The Ancients - Rise of Julius Caesar

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

Julius Caesar is one of history’s most famous figures. But before his legendary conquests and romance with Cleopatra, how did he rise to power?In this episode of The Ancients, host Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Catherine Steele to explore Caesar’s early life, political struggles, and key allies and rivals - from Marius and Sulla to Pompey and Crassus. Together Tristan and Catherine uncover the defining moments that shaped Rome’s most famous leader.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The producer and editor is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Listen to The Ancients episode; the Rise of Cicero: https://shows.acast.com/the-ancients/episodes/theriseofciceroSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you would like the ancient ad free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting HistoryHit.com slash subscribe. He's one of the most recognisable figures from ancient history, Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, who was assassinated on the 15th of March, the Ides of March in 44 BC. Now the later story of Julius Caesar and his grand military campaigns against barbarians and fellow Romans alike, well it's a popular one today. But what do we know about his earlier

life? Before he went to Gaul and waged brutal warfare against various tribes for years on end, before he crossed the Rubicon and defeated the likes of Pompey the Great, ultimately becoming dictator of Rome, before he met his legendary lover, the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Well that is what we're exploring today. It's the Ancients on History hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Over the next hour we're going to talk through the rise of Julius Caesar, from his early years growing up in a prestigious yet rather backstage Roman family, to his capture by pirates in his early 20s, to how he started climbing up the greasy political ladder of the Roman Republic that was the Cursus Honorum.

This is a story that features a lot of events and a lot of big names from this era of Roman history. The bitter rival Roman statesmen Marius and Sulla first of all. Then leading lights such as the stellar general Pompey the Great and Crassus, wealthiest man in Rome. There's also the great orators Cicero and Cato the Younger, all feature in the story of Caesar's rise to prominence in the space of some 40 years. Now our guest today is Professor Catherine Steele from the University of Glasgow, an expert on politics in the late Roman Republic and key figures of the time like Cicero, Pompey and of course Julius Caesar. Buckle up, lots of interesting

information coming your way as we explore the rise of Julius Caesar. Catherine, it is a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. It's been a few years. Welcome back. Well, thank you for having me again. Always reassuring to get a second invitation. Oh, you're more than welcome. And of course, to talk about this period of late Republican Roman history that I know you've done so much work around. The rise of Julius Caesar, I was originally going to say is quite an extraordinary story, isn't it? But is it extraordinary at the time, at least I guess in the early years compared to other big figures at that time?

It's not. It's not. We mustn't forget that brilliant anecdote that Plutarch tells us about Caesar weeping. Because at the age of 33, I think, when he's comparing himself with Alexander and basically saying, I've accomplished nothing. And part of the context for that, saying, I've accomplished nothing. And part of the context for that, I'm sure, is he was looking at Pompey the Great, his slightly older contemporary who had achieved massive, completely unprecedented things by the time that Pompey was that age. So Caesar's career, his early career, arguably there's nothing particularly remarkable about it, or at least nothing particularly remarkable given that it was a pretty turbulent time at Rome. And I think I probably want to suggest that the first time that Caesar really begins to look as if he might be something

a bit different is the year 63, right, when he's elected Pontifex Maximus and when he contributes so remarkably to the debate on the Catalan-arian conspirators. Mason- So that year 63 BC, it almost feels like, Catherine, that will be a bit later on in our chat because if he's born in around 100 BC, so actually that time when it almost feels like a bit of a switch, he's nearly 40 at that time. Catherine- Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that up until that point, you can tell a story that fits in much more happily within a pretty conventional narrative about building a career

as a politician at Rome. Not without some oddities, sure, but a much more conventional story. We will explore those oddities too. And you also mentioned Alexander in passing and I'm presuming then you mean Alexander the Great. Of course. Who in the historiography of Caesar becomes an important point of comparison? It's Caesar with whom Alexander is paired in Plutarch's parallel lives, for example. That becomes a fairly standard comparison, yes. Well, Catherine, for the story of Julius Caesar as he's rising through the ranks, let's say even pre-63 BC, the earlier part

of Julius Caesar's story. Do we have a rich source record surviving for learning more about it and what were the oddities and what was the regular for the time? Is it quite a rich period for source material? It is, compared with the rest of antiquity, which doesn't of course mean that it's rich by the standards that a historian of the modern world would recognise as such. And it's worth saying that kind of at the outset, although we know a lot about Caesar in comparison with other figures from antiquity, we know virtually nothing about his childhood. Because ancient biographies aren't really interested in childhood as a period, they might

record some anecdotes if those are predictive in some way, but as it happens not for Caesar. So how do we know about Caesar? Well, we have two ancient biographies of him because he's included both in Plutarch's parallel lives, but also he's the first of the 12 biographies in Sir Antonius' Lives of the Caesars. So we've got two biographies, both of which do what ancient biography has done, which is that they combine narrative with an interest in the smaller details of an individual, which may be morally revealing. So we do have quite a lot of anecdotal material about Caesar. The end of the Republic is itself pretty well documented. We've got all of Cicero's surviving material, speeches, letters. We've got the historian

Cassius Dio, who's obviously writing in Greek rather later, but has access to a lot of good source material. We've got Appian. And of course, we've got Caesar's own writings, his campaigns in Gaul that he wrote and then his account of the Civil War, neither of which is going to be a particular interest for us though, of course, because both of those were written after his consulship as was his work on the Latin language De analogia, which survives only in the most modest fragments. But it's an important reminder. We think of Caesar as a great military leader, a great political leader, or at least a transformative political leader, but he was also one of the leading intellectuals in the late Republic. Mason- So not that much material for his very, very early years. Do we know much of the state of the

Roman Republic around the turn of the first century BC? Do we know the state of the world that he's born into and that he's growing up in in those very early years? Dr. Sarah McAllister We can talk in general terms in some detail about that. We do know a bit in fact about Caesar's family, which is also not irrelevant, I think, to what we're thinking about. He is born into a patrician family. Now, patrician has a very distinct technical meaning when we're talking about republican Rome. It's a status that adheres to a small number of families who were the families who were politically important before the end of the monarchy and

the foundation of the republic. And therefore, the start of the monarchy and the foundation of the Republic. And therefore, at the start of the Republic formed the membership of the Senate, and therefore produced the annual consuls. So the patrician class had a monopoly on political power at the start of the Republic. That's the story Romans tell us about themselves. And in terms of the internal history of the Roman Republic in its first couple of centuries, one of the most important stories is the so-called struggle of the orders, which is the fight by everybody who's not a patrician, and if you're not a patrician, you're a plebeian, and that's everybody else, the fight by the plebeians for political equality, which is successful. The patrician monopoly on political

power has ended over the course of the fourth century and by the third century. It seems to be largely forgotten. At least that's the story. What emerges in place of the patricians is the nobilitas, a mixed patrician-plebeian group of families who dominate politically, wealthy, interconnected, despite the distinction between patrician and plebeian, and who accept new members gradually and reluctantly. So men from outside the nobility do join the political class and sometimes they get to the consulship in a single generation more often takes a bit longer. But the standard view, I guess, of the end of the Republic is this distinction no longer matters. But I don't think that can quite work. There is still a cache in being a patrician, in belonging to one of these very ancient families. And the point

is, of course, that Caesar, the Judy Caesares were one of these ancient families. And it seems to get a bit more prominent with Sulla, who will come on to a moment, who is a patrician himself and seems to value that status. So Caesar's born into a family that can trace his origins back to before the establishment of the Republic, but one that has not been hugely successful over the last century or so. It's had members who have reached the consulship. I mean, one can overestimate the kind of decay of the the Yuli-Kaizares. A cousin is consul in 91, for example, but Caesar's own immediate family are not politically active, politically successful, and his father dies relatively young when Caesar is a teenager. So he doesn't have quite the heft of some of the really big political families in terms of immediate access.

On the other hand, his mother Aurelia, who comes from a plebeian genz, but one that has been politically successful, is looking quite promising. In fact, three men who may be his uncles, or they may be cousins of his mother, hold a consulship in the 70s BC. It's not a negligible course. He's born within the political aristocracy. He's born from an ancient family. And at the time at which he's born, of course, the dominant figure on the political landscape is Gaius Marius, who so happens to be married to Julius Caesar's aunt. Oh, that's good. That's a good connection to have. One of the interesting things is the existence of that marriage because Marius himself is a new man. It's an interesting indication that Caesar's grandfather clearly

spotted talent and ability in this new man and decided he would be a good match for his daughter. That connection with Marius is quite important to Caesar and Caesar makes quite a lot of this as he begins to develop his political career. Mason- If Caesar's father dies when Caesar is very, very young, how does that affect when he is in his teenage years and he's got Marius close by him as linked to his own family? With all of that going on, is Julius Caesar now having to step up very, very early with his father's passing and almost go quickly into an alliance with Marius in that very turbulent early first century BC or BCE world? Probably not. Early mortality is such a ubiquitous feature of the ancient world that Roman law

was pretty well able to deal with these kinds of things. In legal terms, it meant that Caesar was not under his paternal authority, but mechanisms would be in place to manage his property. And the law of property and inheritance is pretty keen on agnatic relationships, relationships in the male line. And I suspect that insofar as Caesar is a 14-year-old, 15-year-old, was beginning to think about his political career. The death of his father was a blow because it removed a supporter, somebody who could advocate for him who might himself hold high office that could promote him. But the wider network of friends and relations

and property was still intact. And any decisions that Caesar might have taken himself were rather taken out of his hands by a strange episode, really the first kind of, as it were, official moment we see Caesar, when he's nominated for the position of Flamen Deiales. Now the Flamen is a word for priest, and there are three particularly important priesthoods, one of which is the Flamen is a word for priest. And there are three particularly important priesthoods, one of which is the Flamen of Jupiter, dialis, an old form, so flamen dialis. And the weird thing about this office is it's regarded as very important, but it was surrounded by a whole set of taboos and restrictions that we know about from the later writer Aulus Gellius, who has a chapter on the Flamen egg, which meant that it was practically impossible to combine being flamen dialis with a political career because you couldn't ride a horse, for example. So

military activity is kind of out of it. And there are various other restrictions about travel and activity and so on. So unlike most priesthoods in the Roman Republic, including being a Pontifex, which Caesar does become, or Pontifex Maximus, the Flamendialis really was a religious office that kept you occupied with being a religious figure. So Caesar's nominated for this when the previous holder dies by suicide as part of the disturbances of the early 80s. And when the time comes to fill the office, Marius is now dead. Marius takes power again in Rome in 87 and then enters his seventh consulship and shortly after his death. Sinner, who is Marius' ally and is in effective control of Rome in the mid-80s while

Sulla is absent, will no doubt maybe unpack those kind of complex situations in a moment. Sinner nominates the young Caesar, Thor, on this decision and also, because the flyman has to be married and he has to be married to another patrician marries Caesar to his own daughter Cornelia. And it's not entirely clear whether he was actually inaugurated or whether he was just kind of proposed and the inauguration didn't happen because Sulla got back and Senna is killed in an uprising and new various stuff happens. And Tatum, I mean Tatum who discusses this in his biography of Caesar, suggests that actually maybe Caesar's mother, who is likely to have been quite important in these discussions and thinking about it, thought that maybe that was the best thing.

He makes the point, which hadn't occurred to me and I think is quite interesting, we know Caesar was epileptic. Or at least we know quite good evidence that he suffered from epilepsy in some form. We know also that epilepsy was regarded as a very unfortunate portent as well as a kind of medical condition in antiquity. And it might have been the kind of thing that his mother thought is this boy is never going to have a serious political career, make him flamen dialis, that is an entirely appropriate position for one of his family and status. Maybe that's the best outcome. I think that's much more plausible than the retrojected arguments that say, oh, people could see Caesar was a threat already, let's put him in the Flamenate to keep him under

control. I mean, that's nonsense. Or it might just have been that they're looking around for a Flamen and kind of there aren't that many patricians left because I mean, the problem with the hereditary status that descends through the male line is if you haven't got another way of making new patricians and there wasn't a way of making new patricians join the Republic, they eventually all die out. So there aren't that many patricians new petitions, and there wasn't a way of making new petitions during the Republic, they eventually all die out. There are many petitions left and maybe Sinner was thinking, well, we need to fill this office. What happens next? The young Julius Caesar has been given this office by the ally of Marius, Marius who's now dead, Sinner, but it doesn't feel like Julius Caesar is in that office for

long because you mentioned Sulla there, didn't you, Catherine? He may never, in fact, have held the office. For whatever reason, this appointment as Flamin doesn't go through. It doesn't take. And the reason it doesn't take is partly that Senna is killed. The politics of the 80s are dominated by Sulla, even though Sulla is in the Eastern Mediterranean, because Sulla, There was a round of internal disturbance, which was a failed attempt to stop Sulla from taking control of the campaign against Mithridates. He's an enemy in the East. King of Pontus is a T, though.

Exactly. King of Pontus has been a problem for Rome for two, three decades by this point. Sulla is going to deal with Mithridates. He goes off and he is engaged in campaigning against Mithridates throughout the mid-80s, during which period his political opponents in Rome take control once more. But everybody knows that Sulla will come back with a well-trained army, and at that point, there will need to be some resolution to the gulf between him and the Marians, and that's unlikely to be resolved by peace and negotiation.

That happens and Sulla returns and Sulla is victorious in his campaign to seize control of Rome and Italy. It seems to be the case that he is unwilling to confirm the position of Caesar as Flamen Deiades. A small element in Sulla's much larger plans to reform the Roman state. Mason- Yes, does at that time, if Caesar's still quite a young person, does he have many interactions with Sulla? Do we know much about that relationship given that Sulla at that time? He's dictator of Rome, isn't he? So he's the leading figure now. Steele- Yes. After he has taken control militarily, he gets himself installed as dictator,

which is an office within the Roman race publica that hasn't actually been used for about 120 years. The Romans come up with other crisis mechanisms in the course of the second century. But Sulla decides that the dictator will be a good position because the great thing about the dictatorship, unlike other offices at Rome, is you don't have a colleague. There's very little limit on what you can do. And it's an emergency office, so you have emergency powers. Sulla makes himself a dictator. You're allowed to be a dictator for a particular purpose. He says he's a dictator to reestablish the res publica, which is a carte blanche for a major program of reform and also the elimination of his enemies. One of the things that Sulla does

– well, initially he starts by killing prisoners of war. He famously holds a meeting of the Senate with an earshot of where prisoners of war are being massacred so that the Senate is under no illusion as to what they are required to do. But then he moves to the bureaucratization of mass murder. So he comes up with prescription lists. So he publishes lists of names and the point is if somebody's name is on that list, there will be no legal penalties if they're killed and there will be a reward and their property is confiscated. Now, there is an argument that Sulla institutes prescriptions under pressure from people who said, you have to put some limits on the slaughter.

There is an argument that says this is better than what was happening immediately after his conquest of Rome. But it's hundreds of names. It's the elimination of his political enemies. Now, Caesar comes under suspicion. He's the son-in-law of Sinner. He has married Cornelia. And Sulla wants him to divorce Cornelia, which I think actually would have kind of put the kibosh on his being a Fl Flamen anyway because the Flamen has to give up his office under certain circumstances, including death or divorce espoused. And Caesar refuses to do that. What I think is less clear is how confident Caesar was about the penalty he's likely to face for this act of defiance. And in fact, his mother and his other female relatives, we are told, keep Caesar off the prescription

list. I mean, I think at this point, the patrician status is quite interesting because there's another good example of Sulla's apparent making an exception for people of patrician status. One of the consuls of the year 83 is a man called Scipio Asiaginis, who's a patrician and is defeated by Sulla in battle. But whereas in general, those who fought against Sulla are prescribed and hunted down,

he treats Scipio with a great deal of lenience and respect. And even when Scipio then kind of doesn't abide by the terms of agreement, the worst that he faces is exile, but he isn't hunted down, he isn't killed. And that's often used as an example to say that Sulla had some sort of respect for the patrician status that he had. One of the interesting things about the politics at the very end of the Republic is after a period in which patricians don't seem to be disproportionately successful, if you

look at who gets to the consulship in the 30 years between Sulla and the end of the Republic, there are a lot of men of patrician status. So something about the way that the Sulla raised publica felt and operated seems to have favored this particular ancient status. Anyway, there we have Caesar, no longer Flamen Deiolus, having had a row with Sulla, so we're told, but actually not basically alienated from it. Because what does he do now that he's free of the obligation of being farming? He goes off and he does some military service. The commanders he's serving under are all Sullans because by this point everybody is. Mason- But this is the next part of his story, isn't it? He's not in Rome at this time. He's in the Eastern Mediterranean and he does a variety of different things whilst he is in the Eastern Mediterranean. There are a few stories that become

repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated again about Caesar at this time, aren't there? Yes. Military heroism. He gets a military decoration for rescuing a fellow citizen's life during the assault on Mitilini, which is part of the hangover of the campaigns against the Mithridates. It's at this point, isn't it, that he's captured by pirates? So the story goes, he gets on terribly well with them and he's eventually ransomed and then he does what he says he was going to do, which is he comes back and he extopates them. But as an act of charity, he has their throats slit before they are crucified.

Now, this is a good story. It does various things about the Caesar myth, about the single-mindedness, the military ruthlessness, but also some strange sense that he's not actually a bloodthirsty man. Because later on, when we get to the Civil War period between him and Pompey, one of the great aspects of Caesar's self-presentation is precisely his clementia, his mercy. Because when the Civil War breaks out in 49, there is a real fear that the victory of either side will be accompanied by the kind of violence that accompanied Sulla's victory. In particular, there's real fear that if Pompey wins, he's the

main military commander on the other side, he'll be a second Sulla because, of course, Pompey really is a Sulla deterrent through and through. And so Caesar definitely capitalizes on that in 49 by saying, well, I shall be merciful. My victory will not be accompanied by massive bloodshed. And so we can see how that kind of aspect of Caesar can lead to the generation of stories about his mild non-bloodthirsty temper earlier on. If you're like me and you love history, but in particular you love the smutty, salacious, gossipy history, then do I have the perfect podcast for you. If you fancy finding out

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you get your podcasts. A podcast by HistoryHit. Kevin, it's an interesting story, this first 30 years of Caesar's story. You've talked about that relationship with Marius and then Sina and then Sulla, then leaving Rome. There are various ventures, as you say, in the eastern Mediterranean, Siege of Mytilene captured by pirates. When exactly that happens, I think there's some debate. When he goes back to Rome, let's say around 70 BC, so he's 30 years old by this time. He's seen quite a lot. He's done quite a lot. What position is he in at that time? As we get into the beginning of the 60s and he's seen all this in his life, is it now climbing the greasy pole, the political

ladder? What's his situation, let's say 70 BC? It is. Probably in 70, there's a little bit of debate about the dating. He stands for the Christuship, which is the most junior of the offices in the Cursus honorum. That is the sequence of offices that you hold at Rome, which leads to membership of the Senate. There are other more junior elected offices, but the Christa ship is the one that makes you automatically by this point after Sulla are a Senator. As soon as gone by this point, hasn't he? He's out of the picture. Oh yeah, Sulla actually he resigns and goes back to private life, dies fairly soon afterwards, but of

natural causes. Whereas of course when Caesar becomes dictator he's never going to give it up, which itself becomes a problem. Yes, so Solu is out of the way. And the raised public has reestablished itself, at least to obvious sight. We are back with elected office. We have two consuls every year. The last remaining bits of the civil wars are being dealt with. It takes quite a long time, not within Italy itself, but one, I think I mentioned Sartorius, he's one of the men who held office in the mid-80s, one of Sulla's opponents, and he leaves Italy for Spain, well, Hispania, the Iberian peninsula, where he sets up an alternative state, which lasts the best part of a decade. So he gathers to himself men who've been prescribed and have got out of Italy.

His own army he's taken over, so there are Roman citizens there. There are quite a lot of Roman citizens based in Hispania by now. And he basically establishes an alternative locus of power and negotiates with Nethrodite, who despite Sulla's claims to have won a great victory is still, surprisingly, yes, king of Pontus. And dealing with Sertorius actually takes quite a long time. He's a very effective military commander. He defeats various Romans who are sent to him. And this is one of the places where Pompey becomes such a great figure. Okay. So we do need to just talk about Pompey, if only to remind ourselves how conventional Caesar's career is. So Pompey is an adherent of Sulla. He's the son of a man who reaches the consulship in

89 BC. And in fact, Pompey faces some legal challenges after that. But the important thing about Pompey is when Sulla returns to Rome, Pompey, although at that point in his early twenties, raises an army and takes it to Sulla. Okay, so complete illegality. But he turns up and Sulla is so grateful for the military forces that he kind of with a bit of a fudge, he authorizes Pompey's power. And he then uses Pompey as an important part of the team that he uses to seize control of the Roman world to the extent that Pompey triumphs, has his first triumph, even though he has never held elected office and the basis of which he could have imperium is slightly dodgy, probably as early as 81. And then Pompey, what's Pompey going to do? This man in his early 20s, too young really to hold any serious elected office at Rome. Well, what the Senate eventually does is they

send Pompey pro consulate in the place of a consulate, though he's never held his office, to help deal with Sartorius. So he spends much of the 70s campaigning eventually successfully against Sartorius, though it doesn't harm his 70s campaigning, eventually successfully against Sertorius, though it doesn't harm his activity, all that of Metellus Pius, the other Roman general, that one of Sertorius' followers actually stabs him at a banquet and then the mopping up is quite straightforward. And that's how Pompey is spending his 20s. And then he gets back to Italy and there's something for him to do because there's the Spartacus revolt, which the Romans have been making a total mess of in terms

of suppressing. So he turns up just in time to claim all the credit for wrapping it up, which is maybe one of the reasons why he and Crassus disliked each other so much. And then after a bit of toing and froing, he does agree to dismiss his army, but surprise, surprise, he's allowed to stand for the consulship considerably ahead of the legal age and not having held any earlier office. So that's what a really spectacular career looks like, okay? Yes, exactly. I mean, Julius sees up to that time then, Catherine.

Although yes, he's been in the Eastern Mediterranean, he's sorted a stronghold and been captured by pirates in these stories. Compared to these other figures at the time, Crassus and Pompey, it's nothing near the same level. He sees that. Yeah. So, Pompey and Crassus are consuls in 70. They are probably consuls at the time at which Caesar has to stand for the Quistarship.

The bottom, right. The lowest rung. Okay, he's elected, but there are 20 Quistars every year, so it's hardly that big a deal. I'm loving this, right. The lowest rung. Okay, he's elected, but there are 20 queesters every year, so it's hardly that big a deal. I'm loving this, Catherine. Actually, just before we go on to that and how it progresses, this political ladder, you mentioned how Crassus and Pompey are the consuls and Caesar's looking up almost from several rungs down as the queester. This whole process, it's called the cursus honorum, isn't it? Could you explain just very briefly what we mean by the cursus honorum? It emerges over the course of the Reis publica, but it's very clearly standardized. One of

the things that Sulla does is he reaffirms what happens. You can stand for the Christa ship when you're 30, and that's pretty much an essential office now because that's the office that also gets you into the Senate. At 39, you can stand for the praetor ship, and at 42, you can stand for the conster ship and at 42 you can stand for the consul ship. And you can't be preter if you haven't been priest or you can't be consul if you haven't been preter. There's an additional office called the Edile Ship, which you can hold in the mid-30s. And Caesar actually does hold that because one of the things that makes the Edile Ship quite attractive is it's a magistrate that is based in Rome. So it's not a military

office. It's about kind of organization of the city of Rome. It has some quite significant religious duties to organize festivals. The details of those festivals are very much up to the ediles to decide the power of them. If they decide to spend a lot of money, they can put on fantastic displays which are generally regarded as adding to their popularity, because these are free public shows which people love. Invest heavily in the theatrical shows or the gladiatorial games or the beast hunts or whatever. This is all great. We've got letters in the 50s BC from Caelius who's a protege of Cicero to Cicero in Cilicia saying,

please send me some Panthers. Standard, yeah. Okay, fair enough. They make for a good show. As I say, Caesar will subsequently be aedile in the mid-60s. He holds the office with a man called Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who will be Caesar's colleague as Consul in 59. One of the really interesting things about Roman political life is if you're a boy in a political family, you're going to know very early on who your likely rivals are because of the way that eligibility for office is dependent on age and there's considerable cache in holding the office as early as you possibly can. You're looking around the school room and thinking, who's going to be my rival?

Wookerburn, my friend. Yeah, I'm going to be standing in the same area. Anyway, although they are ostensibly colleagues as Edile, and we're jumping ahead a bit, but it may be worth tossing in, and therefore collaborate on everything they do. Nobody pays any attention to Bibulus. It's all about Caesar. To the extent that they, I think the story is that they're like Castor and the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which everybody just calls the Temple of Castor. They're a pair, but Caesar just mops up all the credit and popularity. Mason- So he's increased to before that, the rank below in 70 BC. Is it that time when he's in that position or just after that story you mentioned right at the start, seeing the statue of Alexander

the Great, Caesar's in his early 30s, Alexander died at 32, and if Caesar think he's a similar age and he's got nothing similar to that of standing. But then coming back and getting the Edal, the next rank in 65 as you mentioned there, does he outdo Bibulus just because he spends more money? It feels like money must be such a big thing for these patricians if they're trying to climb the greasy pole, especially if you're holding public events. Yeah. We're not quite sure how Caesar manages to scoop up all the credit. I mean, I think it must partly be to do with charisma and his ability to present himself as a politician to create that kind of appearance of rapport with the Roman people. But money is

really important and some of it will have been Bivoulus'. Very little of it actually is likely to be Caesar's. It's going to be the men who are lending money to Caesar. Because one of the things that we are consistently told about Caesar is that he's heavily in debt. So he's borrowing money in order to finance his career. Now, we need to contextualize this partly because people don't tend to go around lending money without security in Rome. So we're probably talking about liquidity issues rather than actual impoverishment. But Cicero certainly owes a lot of money which is borrowed against property that may not be very liquid. We just don't, I think, have good evidence about how the Uli-Caesares family wealth matched up against other families. What we do, I think, know fairly confidently is from the second century BC

onwards, senatorial wealth is not only increasing as a class as a result of conquests of Eastern Mediterranean, but also diverging within that class. It is true that the Ulii Khazaris have not produced any of the great generals who have been conquering the Eastern Mediterranean, and so some of the more spectacular wealth may not have been part of that family. Equally, I'm ever so slightly hesitant about kind of taking all the stories on face value. I mean, the most famous one is about the election to the Pontifex Maximus in 63, where Caesar is supposed to have said to his mother Aurelia, I'll come back Pontifex Maximus or I won't

come back. The point being that he had bribed so heavily to win that election, that he was therefore so heavily in debt that if he didn't manage to heavily to win that election, that he was so heavily in debt, that if he didn't manage to secure election, disaster. Again, these stories about Caesar as a man who is prepared to take enormous risks, that bold visionary. Great stories. Does it also then emphasise, and I feel this also goes back to our story when we talked about the rise of Cicero, I think earlier on in Julius Caesar, he goes back to Rome for a bit, either just after or before he's taken by pirates when he goes back to Eastern Mediterranean, that he's a lawyer for a bit.

Maybe on his way back to Eastern Mediterranean earlier, he's going to the island of Rhodes, where there's a big rhetoric school, if I'm correct. Is that the other thing that is very, very important? We should also be consider when Caesar's rising and he's getting these different positions like the ideal ship and others at that time would also need that skill, which is the skill of giving speeches of rhetoric. Is that right at the centre of it? Well, Caesar is clearly a very effective orator. It's part of his multifaceted – you only have to read the Gallic Wars to see that this is somebody who is a genius with language. It's a different kind of genius from Cicero, but it's doing something

equally extraordinary with Latin that is completely, completely novel. I mean, we tend to regard Caesar as a model of how you write Latin. He created that model, right? It's all new and it's bizarre. There's a lot about Caesar's lethality that is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, totally wonderful. I remember just being bowled over by Caesar when I started to read a bit when I was at school. I mean, extraordinary stuff. But we shouldn't make too much of Caesar as an archer or as a lawyer.

I mean, you're absolutely right that one of the things he does early on in his career is he brings some prosecutions, a couple of prosecutions, which is interesting because actually, I mean, there's no Crown prosecution service or anything, every prosecution at Rome in the so-called Eudicchia publica, the big jury courts, for charges which we would generally call criminal, though that, as you know, that criminal civil distinction in Roman law is a bit problematic. So being a prosecutor is one of the relatively few ways in which a young man in his 20s can make an opportunity for himself on the public stage. There can be competition about who can bring charges against somebody, but if you win out and are identified as a prosecutor, then you

have an opportunity to speak in a legal context, but on matters of the various charges that are heard in front of these courts tend often to be of public significance. You have an opportunity to make your mark in that way. And there's clearly a phenomenon of the early career prosecutor where young men choose this way of advertising their existence to the Roman people. I suspect that a lot of it is based on ghostwriters,

but that may be a bit unfair on Caesar himself. And that's great. And he does actually publish the speeches that he delivered, but they're not successful. The men he prosecuted were both acquitted, which doesn't necessarily imply that he's incompetent, just that decisions around jury activity are quite complex in Rome and that they're both very early on in the Sulla period and that maybe he'd chosen figures rather too well embedded in the establishment to be successful. Interesting debate to be had about what's going on. So you're right, oratory matters to politics and Caesar was good at it. It's more difficult to say that he builds his career on being a really

effective public speaker in the way, say, that Sister of Cain did. So we've covered Queastorship and Edealship. We get down to around 63 BC, Catherine. Now, why is this year so important in the story of Caesar's rise, getting more to the fore? Okay, three reasons. First of all, he stands for and has elected Praetor. Not probably hugely surprising that he's successful, but this is the next stage of his career and we'll want to talk in a moment about what he does as Praetor. Secondly, he's elected as Pontifex Maximus.

And thirdly, he participates in the debate on the Catalinarian conspirators. So Pontifex Maximus. And thirdly, he participates in the debate on the Catalinarian conspirators. So Pontifex Maximus. So the fact that he had been abortively Flamen Deiilis doesn't seem to have stood in his way. Though interestingly, the position of Flamen Deiilis is not itself filled until Augustus. I suspect that the problem is nobody quite knew what to do. If Caesar had kind of

been Flamen, can you replace it while he's still alive? Maybe just too difficult to go there. So he's co-opted as a pontiff quite young. So that is a mark, right? That is a mark of distinction relatively early in his career. Probably his major achievement actually up until that point. And that will be a reflection of family and background and the fact that whatever his originally rocky start was, he does have connections within the Roman governing class. Remember, I talked about those relatives of his mother. The Aurelii Cotai produced three consuls in the course of the 70s BC, which is pretty good-going, three brothers. And he gets into the College of Pontiffs,

which is fine because Roman aristocrats, particularly patricians, do often get co-opted quite young into these positions. What is much more surprising is his decision to stand for the position of Pontifex Maximus because he's standing against two other much more senior men, much more eminent. He is still relatively junior. He hasn't held the consulship. I mean, we do have examples of earlier Pontifex Maximus, who haven't yet got to the consulship. He was elected a bit young, so it's not unprecedented, but it's a bold move to stand for election. It is an elected position, so you have to be a pontiff in order to stand, but it's then election. He is accused of heavy bribery to secure the position, and he's successful.

There he is, head of the state religion. And he clearly over the coming decades makes use of that in his public profile, but probably not a huge amount yet because of course, between 62 and 45, he spends almost all of his time outside Rome. He's in Rome for his consulship, but that aside, he's mostly away. And unlike the Flamandialis, which has to be in Rome, it seems actually relatively easy for the Pontifex Maximus to be absent. So he not only has quite a high role now in up the Cursus Honorum with the Praetor ship, but he's also the head of the religious sphere as well as Pontifex Maximus. So he's holding both those positions at the same time. That's quite something.

He's only unusual in the sense that the Pontifex maximus, more normally, at least in recent years, has been somebody who has already held a consulship and therefore is not going to be holding office. But the juxtaposition of offices isn't, I think, in itself a problem. But what is striking is that he's successful in that election. And then the third thing in 63 is his involvement or not with the Catalinarian conspiracy. So to recap, Lucius Sergius Catalina, another patrician in fact, from a family even more decayed and unsuccessful in recent decades than the Ulii Caesares, another sullen protégé, tries and fails for I think the third time to be elected to the consulship in the summer of 63. He's been making various inflammatory statements up to this point, but this seems to be the

moment at which Catiline tips over into more direct action in order to secure his position. The whole thing is quite murky. There is an armed uprising. What exactly Catiline was planning in the city of Rome and at what point he chooses to join forces with the armed uprising in the city of Rome and at what point he chooses to join forces with the armed uprising in Atruria is less care, but certainly he ends the year in a position of open revolt against Rome. Now, some people thought that Caesar was part of this conspiracy. Some people didn't think Caesar was part of the conspiracy but tried to make it seem as though he was in

order to blacken his name. There are plans to name him as a Catalinarian adherent in the great debates in December, which fail, and actually Cicero does not leave open the door for that. But the really striking thing is the debate on December the 5th, 63 BC. Because what has happened at that point, Catalina has left the city of Rome and is at the head of the armed forces in Atruria.

There is considerable alarm about that in Rome at the time, though in practice the military mopping up in January will be relatively straightforward. And Etruria is just north of Rome, isn't it? It's just north of Rome, yes, Tuscany. What is more alarming is that there were envoys, ambassadors in Rome, for one of the tribes in Gaul, the Alabrogues, who were based in southern Gaul, and who had come to Rome to complain about kind of rapacious behavior by Roman administrators and traders and so on. And the Catalonarian conspirators in the city of Rome attempted to suborn these men to join with them and therefore to instigate

an uprising in southern Gaul to be simultaneous with the military activity in Etorra and it is alleged elsewhere in Italy. The al-Abraugais decide this isn't actually a particularly good offer and they tell Cicero about it. Cicero says, okay, what I think you should do is get some letters from the men you're talking to in which they set out and guarantee their support. Then I think you ought to set off back for Gaul and I will arrange for you to be captured as you're leaving Rome and your possessions searched and we will find those letters. Cicero sets this up and it happens and therefore he is in a position

Cicero is in a position to bring to the Senate, which he does on December the 3rd, five letters in which various Romans kind of reveal their treacherous plotting. And what is particularly horrifying about this is some of these Romans are quite senior. So there's an ex-consul who was holding a pre-torship that year, and I think a couple of other senators. So this is kind of the heart of the establishment are apparently in league with foreign enemies. So this is a big deal. The men involved are arrested and then there's a big debate on December the 5th as to what to do with them. And from Cicero's point of view, this is where his public career starts to collapse. It doesn't look like at the time, but it does because the result of that debate is a vote for execution, which

Cicero oversees on the evening of December the 5th. And that's very, very problematic legally. He has no legal authority whatsoever to execute citizens without trial. Now we know a lot about this debate because Salastat, who wrote a monograph on the Catalonarian conspiracy, includes towards the end of it an enormous account of the debate in the Senate. We also have Cicero's speech, which he publishes himself as the fourth Catalonarian. Interestingly, Salastre gives Cicero virtually no part in the debate. He concentrates instead on the argument against capital punishment and the restatement of the argument for capital punishment. And the argument for capital punishment, which wins the day, is restated by Cato, who

will become known as Cato Uticensis, the Cato who fights against Caesar during the civil war and dies by suicide after he's defeated Utica, that great stoic sage of the late republic, and the case against capital punishment is put by Caesar. And this is really interesting in terms of the dynamics of the Senate-Royal debate because what seems to have happened is that Cicero kind of opened the debate and then one of the consuls-elect who was going to take office in a few weeks' time, Silenus, puts the motion of death and everybody agrees with him because you're called to express your opinion in a Senate or a royal debate in order of seniority.

And it is not until we get to the praetors-elect, and Caesar, who's called among the praetors-elect, that Caesar, rather than just saying I agree with so and so, if you're a senator and you're called in the debate you have to say something, but it doesn't need to be anything more than I agree with X. Right. You don't have to make a speech. But Caesar stands up and he gives what Sallust at least records as a very long speech in which he argues against capital punishment. On grounds partly of illegality, but partly on efficacy and partly on humanity. And it's incredibly influential. Everybody afterwards sort of says, oh, no, I didn't really mean death. No, no, I didn't think we should do that. And Silenus stands up and changes his mind and it's all a total mess. Until the younger

Cato stands up and says, no, come on, guys, this is a crisis. Decisive action. And Cato's measure is the one that's actually put to the vote and it's passed. And then Cicero takes the senatorial decree and he goes off and he executes it within about an hour. So although Caesar's on the side of the debate that loses, is he in a stronger position because of what he's done regardless? I think so. I think so. I mean, it's quite a high risk strategy for Caesar, given that there have been rumours that he's involved with Catiline, okay, because he's apparently defending them. So he takes a risk, but it allows himself to locate himself on the side of popular rights.

And interestingly, earlier in 63, there's a legal case that sees, I don't think himself talks to, but somebody who's very much known as one of his allies is heavily involved, a man called Labienus, who if you've read the Gallic Wars, you will see that Labienus is there as second in command constantly. Early in 63, there's a really interesting case, and we know quite a lot about it because Cicero offers the defense. It relates to events from 37 years earlier in 100 BCE, when there had been civil disturbance in Rome, there had been an attempt to stand illegally for office, there had been the assassination of a candidate, much of it led by the Tribune

of the Plebs, Saturninus. And Saturninus and his followers, things get completely out of hand, Marius is consul, and Saturninus and his followers take refuge in the Senate House. Prior, they must have assumed to some sort of negotiation, or they must have hoped prior to some sort of negotiation to resolve the crisis. What actually happens is that a band of citizens race up and climb on through the Senate House and stone them to death using the roof tiles. It's all hushed up. Marius loses a lot of reputational oomph from this whole fracas and catastrophe, and it's a disaster. But the whole thing is basically hushed up. But then some years later, it's revived by the

prosecution of a man who's accused of having been involved, who I think is chosen just because there aren't that many people who were thought to have been part of the mob who are still alive. It's a show trial in the sense that it is an opportunity to talk through issues of senatorial authority and the right to trial and popular rights. And it's pretty clear where Caesar is placing himself in that trial of Riberius earlier in 63. It's very prescient in some ways because of what happens later in 63, but it kind of is developing a consistent story for Caesar as somebody who despite his patrician background and despite the fact that because he's a patrician he hasn't been Tribune of Clebs, he's not

eligible to hold that office, nonetheless does seem to be alert to the will of the people. And that's where his emphasis on his links with Marius become relevant. He talks about Marius when he gives funeral speeches for some of his female relatives. One of the things we're told he does as Edal is restore some of Marius' statues and other memorials, which of course Sulla had very much tried to eliminate from Rome. He's developing a complex public profile as he moves up the Curses on the Wall. Catherine, I wish I had time to ask so many more questions about this, but as we've got to 6261, almost to wrap it up, because it feels like the consulship, I guess at the time, feels like he's

risen to the highest position, doesn't he? If we finish the rise of Julius Caesar with him attaining the consulship, what are his next moves to get to there in 62 BC? Is it quite quick for him to get to the highest position in the land? Yes. His pretership gets off to a bit of a stuttering start because there's some immediate anti-Cicero feeling that is stirred up by one of the tribunals of 62. Initially, Caesar seems to be quite sympathetic to that. He backs off very quickly though when the Senate make it clear that there is no sympathy for this and the rest of his praetorship passes off smoothly and he then does what praetors normally do at this period which is he takes

military command. So he goes back to Hispania where he holds military command reasonably successfully in fact quite successfully because when he returns to Rome in order to stand for the consulship there is an attempt to prevent him from doing that by holding up the debate on his triumph. Because one of the kind of weird technicalities of Roman religious and political practice is that the man who holds the triumph must hold imperium, he must hold the right to command that he has held during the campaign that has led to the triumph. And you surrender imperium at the moment at which you cross the city walls. And you can only stand for election if you make your profession of candidacy in person. So there's an attempt to prevent Caesar from

standing for the constitution in 59 by delaying his triumph. And what Caesar does, and again, it becomes part of the Caesar myth because it's this kind of ruthlessness and dynamism and decisive action, is he says, fine, forget my triumph. And he crosses the city walls and he makes his professio and he stands for election and he's elected. So, he doesn't get a triumph out of Hispania. You argue he makes up for that much later on, but that's another story. Catherine, it's been a fantastic chat. I mean, so many details. Also, you've highlighted how, yes, although there are oddities in his earlier life, in his earlier rise, it's only actually quite late on in the story, before he becomes cons consulship that he almost rises to the fore and becomes a bit more extraordinary. I didn't realise that as much as I do now

that actually sometimes Julius Caesar's early, early, early story, those oddities are put to the fore in contrast actually to the majority of it, which is very similar to any other patrician at the time. And remember too that the survival of the biographies means that we do have more anecdotes about Caesar than we do about other people. I mean most Roman politicians, you know, we notice they exist when they hold the consulship. Catherine, this has been fantastic. Such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast and it just goes to me to say thank you for coming back on today. Well thank you. Well there you go, there was Professor Catherine Steele talking through the rise of Julius Caesar and his many stories until he attained the consulship in 59 BC. In the meantime,

if you'd like more from Catherine, well, Catherine has featured on the podcast once before where she talked through the rise of Cicero. You can find that episode in our Ancients Archive. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. Now don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts at free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com slash subscribe. Lastly, if you want more ancient history videos and clips, then be sure to follow me on Instagram

at ancientstristin. Now that's enough from me and I'll see you in the next episode.