiting slaves and managing land, and also forced the slave owners to change the methods of controlling slaves. More importantly, it forced them to change the * * * and regime that could not guarantee the economic development of slavery. As Engels, the revolutionary mentor, pointed out: "... when the state power within a country is in opposition to its economic development-up to now, almost all political power is like this at a certain stage of development-the struggle always ends in the overthrow of political power." It was in this situation that Caesar entered the political arena.
Caesar was born in an ancient but declining aristocratic family in Rome. Because of his close friendship with the older generation of democratic leaders Marius and Chennai, he was ostracized by the aristocrats and factions in his youth, forcing him to stand on the side of the Democrats from the beginning, gradually becoming the leader of the opposition, and at the same time gradually rising from financial officer and public works officer to judicial officer. But at this time, he had no other political capital except for his great appeal among the vagrants in the street. Therefore, he managed to form a "three-person alliance" with Cornelius Pompeii, who had great influence in the army at that time, and Marcus Krasus, the richest man in Rome who represented the rich, the so-called knight class. Of course, these three people represent three groups with different interests, and they just managed to get together because they were also excluded by the nobles who controlled the Senate. With the support of these two men, Caesar was elected consul in 59 BC, but due to the constraints of the Senate, there was no great achievement.
At this time, after more than half a century of political turmoil, the leaders of all factions in the Roman ruling group realized from practical experience that to master political power, it is necessary to have an armed force first, and only by using force can we make a difference in politics. Therefore, after the expiration of the consul's term, Caesar tried his best to win the Gaul province as the governor, with the aim of training an army of his own as a political backing while in Gaul; At the same time, opening up the territory and plundering slaves in Gaul can also gain a reputation among the slave owners in Rome, and can also take the opportunity to accumulate a large amount of wealth as the capital for future political activities.
Caesar went to Gaul in 58 BC and didn't return to Italy until the beginning of 49 BC. During his nine years in Gaul, according to Plutarch, he slaughtered one million people and captured one million people. He and his officials made a fortune, which enabled him to bribe widely in Rome, even to the favored slaves of important people. He also held various performances among civilians, distributed a large amount of money, and built a large number of projects in many towns in Italy, which not only pleased the contractor, but also pleased the civilians who got job opportunities. As a result, his popularity among Italian citizens gradually surpassed that of the other two in the "Three-person Alliance". In particular, he borrowed Gaul as a training ground to train an army that was the most used to fighting in the then * * * Republic, and it was an army that only knew Caesar but did not know the country.
Caesar's success stimulated Krasus. In 63 BC, he rushed to the East to wage a war against rest, hoping to achieve the same success there as Caesar, only to be wiped out and die there. This makes the original "three-person alliance" stand side by side, leaving only Caesar and Pompeii, who are increasingly suspicious of each other, and some people in the Senate provoke and win over them. Pompeii finally broke up with Caesar and officially stood on the side of the Senate, becoming the leader of the aristocratic * * * faction to fight against Caesar. In 49 BC, Caesar entered Italy with his army, and Pompeii was caught off guard. He fled Rome with all government personnel and the Senate, crossed the sea and entered Greece, where Italy fell into Caesar's hands. The following winter, Caesar also rushed to Greece and defeated Pompeii's main force in Sahles. Pompeii fled to Egypt and was killed on the spot by the Egyptians. Caesar reunified the whole country after eliminating the remnants of Pompeii in other places.
Caesar eliminated Pompey's remaining party province by province, that is, he eliminated the residual influence of Roman aristocrats and institutions and established a new ruling machine. Therefore, the Roman country reunified by Caesar is no longer the weak and procrastinating old Roman Republic. It is a brand-new centralized military dictatorship, and it has been able to command the whole country in a unified way, which is certainly beneficial to the economic development and cultural exchanges in various regions along the Mediterranean.
It is less than four years since Caesar unified the Roman country and died, but in such a short time. During this period, he was able to accomplish a lot of commendable work, the most noteworthy of which were two aspects: first, he destroyed the old aristocratic system and system, concentrated military and political power, basically completed the transition to the monarchy, and made a uniform work of the old system that had been plagued by problems at any time, patched up at any time, and forced to make up. He combined the important positions of consul, procurator, tribune and high priest, reduced the Senate to an advisory body, and regarded the citizens' assembly as a dispensable ornament, all of which paved the way for his later successors to turn Rome into an empire covered with * * * and made coats. Secondly, he tried to gradually abolish the privileges left by the old Rome as a city-state, raise the status of Italian towns to equal that of Rome, raise the status of provinces to equal that of Italy, and give citizenship to Roman provinces one after another-only to the slave owners, of course-to further expand and consolidate the foundation of the ruling group of this great empire. But this work is only partially completed. In the past, when he was in Gaul, he gave citizenship to the Gauls in the mountains, and later let some of their leaders enter the Senate, which aroused the dissatisfaction of the old citizens who regarded citizenship as a taboo and did not want others to share it. They ridiculed him:
"Caesar led the Gauls away in triumph, but
led them into the Senate;
Gauls took off their long trousers, and
put on their wide-brimmed robes instead. "
In 44 BC, he enacted an autonomous law applicable to Italian towns, giving them the same status as Rome. He restored the tariffs that Italy had always exempted; He also plans to abolish the method of contracting merchants to collect provincial taxes, and instead, the state will send people to collect them directly, canceling an embarrassing policy that the people of the provinces hate most. No wonder it was rumored that he wanted to move the capital to Alexandria and transform Rome into an oriental monarchy, mainly because he lowered the status of Rome in the country.
Caesar was assassinated by the remnants of the aristocratic faction in 44 BC, ending his busy life. His heirs, Julius Caesar Octavian and Augustus, the grandson of his sister, completely completed the task of transforming the slave Rome into an empire on the basis of Caesar's foundation.
There are many people who have always commented on Caesar, and most people tout him as an incomparable hero, a great politician, a talented commander-in-chief, a writer, an orator and so on, as if he were a man who built this great empire. In fact, Caesar's lifelong struggle is just a struggle between one ruling group and another ruling group in the slave-owning class to change the ruling mode. Although it improved the situation of this slave country for a period of time and further developed the slave economy, it still benefited only the slave-owning class and did not affect the fate of the slave-owning class at that time. Secondly, the success of his life should mainly be attributed to the fact that he happened to be in a country like Rome * * * and the United States. In such a historical era, when the situation changed, the opportunity made him unconsciously complete the career that history wanted him to complete. Here, his personal qualities, such as perseverance, wit, boldness and smoothness, only played a very limited role, so it is inappropriate to over-flatter Caesar. As Engels, the revolutionary mentor, said, "It happened that Napoleon, a Corsican, became the military dictator needed by France, which was exhausted by the war.". However, if Napoleon had never existed, his role would have been played by someone else. This can be proved by the fact that whenever such a person is needed, he will appear: Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell and so on. "
On the contrary, some people tried their best to criticize Caesar, saying that he suppressed the democratic movement and organized his cancellation bank to restore Italian tariffs. Reducing the rations distributed to the poor, etc., is said to be a betrayal of civilians. These criticisms are often the result of an over-modern interpretation of the so-called "civilians" and "democratic movements" in Rome at that time. It is a complicated job to analyze the so-called civilians who lived in Rome in the last years, their composition, their political role and economic status, etc., and it is not the job to do here, but at least it can be said for sure that they are by no means the industrial proletariat of the 18th and 9th centuries. Marx quoted sismondi's famous saying in the preface of the second edition of "The 18th Fog Moon in louis bonaparte"-"The proletariat in Rome lives on society, while the proletariat in modern society lives on it"-this is the most pertinent conclusion about them. In the first or second century BC, they never produced a representative of themselves in politics, and never put forward a set of political programs of their own. They have always been the tools of various political activists. Just as we can't regard them as modern proletariat, we can't regard Caesar as a first-class figure in louis napoleon or even thiers. Caesar is here, but he has done nothing less than what other activists did at that time. At most, he can be blamed for using them at first and then leaving them. And leaving them, or even hurting them, is. At that time, it was inevitable to ask the pro-democracy activist once he came to power. Caesar, in particular, can know that this is the inevitable result of his work as long as he simply cited the work he devoted himself to. For a long time, the vagrant class in the capital has become a heavy burden on the country. In order to reduce the search for provinces and reduce the privileges of Rome, we have to take some measures that are unfavorable to these vagrants, such as the free rations distributed to citizens, which were suddenly reduced from 32, to 15, by Caesar, and this privilege, which used to be considered as a citizen's right, was strictly restricted and turned into real social relief. This is an example. Moreover, after the establishment of a strong personal rule, the citizens' assembly even lost its role as a rubber stamp, and the political status of the homeless class came to an end. There is no need to do everything in the state treasury to please them. This is the logical development and the inevitable result of the transition from * * * to the empire. Although there are many things that Caesar did in his life, it is not in this respect.
Octavian
An outstanding politician in Rome and the founder of the Roman Empire. Born into a knight's family, his father is a veteran of the Senate. Octavian, Caesar's nephew, was adopted by Caesar and inherited most of his property. After Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, it was followed by the consul Anthony and the cavalry chief Lei Bi.