Julius Caesar Research Paper

Early Life Gaius Julius Caesar was born in the year 100 B.C. Little is known about Julius’s childhood but what we do know is that he lived a very hard life while growing up. Both of his parents were part of the patrician family and are claimed to be the descendants of the goddess Venus. His parents were Aurelia Cotta and Gaius Caesar whom even though both born aristocrats they were not wealthy at all. Caesars Aunt Julia married Gaius Marcus who was a esteemed political figure during this time period. Julius’s father died when he was sixteen years old but he stayed very close with his mother. During Julius childhood, Rome was extremely unstable, the Roman citizens distrusted the nobility and the republic that was established could not control

Before his death Caesar put in place a number of reforms and new political policies to help ensure the Roman citizen had more rights and structure. Caesar had three main goals that he sought to achieve, the first was to restore order to the Roman Empire which he achieved when he defeated Pompey in Egypt. The second goal was to create a strong central government in favor of the Roman citizens, the third goal was to unite the entire Roman Empire. To achieve the second and third goal Julius had to increase his own power and decrease the power of the Roman Republic. Julius then put in place a series of reforms such as the calendar which replaced the old roman calendar which followed the cycle of the moon with the Egyptian calendar which followed the cycle of the sun. The calendar was first put out on 1 January 45 B.C, known as the Julian calendar which in fact we still use today. This calendar established a year to be 365 days long and a leap day every 4 years. The month of Quintilis was renamed July after Julius. Julius also rewarded families for having children and helping build back up the population in Italy. He restricted the purchase of certain luxuries, outlawed professional guilds, and put in place a debt restricting law which actually eliminated one-fourth of all debt that was previously owed. He had the temple of Venus Genetrix built, distributed public land to over fifteen thousand soldiers, and also put in place term limits for government officals. Along with all of these reforms and changes he also set in place a police force and land officials to help keep order. Julius was very popular with the middle and lower class in Roman society because he showed them that he cared about how they lived. With all of these changes and advancements to Roman society he was given the honors of being the “Divine Julius” because he was so popular with the Roman people.