Caesar’s Civil War: The History of the Conflict against Pompey the Great that Ended the Roman Republic

The ultimate conqueror, statesman, dictator, visionary, and opportunist, during his time in power, Julius Caesar expanded the borders of Rome to almost twice their previous size, revolutionized the infrastructure of the Roman state, and destroyed the Roman Republic for good, leaving a line of emperors in its place. His legacy is so strong that his name has become, in many languages, synonymous with power: the emperors of Austria and Germany bore the title Kaiser, and the Tsars of Russia also owe the etymology of their title to Caesar.

Even in his time, Caesar was in many ways larger than life, and because of his legacy as virtual founder of the Roman Empire, much of what was written about – and by – him during his life and immediately after his assassination was politically motivated. The fact that he was murdered on the Ides of March is universal knowledge, but it’s often forgotten that he was stabbed while entering the Curia of Pompey, one of the Senate’s meeting places, in March of 44 BCE. The curia was a theater dedicated to Pompey the Great, Caesar’s rival in the civil war that ended the Republic and made Caesar dictator. When Caesar was stabbed, he fell at the base of a colossal statue of Pompey.

Thanks to Caesar’s victory in the civil war, Pompey is mostly remembered not for being one of Rome’s greatest generals, but for being defeated by Caesar and then ignominiously murdered after he fled to Egypt, where the boy pharaoh Ptolemy XIII decapitated Pompey and offered his head to Caesar as a gift. Although Caesar was there chasing Pompey’s men, he quickly became involved in Egypt’s own civil war. As a consequence of Ptolemy’s barbarity, Caesar impulsively decided to side with his sister Cleopatra in her bid for the throne of Egypt, escalating what was rapidly becoming an all-out civil war.