You utter fool! Don't you see that if it were a crime to have wished Caesar killed, which is the charge he brings against me, it would also be a crime to have been glad of Caesar's death? What difference is there between one who advises an action and one who approves of it? what does it matter whether I wanted it done or rejoice in the doing? Well then, is there a man, apart from those who were happy to see Caesar king of Rome, who did not want this to happen or disapproved of the act? so we are all guilty. And, to tell the truth, all honest men killed Caesar so far as in them lay. Some lacked design, some courage, some opportunity: none lacked the will. Cicero (to Mark Antony), Phillipics, 2.29. Caesar had acquired autocratic power, but whether he intended to use this authority to overthrow the Republic and become king remains uncertain.. . . he must have realized that some form of autocratic control was necessary, but since he was on the point of leaving for a three-years' campaign in the East, it is not likely that he had already formulated his ultimate plans in detail. Thus while the pattern of Hellenistic monarchy may safely be rejected, it was wiser to avoid too close an attribution to him of aims which he himself had perhaps not yet finally determined. From the Gracchi to Nero, Scullard, pp. 150-151.

RECONSTITUTING ROME

The war in Africa was over, and Caesar returned to Rome on July 25, 46 BC. After three years of endless conflict, the Optimate oligarchy had been destroyed in the field and Caesar was now free to make a political settlement. Yet, Gelzer writes,

Caesar would have less than two years left to him to redraw the Roman political structure in the face of nearly universal calls to restore the Republic now that the war was over. Cicero urged him to return to a system of government in which he probably had little faith. At one point, he is said to have called the Republic "appellatio sine corpore ac specie" (a name without body or spirit). Roman tradition deeply denigrated changes to a system that was born from one small city-state, even if it now governed an Empire. There was a cultural arrogance among many Romans who believed that their system of government was perfect, and could not be altered without damage. However, unlike most Romans, Caesar had spent more than half his adult life in Rome's provinces. He saw provincial political enfranchisement as a vital necessity for the workable growth of empire, not only for the provincial members of Empire, but the non-Optimate leaders within italia itself. Instead, the Republic had been largely controlled for centuries by an increasingly insular aristocracy, deeply suspicious of sharing power and utterly hostile to the reorganization of a system that might give one man power over his peers. For this, among other things, the Gracchi had died.

With the power of absolute autocracy (although he always consulted the Senate and followed the usual forms of consular and other offices), Caesar shouldered through his reforms; yet he appeared to grow careless about the honors he chose to accept. Since at least 48, he had given permission to petitioners in Asia Minor to honor him as a god, understanding that, in the East, it was difficult to separate the ruler from the ruler-cult. All these elements combined to create a man more comfortable with the idea of exercising sole power than of tactfully acquiescing to the remnants of the Senatorial opposition that, in his view, had forced him into war. At the same time, as Caesar's fortunes rose, it became less possible to keep men around him who did not grovel in view of his newfound powers. Even Cicero, for twenty years his often bitter opponent, could fawn upon him in the Senate:

"But in this glory, O Caius Caesar, which you have just earned, you have no partner The whole of this, however great it may be,--and surely it is as great as possible,--the whole of it, I say, is your own. The centurion can claim for himself no share of that praise, neither can the prefect, nor the battalion, nor the squadron. Nay, even that very mistress of all human affairs, Fortune herself, cannot thrust herself into any participation in that glory; she yields to you; she confesses that it is all your own, your peculiar private desert. For rashness is never united with wisdom, nor is chance ever admitted to regulate affairs conducted with prudence." Cicero, Pro Marcello.  

Yet in many ways, Caesar himself was the most traditional of Romans. Throughout his life, he had worked within the system until forced (as he saw it) outside of it; as soon as his opponents were beaten, he welcomed them back into a government he intended to change, but not eradicate. Almost to a man, the aristocrats who had run Roman politics (and who had survived the civil wars) sat on their hands, refusing to work with a man who had seized power by what they viewed as illegal means. As long as Caesar insisted on a policy of clemency, of persuasion rather than raw force, he would be at a stand-off with his former peers.

TRIUMPHS OF THE WILL

Whatever legislation he enacted and doubts he may have entertained, Caesar was occupied in his first weeks in Rome in preparation for the unprecedented quadruple triumphs he celebrated from September 20 to October 1, 46. It is no exaggeration to say that nothing like them had ever been seen in Rome; the magnificent representation of his victories and the citywide festivities connected with them would be show-stopping demonstrations of the power that he had won. The Triumphs marked the defeats of three continents: Gaul, Egypt, and the kings Pharnaces and Juba (Pontus and Africa). There were remarkable prisoners to be seen; Vercingetorix, Arsinoe, Cleopatra's sister, and Juba's four-year-old son. Valleius later estimated that the worth of the crowns, gold and silver talents, and other booty shown in the endless displays totaled more than 300,000,000 sesterces. An astonishing amount of booty was divided between his soldiers; each private soldier received 5,000 denarii, his beloved centurions twice that, and four times as much for each tribune. Every Roman citizen received 300 sesterces, 10 pecks of grain and 10 pounds of oil. Rome had never seen such spectacular or bloodthirsty games. Hundreds of lions were hunted in the Circus; nearly 1,000 war captives and criminals fought to the death as opposing armies; a great naval battle was fought in flooded structures on the Campus Martius. Caesar gave a banquet for tens of thousands of Romans and was later escorted to his house by the crowd and 20 torch-bearing elephants.

AUTOCRACY AND REFORM

In the next months, Caesar attacked intractable social problems that had bedeviled Rome since the time of the Gracchi, including what to do with the landless poor. He declared a general amnesty for all who had taken arms against him in the Civil War. He took an exact census of the city and reorganized and reduced the distribution of free grain, reducing those on the dole from 300,000 to 150,000. He founded dozens of civilian and military colonies overseas, to which eventually 80,000 of the turbulent Roman poor were transported as well as veterans. He granted citizenship (and all its benefits) to doctors and teachers, many of whom were Greek. He favored the Jews living in Rome. The owners of large landed estates were required to hire a third of their farm workers from free men, rather than slaves to avoid the problem of forcing landless workers into the overcrowded towns. He passed sumptuary laws and laid down precise instructions about social and financial display, which were largely ignored. He permitted only senators and knights to serve on juries, which showed he rejected popular claims as ruthlessly as he did oligarchic principles. He stepped up criminal penalties and made laws limited the terms of provincial governors. He abolished the private guilds which had become breeding-grounds for the fighting mobs of Milo, Clodius, and other demagogues. He limited the terms of propraetors to one year and of proconsuls to two consecutive years - both to prevent others, perhaps, from acquiring the kind of power he had amassed in Gaul as well as to discourage the wholesale provincial plundering of the past. Perhaps most importantly to the provinces, after decades of rapacious Roman tax-gatherers plundering for their own profit, he abolished the existing tax system. Instead, he returned to the earlier policy of permitting the provinces themselves to collect and pay tribute without middlemen.

Somewhere in that long November of 46, Caesar decided hurriedly to go to Spain, where the surviving Pompeian army was becoming increasingly troublesome. It would be his last campaign. 

MUNDA: THE FINAL BATTLE, 45 BC

Roman Spain and the Battle of Munda, 45 BC

Caesar, victorious in Africa, was now confronted by a more serious war in Spain (for the defeat of Pharnaces may be passed over, since it added but little to his renown). This great and formidable war had been stirred up by Gnaeus Pompeius, the son of Pompey the Great, a young man of great energy in war, and reinforcements flowed in from all parts of the world from among those who still followed his father's great name. Caear's usual fortune followed hiim to Spain; but no battle in which he ever engaged was more bitterly fought or more dangerous to his cause. Velleius, History of Rome, II, LV.

It took slightly more than three months for Caesar to annihilate the last Republican forces at the Battle of Munda on March 17, 45. The battle itself was very nearly lost; at a critical point, as he had in the past, Caesar personally rallied his fleeing troops and swung the balance of the battle.

Once secured, victory was brutal and complete. Gnaeus Pompeius was later killed, and only Sextus and a few adherents managed to escape.

Caesar had less than five months to live. His clementia, his wooing of the remaining Optimates, had been largely unsuccessful; they spoke fair to his face and spoke of his tyrannies with disgust among themselves. He had made a start in dealing with the intractable social problems in Rome but, for some months his eyes had turned away from the frustrating realities of administration towards Parthia, where there still existed a viable power opposed to Rome.

When he celebrated his Spanish Triumph in October 45, Romans were dismayed that (for the first time) a Roman celebrated victory over other Romans. In the last months of his life, there were repeated incidents where Caesar is said to have snubbed the Senators, the people, and the traditions of Rome. The fact that much of the history that survived him was written from the anti-Caesarian position may or may not affect its truth. The groundswell of whispers grew that he thought himself - that he intended to be - a king. There is no objective evidence to support this and many reasons why it is unlikely - Caesar was seldom that politically inept. To Caesar, political power was far more important than any title. But his strange lassitude in accepting whatever the Senate bestowed can cause doubt even now as to his true intentions.  And the bitter lack of support from fellow Romans, in spite of all his efforts, must have grated.

Perhaps it was as the warrior, not as the frustrated politician, that Caesar began planning perhaps the most massive military operation of his life, set for the spring of 44 B.C. His old colleague, Crassus, had died in 53 BC in a failed attempt to invade Parthia and had lost more legions than any Roman in recent memory, along with their standards. Caesar, now the unquestioned military genius of the West, would invade Parthia as well but he would recover the standards and drive back the threat to Rome's eastern empire. As the year 45 waned, he was busy with planning for his next great campaign.

Sources:

Painting of "The Death of Julius Caesar" by Vincenzo Camuccini (1773-1844). Tapestry Detail, "The Vase Bearer," from "The Triumphs of Caesar" by Mantegna.