What did Caesar do to secure his position and to improve rome?

Answer 1

He was rewarded by being made governor of Gaul. Finally he conquered all of Gaul. He got riches from the victory. He used he money which earned from the victory to build Rome up. It much improved his political standing in Rome.

Gaul was a huge and wealthy province. It added to the power of Rome and to the charisma surrounding Julius Caesar.

Answer 2

Julius Caesar gained influence by climbing up the political ladder, forming a political alliance (the First Triumvirate) which dominated Roman politics for seven years, being appointed governor of three Roman provinces, conquering Gaul, becoming the most powerful Roman military leader, and through his enormous popularity among the Roman middle and lower classes.

As a young man Julius Caesar distinguished himself in the military. He was awarded the Civic Crown, the highest military honour. He also became a well-known layer, famous for his oratory skills and is relentless persecution of corrupt former provincial governors. He was elected military tribune. This was a first step in a political career. In 69 BC he was elected quaestor, the most junior rank of the officers of state. He served his quaestorship in Spain. In 63 BC he was elected Ponifex Maxiums, the head of Roman state religion. In 62 BC he was appointed governor of Spain. In Spain he conquered two local tribes, reformed debt laws and gained high esteem. In 60 BC he was elected consul for the year 59 BC. The consuls were the two annually elected heads of the Republic.

Caesar also reconciled Crassus (the richest man in Rome) and Pompey (at the time the most powerful Roman military leader) and formed the informal alliance between these three men which had been called the Fist Triumvirate (60-53 BC) whose influence controlled Roman politics. At first the alliance was secret, but it became public when Pompey and Crassus supported Caesar bill for a redistribution of public land to the poor which was bitterly opposed by the aristocracy. Pompey fielded his army in the city to intimidate the opponents. With the help of his two allies Caesar was appointed governor of three provinces: Illyricum (the east coast of the Adriatic Sea) Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) and Transalpine Gaul (southern France). Governor of provinces were very powerful men because they controlled their economic resources and headed the armies stationed there. Governors had come to treat their provinces as their personal fiefs and acted independently from the central government which lost control over them.

Whilst governor Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul (the rest of France, Belgium, Holland south of the river Rhine and Germany west of the Rhine). He and one legion at his disposal in Gaul, redeployed two legions from Spain to Gaul, and levied two more legions for his Galling Wars. Later in those wars he levied one further legion. With six legions Caesar became the most powerful Roman military leader.

For his civil war against the senate he used two of his legions to march of Rome and later he redeployed four legions (including one which had not been involved in the Gallic Wars) and levied two more legions. Caesar had the military manpower to fight the forced of the senate. He was also the greatest military commander in Roman history.

When he defeated the forces of the senate, Caesar concentrated power in his hands. This was not only due to military might. His enormous popularity was a crucial factor. He was very popular with the middle and lower classes in Rome. Part of his popularity came from the prestige his conquest of Gaul in the Gallic Wars conferred on him. The other reason was that he was a pupularis. This was a political faction which championed the cause of the poor and was opposed by the optimates, a conservative political faction which supported the interests of the aristocracy, which the masses saw as corrupt. He continued to pursue his land reform to redistribute land for farming to the landless poor. He wrote off 1/4 of all debts, distributed some of his money to the poor and introduced public games to entertain the people. He was seen as the champion of the people. Caesar was also a very good orator and his speeches cemented his popular support.

Answer 3

First Julius Caesar fought and won what historians have called Caesar's Civil War, which he fought against the forces of the senate which opposed him.

Caesar then concentrated power in his hands. He turned the senate into an instrument for his power. Caesar gave himself the title of "Prefect of the Morals" which gave him the same powers as the censor (who among other things enrolled the senators , but without the checks censors were subjected to. This enabled him to increase the membership of the senate from 600 to 900 and to enrol new senators (a power previously held by the censors) from among his supporters. He abolished the practice of electing the officers of state who became his appointees, transforming them from being representatives of the people to being his representatives.he had himself appointed dictator for one year (the normal term for this officer was six months), for ten years, and then for life. The dictator was an extraordinary officer of state who was usually appointed with a six month mandate to deal emergencies. He had more powers than ordinary officers. Caesar changed this into a permanent post for himself.

One Caesar's aims for improving the situation of the empire was to create a strong central government to restore its control over the governors of the provinces who used the provinces as personal fiefs.

Caesar introduced a land reformto distribute land to the poor and to retiring soldiers. He created a police force. He passed a law which wrote off 1/4 of all debts. Another law rewarded families with many children to encourage the re-population of Italy. He put a limit on the purchase of luxury items by the rich as conspicuous consumption was a problem. He banned professional guilds, except for the old ones, because many of them were subversive political factions. He abolished the exiting tax system and returned to the practice of allowing the cities to collect taxes directly, without needing Roman intermediaries. This ended tax farming, the exploitation of tax collecting by corrupt Roman tax collectors in the provinces who used it to line their pockets by putting the conquered cities in charge of collection.