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Caesar, Julius
Caesar, Julius (100-44 B.C.), one of the most famous men of antiquity who was dictator of Rome, a renowned general, and man of letters.
Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 12, 100 B.C. His family, the gens Julia, was ancient and patrician, but at the time of his birth it was only beginning to reemerge as an influential family in Roman politics. Caesar's aunt Julia married Marius, the successful general and leader of the Popularis party. Caesar's anti-Senatorial attitude was at least partially the result of his relationship to Marius.
Early Career. In 84 B.C. the Marian faction appointed the young Caesar as Flamen Dialis, a priest of Jupiter. Somewhat later Caesar strengthened his attachment to the Marians by marrying Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna (the leader of the popular party after Marius' death in 86). When the Roman general Sulla returned from the east and defeated the Marians, he ordered Caesar to divorce his wife. But Caesar refused, and Sulla confiscated his property and deprived him of his priesthood. Caesar's life was spared only when his friends interceded with Sulla on his behalf. But Sulla was still skeptical and is reported to have said, "In this Caesar there is more than one Marius."
Because Caesar could not feel safe in Rome while Sulla was alive, he went in 81 to the province of Asia. Later he served under the proconsul of Cilicia, but in 78, after he heard of Sulla's death, he returned to Rome. In Rome he sought popularity through his oratory in the law courts; and finally, to improve his oratory, he left Rome again in 75 and went to Rhodes to study under the famous rhetorician Apollonius Molon.
Nothing of great historical significance happened to him after that until his election to the quaestorship in 69 (for the year 68). He served in Farther Spain. In 66, Caesar ran for the aedileship, and his campaign was financed by one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome, Crassus. As aedile, Caesar was responsible for supervising the public games, and with Crassus' money he sponsored spectacular contests to gain the favor of the populace. In 63 he was elected pontifex maximus. Then, in 62, he became praetor. In 61, Caesar became propraetor of Farther Spain, and after some military expeditions he returned to Rome to celebrate a triumph and run for the consulship.
The First Triumvirate. This was the great turning point in his career. According to Roman law a general had to stay outside the city until the day of his triumph, but a candidate for the consulship had to present himself before the magistrates in the city. Caesar asked permission to stand for the consulship while remaining outside Rome so that he could celebrate his triumph. The Senate refused. Caesar then gave up his triumph to seek the consulship, but he was now alienated from the Senate. He began to negotiate with Pompey the Great, who was seeking land for his veterans and ratification of the arrangements he had made in the east after his successful campaign against Mithridates. The Senate had also alienated Pompey by refusing his requests. Crassus, who had recently been rebuffed by the Senate, joined Caesar and Pompey. The three formed an unofficial political coalition, called the First Triumvirate, and decided to control Roman politics. Pompey could provide the soldiers and Crassus the money, and Caesar had popularity.
In 59, Caesar became consul with Bibulus, an ineffective colleague. He proposed a land bill for Pompey's veterans, and when the Senate refused to act on it, he took it directly to the people in the Tribal Assembly. Three tribunes vetoed it, and Bibulus declared the omens unfavorable, but with the support of Pompey and Crassus, Caesar called in some troops and the bill was passed. In addition, Caesar secured the ratification of Pompey's arrangements in the east. Then he rewarded Crassus by supporting a bill that Crassus desired. To cement the triumvirate, Pompey married Caesar's daughter, Julia.
Caesar was determined to do something for himself. By the terms of the Lex Vatinia de Caesaris provincia he secured as his proconsular provinces Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum; his proconsulship was to last for five years. After this law was passed, the governor of Transalpine Gaul died, and that province was added to Caesar's other two. The acquisition of these provinces was of great advantage to Caesar. It gave him an opportunity to recruit and train an army, and he would be in an ideal location to march on Rome whenever he wished. Until this time he had had only popularity; henceforth he had popularity and armed might.
The Gallic Wars. For the next eight years (58 51) Caesar was occupied by the Gallic Wars, although he was always in close contact with developments in Rome. When Caesar became proconsul of Transalpine Gaul, the province included only southern Gaul. But Gallic tribes soon asked him to intervene to protect them against other tribes, and at the end of 58 he set up winter quarters in northeastern Gaul. In 57 what are now northern France and Belgium fell to the Roman troops. The tribes along the Atlantic coast were conquered in 56, and in 55 and 54 Caesar campaigned in Germany and Britain. Gaul had not been completely pacified, but Caesar's army seemed everywhere victorious.
However, in 52 the tribes of central Gaul rose in revolt under Vercingetorix. This was the most serious challenge Caesar ever faced in Gaul. Finally he cornered Vercingetorix in Alesia, where the Gallic chieftain ultimately surrendered. By 51, except for occasional local rebellions, the conquest of Gaul was complete. Caesar's army was highly trained and well disciplined and fanatically loyal to him. His military exploits, particularly the invasion of Britain, made him even more popular with the people.
The Dissolution of the Triumvirate. Meanwhile in Rome political events of great magnitude were taking place. The First Triumvirate was falling apart because of the quarrels of Pompey and Crassus. There was rioting in the city, and members of the Senate were beginning to attack Caesar. Therefore, in 56 he called a meeting of the First Triumvirate in the city of Luca (now Lucca) in his own province of Cisalpine Gaul. The triumvirs met secretly, patched up the Triumvirate, and made certain decisions that were to determine the fate of the Roman republic.
It was agreed that Pompey and Crassus should be consuls in 55, and afterward Pompey was to receive the two Spains as his provinces, while Crassus would get Syria. Each of them received his provincial commands for a five-year period. Caesar's own commands were extended for five years (until March 1, 50). Pompey was given the privilege of remaining in Italy and governing his Spanish provinces through legates.
At this point the First Triumvirate seemed to be strong again. But the appearance was deceptive. In 54, Julia, Pompey's wife and Caesar's daughter, died, and one real bond between the two men was lost. In the following year Crassus was killed at the Battle of Carrhae, during his attempted invasion of the Parthian Empire. Only Caesar and Pompey remained, and the senators at Rome immediately began to drive a wedge between them.
Because of rioting in the city it was impossible to hold the consular elections for the year 52. The Senate, which preferred Pompey to Caesar, secured a sole consulship for Pompey and gave him extraordinary powers to protect the city. At this time Julius Caesar was concerned about a constitutional matter: his command in Gaul was coming to an end, and he did not want to lay it down to become a private citizen. If he did so, he would be liable to prosecution in the courts for any illegal acts he had committed as a magistrate, but as long as he held public office he could not be sued. He wanted to be elected to a second consulship while he was still proconsul of Gaul. However the holding of both offices was illegal.
Although Pompey was moving more and more into an alliance with the senatorial faction, he was not prepared to break with Caesar. Thus, in 52 he sponsored a bill that permitted Caesar to run for the consulship in absentia. This did not, however, give Caesar the right to retain his proconsular command until he became consul, so the senators sought to force him out of Gaul before his second consulship. At the same time Caesar tried to prolong his command until after the elections of 49, and Pompey neither gave his support to this scheme nor denied it.
The consuls of the year 51 opposed Caesar's request for an extension, and two anti-Caesarean consuls were elected for 50. Caesar's opponents insisted that he lay down his command, and his partisans replied that he would be willing to do so if Pompey did the same. Pompey refused, and the Romans began to prepare for civil war. In December 50, Caesar was bitterly attacked in the Senate, and he moved with some of his legions close to the border of Italy. To avoid war, Caesar made one last offer to lay down his command if Pompey would also. This was again refused, and on January 10, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the river that separated his province from Italy, and the Civil War began. Caesar is reputed to have said, "The die is cast."
Civil War. Caesar moved with lightning rapidity down the east coast of Italy. He took Picenum and Corfinium while Pompey withdrew with his entire force to Brundisium and sailed to Greece. Almost overnight, Caesar became the master of Italy. But he was by no means in an enviable position. Pompey controlled Spain on one side of Italy and secured a stable base in Greece on the other side. In addition he had control of the sea. Caesar was virtually surrounded.
He decided to strike first at Pompeian forces in Spain. After a short but difficult campaign he was successful and finally could begin plans to defeat Pompey in Greece. Early in 48 he sailed across the Adriatic and faced Pompey at Dyrrhachium. But Pompey cut off his supplies, and after several difficult weeks Caesar was forced to break away and head east toward Thessaly, where he could feed his army.
Pompey followed and camped opposite Caesar at Pharsalus. In the battle that followed, Caesar was victorious, and Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by the Egyptians. Caesar arrived three days later to find Egypt in political chaos. The young Ptolemy XIII and his advisers were quarreling with his sister Cleopatra. Ptolemy's advisers turned against Caesar and besieged him in the palace quarters of Alexandria during the winter of 48 47. Caesar championed Cleopatra's cause, and when his reinforcements arrived, he defeated Ptolemy. Cleopatra became the real ruler of Egypt. Caesar lingered with her for a while, obviously enchanted by her charms, but eventually he had to leave for Asia Minor where Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, was in revolt. Caesar defeated him within five days; this victory was the occasion for his famous "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered").
The Consolidation of Victory. In the summer of 47, Caesar was able to return to Italy. By that time the remnants of the Pompeian forces were gathering in North Africa, and Caesar decided to put them down. He sent his own men over during the winter of 47 46, and defeated the Pompeians at the Battle of Thapsus. It was after this battle that Cato the Younger, the spokesman of senatorial conservatives, committed suicide. But Caesar's task was not yet over. Some of the Pompeians escaped to Spain, and Caesar, after returning to Italy, set out in pursuit. In 45, at the Battle of Munda, he eliminated them. He had now become the sole ruler of Rome.
Throughout this period and in the few months remaining to him after his final victory over the Pompeian forces, despite his preoccupation with warfare he effected numerous reforms in Rome and Italy. In 46 he reformed the Roman calendar; the Julian calendar is still the basis of our calendar today. To ease economic burdens, he remitted approximately one quarter of the principal of debts, and later all of the interest that had accrued since the beginning of the Civil War. He cut the number of citizens eligible for the grain dole from 320,000 to 150,000. He inaugurated a building program and passed laws to regulate traffic and open spaces and to provide for the upkeep of roads. The system of taxation in some of the provinces was reformed, and Roman citizenship was generously bestowed on many provinces. Colonies were founded for his veterans and the surplus population of the city.
Actually, at this time, Caesar was planning another major military campaign. The Roman defeat at the Battle of Carrhae had never been avenged, and Caesar hoped to conquer the Parthian Empire. In 44 he planned to march east, and he began recruiting an army for that purpose, but on the Ides of March (March 15), he was assassinated in the Senate.
The Assassination. It is impossible to understand why Caesar was assassinated without first reviewing his position in government. When he crossed the Rubicon he had been merely the outlawed governor of several provinces. After his initial victories he was appointed dictator in 49. He held the office for only 11 days, long enough to supervise the consular elections for 48, in which he was elected himself. Then he was named dictator again for one year beginning in October 48. When his term expired, he was elected to his third consulship (for the year 46). In the spring of 46, after the Battle of Thapsus, he was praefectus morum, which gave him censorial powers for three years, and dictator again for 10 years. He was also elected consul for 45.
After the Battle of Munda (45) many further honors were voted to him. He was given the title Liberator and elected to his fifth consulship (for 44). Early in 44 he received the dictatorship for life. His name was given to a month of the year (our July), and he was called Parens Patriae. His statue appeared in various places in the city, and a temple was erected to his clemency. Some people tried to hail him as king, and this trend toward monarchical power led to his assassination. The senators could not tolerate any man who made such a show of his power.
Historians are divided on the question of whether Caesar intended to be king, but it is irrelevant. He definitely intended to act like a king, and that was unacceptable to the aristocratic senators. The members of the conspiracy, led by Brutus and Cassius, stabbed him to death at a meeting of the Senate on the Ides (15) of March, 44 B.C.
Personal Characteristics. Julius Caesar was one of the most remarkable men in antiquity or in any period. He was a highly successful general. As a strategist and tactician he fell short of greatness, but he made up for that with speed and boldness as well as courage. His ability as a statesman did not have the opportunity to develop, but all signs indicate that he was extremely sensitive to social and economic problems and was also bold enough to attempt new solutions. As a politician, however, he became too overbearing. The poet Lucan compared him to a bolt of lightning, saying, "Nothing may stand against it, either during that furious progress through the clouds, or when it bursts against the earth and at once recomposes its scattered fires."
Caesar is important not only as a statesman and a general, but also as a man of letters. His Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil wars are still widely read today. They were written in a very clear and direct prose style famous for its affected objectivity. In them Caesar referred to himself as "he" or as "Caesar," but not as "I." The simplicity and directness of their style have made the Commentaries popular with teachers of beginning Latin classes. In the field of oratory he was regarded as second only to Cicero.
Caesar was married three times. His first wife was Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, leader of the Marian faction in the mid-80s B.C. The marriage was a political one, but he seems to have been truly devoted to her. They had one child, a daughter, Julia (who later married Pompey the Great). Cornelia died in 69, and not long afterward Caesar married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla. In 62 he divorced her because of a scandal. In that year the religious festival of the Bona Dea was celebrated in Caesar's house under the direction of his wife. It was a ceremony open only to women, but Clodius, Pompeia's lover, dressed himself in woman's clothing and went into Caesar's house, where he was discovered. The sacrilege shook Rome, and Clodius was brought to trial, but he was acquitted through generous bribery. Caesar, however, divorced his wife, saying, "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." He married his third wife, Calpurnia, in 58 and remained with her until his assassination.
Caesar was generally regarded as very much a ladies' man. He had many illicit affairs. One of the best known was with Servilia, the mother of Brutus; but by far the most notorious was his affair with Cleopatra, by whom he had an illegitimate son, Caesarion. His reputation as a rake was so widespread that his own soldiers sang this line while celebrating the Gallic triumph: "Men of Rome, guard your wives the bad adulterer is coming." He also had a reputation for homosexuality and once was called "every woman's man and every man's woman."
Caesar had no direct male heirs, so in his will he adopted his grandnephew Octavius, much to the chagrin of Mark Antony. Octavius had accompanied Caesar to Spain and at the time of the assassination was in Illyricum, waiting to go with the dictator on the Parthian campaign.
We know something about Caesar's personal appearance. According to Suetonius he was tall and had a fair complexion. His eyes were black. A vain man, he was greatly troubled by his baldness and combed what hair he had forward over his head to conceal it. He apparently was quite happy to wear the laurel wreath for this reason. He was regarded as a fashionable dresser. His health was excellent except for infrequent attacks of epilepsy.
Evaluation. All in all, Caesar was an imposing figure. He made a profound impression on his contemporaries, and every subsequent age has found excitement and fascination in the man. Opinions about him are quite divided. Some see him as a power-hungry, self-seeking politician, others as a brilliant statesman. Perhaps the most famous scholarly treatment of him is that of the great German historian Theodor Mommsen, who in his History of Rome presented Caesar as a superman, the political genius of the late Roman republic. In the 20th century, however, scholars have tended to direct more attention to his heir and successor, Emperor Augustus. But Caesar's place in English literature is far more secure than that of Augustus, owing to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.
The name "Caesar" soon became a title. Originally it was simply a family name of the Julian clan, but because of Julius Caesar's success and that of his immediate successors the name became magic. The first five Roman emperors (from Augustus through Nero) used it as a family name. When the Julio-Claudian dynasty died with Nero, succeeding emperors retained the nomenclature. The emperors themselves were always called Augustus, but as time went by it became fashionable to give the name "Caesar" to the heir designate. When the Roman Empire declined and fell, the title "Caesar" lived on even into the 20th century. The German "kaiser" and the Russian "czar" are both derived from "Caesar."
Arther Ferrill
University of Washington

Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon and the greatest general in ancient times. By the age of 32 he had founded an empire stretching from the Adriatic Sea to India. He was born in Pella, Macedon, in 356 B.C., the son of King Philip II of Macedon. His mother was Olympias, an Epirote princess.
Mastery of Greece. Alexander was magnetic, intensely willful, mystical in thought, while practical in action. As a pupil of Aristotle he learned the use of scientific investigation, became interested in doctoring the sick, and deeply attached to Greek tradition having been told that Heracles and Achilles were his ancestors.
At 16, serving as regent during his father's absence in Byzantium, he subdued a rising of Illyrian tribes by attacking them. Put in command of the select Companion cavalry at 18, he spearheaded his father's victory at Chaeronea over the degenerating Greek city-states, which had been roused to resistance by the oratory of Demosthenes. A year later he was an exile, after Philip cast off his mother, Olympias.
At the age of 20 he was placed on the throne of Macedon (336 B.C.) as Alexander III by the army commanders after the assasination of Philip by unidentified enemies. In neither assassination nor election did Alexander have a hand.
Alexander faced enemies on all sides. Philip's death encouraged the tribal Thracians and Illyrians to hostility in the north, and at the same time it relieved the fears of the Greek cities in the south. When Alexander moved north, crossing the Danube to confront the savage Celts, the city of Thebes rebelled in the south. Turning south by forced marches, the Macedonians fought their way into Thebes and destroyed the city, except for its temple and the house of Pindar. Having first shown remarkable mildness to the barbarians, Alexander startled Greece by the severity of his reaction against Thebes. He was then, as Philip had been, captain-general of the Hellenes, head of the Panhellenic League. He wished to treat the Greeks as free allies, but he had no friends among them. Sparta, strengthened by Persian gold, remained antagonistic.
But the greatest danger to Alexander lay in the Persian empire, which stretched from the Dardanelles to the Indian Punjab and north into the nomadic steppes. This empire comprised loose aggregations of peoples, governed by satraps and held together only by the authority of its Great King (Darius III) and by its tight control of the sea and of the continental trade routes, which fed its well-managed finances. Alexander, though, had no semblance of a fleet. He had 70 talents in his treasury and owed 1,300. He did not make the decision to invade Persia because Philip and his commanders already had made it ostensibly as revenge for past Persian aggressions and to free the Greek cities of the Asia Minor seaboard, but more realistically to restore the weak Macedonian economy.
Conquest of Asia Minor. In the spring of 334 B.C., Alexander crossed the Dardanelles. He did not believe himself to be, as legend has it, a god-power destined to rule the world. This inexperienced ruler was leading 35,000 veterans, who had no desire to leave their homeland, against great odds in manpower and wealth. His expedition had to supply and to pay itself as it went. Philip's genius for organization had given it able intelligence, surveyors, and engineers. Alexander added architects, scholars, naturalists, and artists. His first act in Asia was to hold a festival at the site of Troy, where he figuratively took for himself Achilles' ancient shield as a symbol of the new Greek "holy war" against Asia.
At the meeting with local Persian forces on the river Granicus, Alexander nearly lost his life through recklessness. But the defeat of the Asian horsemen and the capture of their Greek mercenaries opened the Ionian Greek ports and Sardis (334 B.C.). Only Miletus was defended by Ionian cities to do as they liked. They proceeded to rid themselves of the Persian-imposed tyrants and of taxation without giving any material aid to the Macedonian expedition. Alexander's novel idea was to treat such communities not as subjects but as partners in his rule. Turning inland to the Phrygian highlands, he took the submission of the mountain peoples in the same way. At Gordium he untied the Gordian knot on the enshrined chariot. He did not cut it with his sword, but pulled out the peg hiding the loose end of the knot.
Until then Alexander had followed closely the advice of his senior commanders: Antipater, who was left as viceroy in Macedon, and Parmenion. Now he overruled Parmenion and started a march around the Mediterranean's end to capture the bases of the Persian allied fleet, which cut him off from his own base in Macedon-Greece. By an unexpected night march, the expedition got through the gorge known as the Cilician Gate, leading to the fertile Syrian coast, where the expedition almost met its end. On the narrow coastal road near the village of Issus (333 B.C.) the Great King, Darius III, with a formidable field army, appeared in the rear of the Macedonians, effectively cutting them off by land as well as the sea. Caught in this manner, Alexander turned back at night, meeting the advance of the pursuing Persians at daybreak in the narrow valley of the river Pinarus.
The Macedonian army was distinguished for its mobility, the steadiness of the farmer-phalanx-men, and the impetus in attack of its heavy cavalry, composed of the Companions (Macedonian nobles) and Thessalians. It had superb officers, and now it had Alexander's alert, unquenchable determination to lead it. While Parmenion and the left flank fought, actually, in the wash of the sea, Alexander worked his shock cavalry across the mountain slope on the right and came headlong down behind the Persian line. Darius could not stand the onslaught and fled in his chariot. His flight took the heart out of his troops, and the savage Macedonian pursuit scattered the army of the Great King so that it never assembled again. At Damascus the Persian army's treasure and supply train were captured, giving Alexander wealth for the first time. The Battle of Issus stunned the Mediterranean coast. The Phoenician port of Sidon welcomed the Macedonians.
Fall of the Levant and Egypt. Militarily, Alexander's greatest feat was the siege of Tyre (332 B.C.). Situated a quarter of a mile out in the sea, Tyre resisted him for seven months, trusting in its invulnerability. Macedonian engineers reached it by constructing the still extant mole. The capture was effected by warships, mostly from Sidon, that now served Alexander. When the Persian-commanded fleet had disintegrated because the Phoenician, Cypriote, and Egyptian crews returned to their native ports, Alexander controlled the eastern Mediterranean. After being wounded at the siege of Gaza, he could rest himself and his men in Egypt, which accepted him readily as a pharaoh so he was proclaimed by the sacred oracle of Ammon at Siwa since he was more akin to them than was the Great King.
In the winter of 332 331 B.C. differences arose between Alexander and Parmenion, his marshal, the spokesman for the Macedonian nationalist group of the army. All the objectives of Philip's Panhellenic plan had been gained, miraculously, and were exceeded. The historic cultural axis between Egypt and Greece had been restored. Darius, whose family had been captured at Issus, offered tempting terms of bullion payment and a frontier on the Euphrates for peace. Parmenion, reputedly, said that he would accept the peace if he were Alexander. "And so would I," Alexander as the tale goes answered, "if I were Parmenion." As he had been unwilling to retreat in Asia Minor with the enemy fleet a menace at sea, so he would not rest his arms on the Nile in the face of the Persian armies.
After the Battle of Issus, Alexander seems to have formed the idea that he could drive the Great King from his empire without fighting the peoples of Persia. If Greeks could be fused with Egyptians, why not Asians with Greeks? Aristotle never had believed possible such a homonoia (common humanity) in which civilized people would merge with barbarians. Henceforth it was to be Alexander's objective.
Final Destruction of the Persian Empire. As a first step toward this world order, Alexander founded his new capital, Alexandria, at a mouth of the Nile, where it was to become a trade terminal. There would be more than 60 Alexandrias begun by his engineers at intersections of trade routes. For he marched eastward now with a moving settlement of technicians and allied peoples, sending home all war-weary Greek and Macedonian units as fresh drafts reached him along his lengthening line of communications. With this altered army he crossed the Tigris to defeat and to dissipate the full levy of the Persian horde (331 B.C.) on the plains at Gaugamela (Arbela). Thereafter the Asian levies, loyal to the monarchy rather than to Darius, a usurper, withdrew to their distant homelands. Alexander's pursuit was pressed to the limit of endurance, down the rivers to Babylon, up to the second capital at Susa, and over the mountains to the sacred city of Persepolis, which was burned after his entrance either accidentally or to impress the Persians by destroying the Great King's sanctuary. In Susa and Persepolis his headlong pursuit won him the imperial treasure of some 180,000 talents in bullion and coin so fabulous an amount that he demonetized the gold to equate it with the smaller Graeco-Macedonian silver coinage. Thrusting through the winter-bound mountains to the third capital, Ecbatana (Hamadan), Alexander tracked the fugitive Darius across the desert toward the Caspian Sea, where, with only 500 Macedonians keeping pace with him, he found Darius dead, assassinated by angered officials (330 B.C.).
Alexander's Cosmopolitanism. At this point Alexander had to deal with the problem of administering this new kind of empire. Originally king of Macedon and generalissimo of the Hellenes, he became the godlike pharaoh of Egypt and then Great King of Asia. His solution to the problem of governing was to leave unchanged the Persian land system and satrapy (governor) control. Over Babylon which he intended to be his land capital, as Alexandria was to be the capital on the sea he placed Mazai, the Persian noble, who had led the Persians at Gaugamela. He separated civil from military and financial administrations, mingling Asian with Macedonian officials, except in finances. This treatment of Asians as equals increasingly angered the Macedonian core of the army.
Alexander eagerly assimilated the religious mysticism of the Nile and of Magian Persia. Not only did he protect these religions, but also as sole ruler, he necessarily assumed the semidivine aspect of an Asian despot, wearing Persian attire at ceremonies and accepting prostration in his presence.
With much justice his own officers believed that Alexander no longer was acting as king of Macedon in conquered territory. Inevitably his concept of homonoia clashed with the stubborn nationalist sentiment of the Macedonians. There was a conspiracy to kill him, which resulted in his execution of Philotas, commander of the Companion cavalry, of the veteran Parmenion, father of Philotas, and of Callisthenes, a philosopher of Aristotle's school, who opposed the act of prostration.
East to India. This ideological cleavage widened as Alexander insisted on pressing into mountainous eastern Persia (329 B.C.) to end the satrap's resistance there. In so doing he ventured beyond Greek geographical knowledge. The army felt itself lost in the limbo of the world, uncertain whether it was nearing the Maeotis (Azov) or the Aral seas. The army met bitter, nationalistic resistance from the mountain peoples of what is now Afghanistan. It followed Alexander across an unknown river, the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), to meet the attack of Scythian nomads. More than two years were needed to subdue these eastern ranges, which were terrible in winter. Incredibly, while subduing them, Alexander maintained his communications, built a new chain of cities (the farthest at the modern cities of Samarqand and Khujand), and colonized his conquest. He also married Rushanak (Roxane), daughter of an enemy leader.
Hearing of the river Indus, he drove the army eastward across the Hindu Kush (327 B.C.). His army had understood the need to consolidate all the Persian dominion, but believed this new venture to be a madman's act. Actually, Alexander thought that he was entering the last peninsula of the earth: that beyond it lay the Ocean of the East. He reached the Indus with a growing following, a moving state of allied peoples and their families, while his remaining Macedonians laid down pontoon bridges, shored up roads over immense ranges, and fought battles when necessary. Passing from friendly country around Taxila (near Attock), they encountered the hostile Paurava rajah at the Jhelum River, where the Macedonian infantry had to fight against armored elephants for the first time. Alexander and his equestrian spearhead could not approach the elephants, which terrified the horses. This shook the Macedonian veterans, who mutinied en masse at the river Ravi. Deeply angered, because he believed the end of land lay not far off, at Ocean, Alexander was obliged to retreat (326 B.C.).
Returning, however, he forced his Macedonians to explore, to survey, and to build terminals along the water route down the Jhelum and the Indus to the coast. Badly exhausted by insomia, wounds, and sickness, Alexander was critically injured in ferocious fighting against the Brahmanic peoples at the junction of the rivers. After venturing into the Indian Ocean, he made the famous journey over the Gedrosia Desert back to Babylon, while the fleet under Nearchus followed by sea. He died at Babylon, not so much from fever as from exhausted vitality. He was not yet 33 years old.
Goals and Achievements. To the end, Alexander drove himself at the task of creating a commonwealth of peoples by reorganizing his army as an allied police force, by planting colonies along the trade routes, and by commanding mass intermarriages between his Macedonians and Asians, in which he himself set the example. To Greek emissaries the young king seemed to have the attributes of a god. Eratosthenes said, "He is the reconciler of the world, pouring human beings together like wine in a loving cup."
Alexander's attempt to fuse the populations of East and West failed. Since there was no living son to succeed him, his dominion was administered, as far as the Indus, by his leading commanders: Craterus in Macedon and Greece, Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucus along the Tigris-Mediterranean axis. These portions, which came into conflict, developed into empires: Antigonid, Seleucid, Bactrian, Ptolemaic.
But Alexander had succeeded in establishing Greek as the universal language of the East. Greek culture followed in his train and penetrated far into Asia. The trade network, the new ports, and many Alexandrias thrived. These factors gave birth to the enlightened Hellenistic age (with a unity of culture hardly equaled today), prepared the way for Roman rule, and ultimately assisted the spread of Christianity as a world religion outward from the Mediterranean's shore.
No other man has been claimed in legends by so many nations. Egyptian fable makes him a god. Arabo-Persian tradition represents Iskander as a hero-saint. Israelite lore joins him to the house of David as a precursor of the Messiah. Even Ethiopian hagiology preserves his memory as a saint. Christian tales of the medieval and Renaissance periods relate how Alixandre le Grant searched for paradise.
Harold Lamb
Author of Alexander of Macedon

Charlemagne (742?-814)
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Further Reading
In the A.D. 400's, as the Roman Empire in the West was coming to an end, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks began to build a kingdom in what is now France. In the 700's, under the Frankish rulers Charles Martel and his son Pepin the Short, the kingdom grew to include much of western Europe.
About the year 742, Pepin had a son named Charles, who now is better known as Charlemagne, which means Charles the Great. He became one of the greatest kings of the Middle Ages. Much of what we know about Charlemagne comes from the writings of a monk named Einhard. Einhard says that Charlemagne was brave and strong, was very tall, and had blond hair and a moustache. He learned to read Latin, which was a rare accomplishment then--even for kings--but he never learned to write. He would sign his name by making a cross and the letters "KRLS."
Charlemagne's Kingdom
In 768, Charlemagne inherited half of his father's kingdom. The other half went to his brother, Carloman. When Carloman died in 771, Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Franks. Charlemagne devoted most of his 43-year reign to expanding his realm and converting his subjects to Christianity. Among those he conquered were the Lombards of northern Italy, the Saxons of northern Germany, the Slavs of central Europe, the Avars, who lived along the Danube River, and the powerful dukes of Bavaria. By 800, his kingdom covered most of what is today France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, western Germany, northern Italy, and parts of Spain and eastern Europe.
Charlemagne divided his kingdom into districts, and to each he assigned a governor. Bishops were placed in charge of church matters, and ambassadors traveled throughout the huge kingdom to see that the king's orders were obeyed.
Under Charlemagne's influence, farming, commerce, and religion were encouraged, and a rough code of laws was developed. Charlemagne was particularly interested in education, and he brought scholars and monks to his capital at Aachen (in present-day Germany), where he created a palace school. Monastery schools also were built and were open to the sons of serfs as well as nobles.
Charlemagne Is Named Emperor
On Christmas Day in the year 800, Pope Leo III placed a crown on Charlemagne's head, declaring him emperor of the Romans. This event is sometimes regarded as the founding of the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne ruled as emperor until his death in 814.
Charlemagne left his kingdom to his only surviving son, Louis I (Louis the Pious). After Louis's death, the empire was divided among his sons, Lothair I, Charles II (Charles the Bald), and Louis the German. From these three kingdoms, created by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, came the modern nations of western Europe.
Reviewed by Kenneth S. Cooper
George Peabody College

Middle Ages >> High Middle Ages
The extraordinary political, economic, religious, and cultural revival of the 11th and 12th centuries has led medievalists to refer to this period as a renaissance. The changes that occurred at that time, though less radical than those in the later Renaissance, were not temporary but provided the momentum, resources, and knowledge for permanent advance. Between 1100 and 1300, Western medieval civilization reached its height. Strong states and institutions developed. The expanding economy spawned new, efficient financial organizations and procedures. The papacy reached its peak in power and prestige. Intellectual activity flourished at the new universities, and Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture left a legacy of exceptional beauty.
Norman and Angevin England. Favored with talented kings, England was the best-governed state of medieval Europe. Through conquest, marriage, or inheritance during the 11th and 12th centuries, the English kings came to rule not only England and the duchy of Normandy but also at least half of France. With these vast holdings the English kings were the most powerful monarchs of Europe and, except for the kings of Sicily, the richest. Not until the 13th century did the French kings rival them.
The English kings built an efficient central administration consisting of the exchequer and a household apparatus staffed by able officials. Methods of recordkeeping were greatly refined. Whenever in need of counsel, or consent to laws, taxes, and political decisions, the kings would assemble a great council of the leading magnates of the realm.
During the 12th and 13th centuries a system of courts and justices was established to provide justice to all freemen of the realm. To supplement the central law courts at Westminster, itinerant justices traveled on judicial circuits to try cases locally. These justices linked the kings with their realm, enabling them to supervise closely such local administrative officers as the sheriffs of the shires.
The power of the English kings was almost absolute by the late 12th century. But the reign (1199 1216) of King John marked a change. Unpopular with the magnates for losing most of England's French possessions, unreliable, disdainful of the accepted laws and institutions, and locked in an unfortunate struggle with Pope Innocent III over the choice of the archbishop of Canterbury, John faced a baronial revolt in 1215. He was obliged to grant the rebellious barons concessions enumerated in a document known as Magna Carta. By enunciating the principle that the king is subject to the law and thus must recognize limitations to his power, Magna Carta may be said to have begun the process of converting the English kings into constitutional monarchs. By the late 13th century, Edward I found it necessary to convene assemblies, known as parliaments, in order to consult with the great lords and commoners from the shires and boroughs to secure their consent to legislation and taxation. His successors had to accede to additional parliamentary privileges that by the 15th century definitely limited royal power.
Capetian France. It took France three centuries to emerge as the strongest state on the Continent. In the 10th century, France consisted of dozens of small feudal states whose lords were virtually independent. In 987, Hugh Capet, count of the county of Paris, was elected king. At the time he controlled one of the smaller feudal states in France. Until 1108 the royal dynasty he had founded barely managed to preserve even its own small domain around Paris against the great magnates. Then a series of strong Capetian kings began to exert their authority over other French lands. Early in the 13th century, Philip Augustus deprived King John of England of most of his French possessions and set up efficient institutions modeled on those of Normandy. Philip's successors, by continuing to expand their realm, acquired great prestige. Notable among them was King Louis IX (reigned 1226 1270), whose Christian virtues and sense of justice brought him sainthood. Under his grandson Philip IV (reigned 1285 1314), France became the leading state of Europe.
In contrast to the uniform institutions of England, those of France varied from region to region. Incorporating gradually the various regions of France, the French kings consolidated their authority by pitting one region against another. Although occasionally in the 14th century they would consult an assembly known as the Estates General, their authority remained absolute. Many of the precedents for the absolutism of Louis XIV existed already during the reign of Philip IV.
The German Kingdom. In Germany the Investiture Struggle weakened the kings and caused internal dissension. The strength of the German kings was also drained by their preoccupation with northern Italy, which they unsuccessfully attempted to rule. Under the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa (reigned 1152 1190), a strong German state seemed almost to emerge, but it never did. By arranging the marriage of his son and successor Henry VI to Constance, daughter of King Roger II of Sicily and heiress to that kingdom, Barbarossa succeeded in extending Hohenstaufen power. But Henry ignored Germany and died on the eve of an expedition to conquer the lands in the eastern Mediterranean.
Henry's successor, Frederick II (reigned 1212 1250), probably the most intelligent and cosmopolitan ruler of medieval Europe, ignored Germany in his attempt to reduce all of Italy. Opposed by the popes, who feared his power, Frederick failed. After his death all members of the Hohenstaufen family were killed, and Sicily passed to the rule of other houses. The fate of Germany was worse. With no effective rulers, the various secular and ecclesiastical princes assumed authority and converted Germany into a jumble of principalities, which it remained until the 19th century.
The Italian City-States. Italy was kept in a state of ferment by the tug of war between the German kings and the popes, who wanted to check German expansion south of the Alps. Italian cities and principalities took sides in the struggle, as did factions within them. The Ghibellines supported the kings, and the Guelphs backed the popes. Since neither side was able to win a conclusive victory, most of the states in northern Italy retained their independence of both emperor and pope. But their governments, except that of Venice, were unstable, fluctuating between despotism, oligarchy, and democracy.
Other Emerging States. During the Christian conquest of Moorish Spain the states of Aragón, Castile, Navarre, and Portugal emerged. Often fighting among themselves when not fighting the Moors, Aragón and Castile finally united in the late 15th century to form the kingdom of Spain. This united kingdom shared the Iberian peninsula with Portugal.
Central and eastern European states such as Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and Russia were to become important only after the Middle Ages. But the Habsburgs had already established themselves in Austria and lands adjacent to it by the 13th century. Rudolf Habsburg (reigned 1273 1291) was the first of a long (though not unbroken) line of Habsburgs to become king of Germany or Holy Roman emperor. In the 13th century the foundations were laid for the future power of the Habsburgs in Europe.
Growth of Capitalism. Keeping pace with this political transformation of Europe was an economic revolution. Trade expanded well beyond state boundaries. A town like Bruges in Flanders became an international trading emporium. Italian merchants traveled north to the fairs of Champagne, where they exchanged their goods for those of northern Europe.
But the more merchants concentrated on their business, the more sedentary they became, employing agents and transportation companies rather than traveling with their goods themselves. As trade increased, new coins were struck, the most important being the silver groat and gold ducat of Venice, the gold florin of Florence, and the silver pound of England. Every town had its money changers, and by the 15th century rather sophisticated banking practices were common. There were letters of credit, bills of exchange, and various kinds of loans at interest. Italian bankers established branches all over Europe. To raise capital and to expand their business ventures, merchants formed partnerships, sold shares, and collectively assumed risks for sea voyages and cargo.
By the late 13th century, especially in Flanders and Italy, entrepreneurs controlled raw materials, supervised their fabrication, and marketed the finished products. In the larger towns a growing population supplied the labor for these entrepreneurs. The standard of living for the middle class rose, and the demand for luxury goods grew. Capitalism in spirit and practice was clearly in evidence.
Intellectual and Cultural Flowering. Greater political stability accompanied by a quickening of Europe's economic life inevitably fostered more intellectual activity and artistic endeavor. In their attempt to assimilate and understand classical and Arabic learning, the scholastics debated the significance of Aristotelian philosophy for Christian truth and attempted to use philosophy to explicate and strengthen Christian dogma.
During the 11th and early 12th centuries the leading scholastics were Saint Anselm of Bec, noted for his proof of the existence of God, and Peter Abelard, famous for his work Sic et non and his love affair with Héloïse. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian monk and mystic, fulminated against scholastic attempts to use reason in the service of Christian faith.
In the 13th century ambitious efforts were made to reconcile pagan philosophy, notably Aristotelianism, with Christian thought. The most successful was that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the famous scholastic at Paris known for his Summa theologica. Contemporaries of Aquinas such as Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, and Roger Bacon collected and attempted to synthesize all knowledge in compendiums known as summae.
Histories and lyric poetry were composed in Latin. Fine prose and poetic compositions in native languages appeared in the 12th and 13th centuries. The most accomplished writer in the vernacular was the Florentine Dante Alighieri, who wrote prose and lyric poetry in Italian, notably the incomparable Divine Comedy.
The 12th and 13th centuries also were enriched by some of the finest achievements in architecture and art, mostly created for the church. The late 11th and 12th centuries were dominated by the Romanesque style with its Roman arches, barrel vaults, and sculptured facades, so splendidly typified by Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand, St. Trophime at Arles, and Maria Laach in Germany.
In the late 12th century the Romanesque style was superseded by the Gothic with its emphasis on height, slenderness, pointed arches and vaults, flying buttresses, and stained-glass windows. Some of the finest Gothic structures in France are Notre Dame in Paris and the cathedrals at Chartres, Reims, Amiens, and Laon. An outstanding Gothic church in Germany is the cathedral of Cologne; in England, Lincoln; and in Spain, Burgos. During the 13th century, elements of Gothic style appeared in secular buildings such as town houses and municipal halls.
The Church Triumphant. At no time during the Middle Ages was the prestige of the church higher than in the 12th and 13th centuries. A pope such as Innocent III could proclaim Crusades, could humble such kings as John of England and Philip Augustus of France, and could preside over the famous Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 that included clergy from all of western Christendom. This council defined matters of faith, altered canon law and procedures, and discussed means of uprooting heresy. Papal government was marvelously efficient and included a curia for hearing cases appealed from lower courts, a treasury, a chancery, and a network of legates.
Despite its wealth and power, the church remained vital and open to reform. In the 13th century, Saint Francis of Assisi founded his order of Franciscan friars (Gray Friars) devoted to total poverty and to the care of the sick and poor in the towns. About the same time Saint Dominic began the Dominican order of friars (Black Friars) to serve as skilled preachers and to combat heresy.
Some movements within Christianity were deemed heretical by the church. During the early 13th century southwest France was the scene of the Albigensian heresy, which was ended only by a Crusade and the Inquisition.
Despite some heresies and some challenges to its authority or to its growing formalism and material wealth, the church suffered no major setbacks until the reign (1294 1303) of Pope Boniface VIII, whom Philip IV of France humbled over the matter of papal interference in France and Philip's right to tax the clergy. The incident at Anagni (1303), when one of Philip's officials laid hands on Boniface and briefly held him captive, dramatically symbolized the rise in secular power and the beginning of the church's decline.
Late Middle Ages
In the 14th century there was ample evidence that medieval patterns of all sorts were being replaced by newer ones. In the field of political institutions, there was a rapid evolution of forms of government that had taken root in the preceding centuries. England moved toward constitutional monarchy, and France toward absolutism. Germany remained decentralized. In central Europe, Habsburg power was greatly increased when the Habsburg archduke Maximilian of Austria secured the rich lands of the Low Countries by marrying in 1477 the daughter of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold. Later the Habsburg house gained Spain by another fortunate marriage.
Ascendancy of Burgundy. An interesting political phenomenon in the late Middle Ages was the rise of the Burgundian state. In 1369, Philip the Bold, duke of the French appanage of Burgundy, acquired the rich county of Flanders by marriage to its heiress. Under his successors, notably Philip the Good (reigned 1419 1467), a Burgundian state was constructed that embraced the middle lands between Germany and France extending from the North Sea to Switzerland. The attempt of Duke Charles the Bold (reigned 1467 1477) to secure Swiss territory resulted in his death at Nancy and the end of the precocious state. While it lasted, the Burgundian state outshone England and France and was the scene of a remarkable culture. Only the extraordinary brilliance of northern Italian culture surpassed Burgundy's.
France and England. The march toward strong centralized government in France and England at this time was delayed by warfare, both at home and abroad. Between 1337 and 1453, England and France fought the Hundred Years' War. It was instigated by the claim of Edward III to the French crown and his desire to reconquer English possessions lost to France. After the early English victories at Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), the struggle lapsed into sieges of castles and towns and guerrilla warfare. Weakened by civil war between the Orleanist and Burgundian factions at court, which attempted to control the weak royal family, France offered little resistance to the English until Joan of Arc, a peasant girl from Lorraine, instilled a new vigor into the French forces and aroused Charles VII (reigned 1422 1461) from his indolent life. By 1453 the only English possession left in France was Calais. Under Louis XI (reigned 1461 1483) the French monarchy was consolidated and made more absolute.
Like France, England was ruled by several weak kings in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the great magnates usurped political and legal power. England's Edward II (reigned 1307 1327), Richard II (reigned 1377 1399), and Henry VI (reigned 1422 1461) were deposed and killed. No sooner had the Hundred Years' War ended than civil war broke out in England, the so-called War of the Roses, which lasted from 1453 to 1485. This dispute between the powerful Lancastrian and Yorkist families was ended when Henry Tudor defeated and killed the Yorkist king Richard III at Bosworth Field and brought England once again a strong king and peace.
Italian City-States. In Italy the various states aligned and realigned themselves for political advantage or for the maintenance of a balance of power. This process involved much fighting, mostly by mercenaries under captains called condottieri, who sometimes seized power and became despots. The outstanding venture of this kind was the seizure of Milan by Francesco Sforza in 1450. Florence, wracked by civil war, fell under the power of the Medici family of bankers. The Papal States, devoid of effective popes, became the scene of anarchy. South of Rome the kingdom of Sicily was divided, with southern Italy going to the Angevin house and Sicily to the Aragonese.
Babylonian Captivity and Great Western Schism. With the death of Pope Boniface VIII in 1303, the church entered a long period of decline. Beginning with Clement V (reigned 1305 1314), the popes deserted Rome and resided at Avignon on the Rhône River from 1307 to 1377. Papal prestige tumbled. The Italian writer Petrarch, comparing the papal residence at Avignon to the captivity of the Jews at Babylon, referred to it as the Babylonian Captivity. Although Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377, the election of Urban VI in 1378 inaugurated the Great Western Schism, during which there were two, or at times three, rival claimants to the papacy.
Although this schism was finally ended by a church council and the election of Martin V in 1417, these events nurtured criticisms and discontent. The clergy were criticized for their corruption and worldly lives. Mystical and heretical movements appeared. A succession of church councils tried to deal with these movements and respond to their criticism, but with little success.
Eventually the attempt to rule the church by councils (conciliarism) was discredited, and by 1450 the pope was again the unchallenged head of the church. Damage, however, had been done. Within a few years Catholic doctrine and distrusted papacy were to be challenged by Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.
The Medieval Economy in Decline. Except in northern Italy, economic growth ceased in the late 13th century. A long period of stagnation led to unemployment and social strife. England, France, and the Low Countries experienced peasant and urban revolts. The economy and the social fabric were further weakened by the Black Death (1348 1350), which claimed almost 23% of Europe's population. Terror stricken by this catastrophe, some reacted by persecuting the Jews, some joined heretical movements, some became flagellants, and some became hedonists.
During this period seignorialism declined as most peasants in western Europe gained their freedom. Deprived of their labor supply and faced with a declining population, some lords in England were enterprising enough to convert their estates to sheep production to profit from a rising demand for wool. Others of the feudal aristocracy invested in business or secured posts in the government. Many, however, lost their lands and position and became bankrupt. Even those who survived found themselves in competition with the rising middle class, with which kings now allied themselves against the great magnates. The alliance of king and middle class doomed the feudal state and gave rise to the nation state.
Emergence of the Renaissance from the Middle Ages. Culturally, Europe was transformed more rapidly in Italy than in the lands north of the Alps. This change was associated with the Renaissance, which began in the 14th century in Italy and then spread throughout Europe.
The Renaissance, however, did not mark an abrupt break with the medieval world or begin a completely new historical epoch. On the contrary, it built on the medieval achievements, particularly those of the 12th century Renaissance, and then advanced to yet another vision and concept of humans and their universe. See also Renaissance.
Bryce D. Lyon
Brown University


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