Julius Caesar
Also called: Gaius Julius Caesar
Statesman and general of the late Roman Republic who conquered Gaul, won the civil war and became dictator for life, and was assassinated in 44 BC
Though of patrician birth, he rose as a leader of the populares. His own account of the conquest, the Gallic War, is a model of Latin prose. During the civil war he placed Cleopatra on the throne of Egypt and announced a victory in Asia Minor with the words “I came, I saw, I conquered”. His Julian calendar, based on the Egyptian solar year, is the root of today’s Gregorian calendar. His name came to mean “emperor”, living on in the German Kaiser and the Russian tsar.