JULIUS CAESAR GENERAL, DICTATOR (c. 100 BCE-44 BCE) Roman general and statesman Julius Caesar turned the Roman Republic into the powerful Roman Empire. A coup ended his reign, and his life, on the Ides of March. Gaius Julius Caesar: His Place in History 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. His conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world all the way to the Indian Ocean, and he also conducted the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC. 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 (dictator perpetuus), and heavily centralized the bureaucracy of the Republic. However, a group of senators, led by Caesar's former friend Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated the dictator on the Ides of March (March 15) in 44 BC, hoping to restore the normal running of the Empire. The result was another Roman civil war, which ultimately led to the establishment of a permanent democracy by Caesar's adopted heir, Gaius Octavianus. Julius Caesar (10044 B.C.) is without a doubt, the most famous of all Roman historical figures. In European history, Julius Caesar has been revered as the founder of the monarchy from the supreme secular power in the West takes its name. (Kaiser, Czar, Caesar). The Renaissance discovered his personality: Caesar embodied the ideal of the Renaissance man: conqueror, general, great writer, and lover. History has seen him as the man who organized Rome, saved the Empire and ultimately solved the long and destructive constitutional crisis of the Republic. To many of his contemporaries, he seemed to be a man whose exploits transcended the usual scale of human possibility. In the words of the great German historian of Rome Theodor Mommsen, he ordered "the present and future destiny of the world. He thus acted more effectively than any mortal before or since." (By the way, Mommsen's History of Rome is the strongest statement of the Caesar Cult and one of the true masterpieces of historical literature-it won the very first Nobel Prize for Literature!) From Shakespeare to Al Capone, one could cite endless quotations praising the genius and statesmanship of Julius Caesar.