How Much Do You Know About Julius Caesar?

Caesar alleged that he was a descendant of the Roman goddess Venus. He claimed he descended from the union between Venus and the Trojan hero Aeneas, who had a son, Iulus. In Rome around 200 BCE, statues of Venus were erected to ask for her assistance in battles, and in the following centuries, individual leaders affiliated themselves with her.

The first recorded autopsy in history was performed on Caesar following his brutal assassination. Antistius, the Roman physician who administered the autopsy, recorded 23 stab wounds on the emperor’s body, including the fatal blow to Caesar’s chest that ruptured his aorta.

Before Caesar became a statesman and dictator, he was a lawyer. When Caesar was 19, Roman leader Sulla forced Caesar to flee the city for marrying a political rival, and when he returned, he became a prosecutor renowned for his oratory skills.

Formed in 60 BCE, the First Triumvirate was an uneasy alliance between three Roman generals: Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. The alliance divided up the governance of Rome between the three men in an attempt to quell the political chaos that riddled the Roman Republic. The alliance began to disintegrate when Crassus died, and it finally ended when Caesar and Pompey fought on opposing sides in the Roman Civil War.

Throughout Caesar’s military career, he invaded Gaul (part of modern-day France and Belgium), Britain, and Spain. He conquered Gaul in 58 BCE, followed by invasions into Britain in 54 BCE and Spain in 49 BCE. Caesar had made plans to invade Persia, but he died before they came to fruition.

In 49 BCE, Caesar led his army across the Rubicon River, which separated Gaul from the Italian peninsula. Leading an army into Rome was forbidden by law, and in doing so, Caesar declared himself an enemy of the Roman Senate when he entered its territory. The act sparked a five-year civil war, and when Caesar emerged the victor, he was declared dictator for life.

When Caesar reformed the calendar system in 46 BCE, he added a leap day every four years. His astronomer advised that an extra day would account for the fact that a solar year is slightly longer than 365 days (it’s actually 365.24291 days). When Pope Gregory reformed the calendar once more in 1582, he kept the leap day and gave us the calendar we still use today.

In William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar,” a soothsayer warns Caesar to “Beware the Ides of March.” This was a prophetic reference to Caesar’s assassination on March 15, 44 BCE. The term “ides” denoted the first new moon of any given month, which usually fell between the 13th and 15th.

Caesar began a love affair with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra after pursuing his political rival Pompey into Egypt. In 47 BCE, Cleopatra gave birth to Caesar’s son, named Caesarion; however, Caesar never formally recognized Caesarion as his son.

The month of July was named after Julius Caesar in 44 BCE after his death. Initially, the month was called Quintilis, the Latin word for fifth, since it was the fifth month of the early Roman calendar. Caesar had reformed the calendar system, creating the Julian calendar in 46 BCE.