Gaius Julius Caesar 100 BC 44 BC Roman Emperor military political leader and one of the most influential men in world history
Gaius Julius Caesar [ July 12 or July 13, 100 BC or 102 BC – March 15, 44 BC), was a Roman military and political leader and one of the most influential men in world history. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. A politician of the populares tradition, he formed an unofficial triumvirate with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus which dominated Roman politics for several years, but was fiercely opposed by optimates like Marcus Porcius Cato and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. His conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, and he also conducted the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC; the collapse of the triumvirate, however, led to a stand-off with Pompey and the Senate. Leading his legions across the Rubicon, Caesar began a civil war in 49 BC from which he became the undisputed master of the Roman world. After assuming control of government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He was proclaimed dictator for life, and he heavily centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic. These events provoked a hitherto friend of Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus, and a group of other senators, to assassinate the dictator on the Ides of March (March 15) in 44 BC. The assassins hoped to restore the normal running of the Republic, but they provoked another Roman civil war, which led eventually to the establishment of the autocratic Roman Empire by Caesar's adopted heir, Gaius Octavianus. In 42 BC, two years after his assassination, the Roman Senate officially sanctified Caesar as one of the Roman deities.
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