Well, today I came to talk to you about Julius Caesar. I believe very few people like Julius Caesar have left such a mark on the collective imagination. Very few ancient figures remain so present in our daily lives, in our times. Julius Caesar is the author of expressions and set phrases that are still current in common language. Very few people can say that. For example, 'alea iacta est' – the die is cast, or the dice are thrown when crossing the Rubicon, which is like making a transcendental, decisive, and irreversible decision in the life of a person or a country. Julius Caesar also invented that expression 'Veni, vidi, vici' – I came, I saw, I conquered, which resonates through the centuries and millennia. Julius Caesar has also given rise to many common words in many languages. The very word Caesar is at the origin of words in other languages that express a position of maximum authority and power. The word 'tsar' or the word 'Kaiser' likewise come from the word Caesar. Caesar is a synonym for extraordinary power, extraordinary authority, of being a man, the first among his fellow citizens.
Julius Caesar had an enormous impact in antiquity, we will remember that in this talk, but perhaps what is little known is the enormous impact that Caesar's stays in Hispania had on his successful and transcendent career. Julius Caesar was in Hispania four times, in our territory, in our peninsula. Those four stays throughout his career were decisive in achieving the position of power he finally held. And those stays also made Hispania, both Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, play a decisive role in the end of the Roman Republic and in the configuration of the Roman Empire as it unfolded after Caesar's death. So, let's talk today about those four stays of Julius Caesar in our territory, on our soil, and we will stop here and there to see that the trace of Caesar in Hispania is still visible to those who feel the curiosity and interest to follow that trace. This story I am going to tell you today I have collected in a book that is being published these days by Almuzara. It is a book with the same title as our conference today, 'Following the Footsteps of Caesar in Hispania'. And there you can find much greater detail of the information I am going to give you. Surely the conference organizers can project the cover in one of these next moments.
Very well, then I was saying that we are going to talk about Julius Caesar with a focus on his stays in Spain, in Hispania. But this story begins with the birth of Julius Caesar on the 4th day before the Ides of Quintilis, which in our current language is July 13, 100 BC. The month of July, precisely because Julius Caesar was born in that month. Very few people can boast of having given their name to the month of their birth, precisely because he established the calendar that is in common use today. Caesar was born into a patrician family with great prestige, great antiquity. It is a family that claims to have its origin in the goddess Venus herself. However, it is a family that had not had a particularly successful political trajectory. This began to change with the father of our Gaius Julius Caesar, who was also called Gaius Julius Caesar. You know that Roman families were very unimaginative in onomastic matters, in matters of names. The case is that Caesar's father, named like him, married Aurelia. Aurelia was a woman from a plebeian family, but very prestigious, rich, and with a great political career in Rome. Aurelia's father and grandfather had been consuls. Also her cousins Gaius Marius, Gaius Marcus, and Lucius Aurelius Cotta would be consuls, a family of the Aurelii Cottae throughout the history of the Roman Republic. This already positioned that family very well in the political landscape, but the decisive event that put the family of Caesar on the ladder of honor of Roman politics was the marriage of his aunt Julia, as always Julia, to Gaius Marius. Marius was the most influential figure in Rome at that time along with Cinna. We will talk about Cinna later. Gaius Marius was consul for the first time in 107 BC. He was the great innovator of the army of the Roman Republic, recruiting people from the plebs as professional legionaries. He was the general who defeated King Jugurtha of Numidia and also defeated the barbarian Cimbri and Teutones. With this family umbrella, Caesar's figure began to attract attention, and when he turned 16, his father died suddenly. Legend says he died while tying his shoes. The case is that our Gaius Julius Caesar, at 16 years old, became pater familias, already with a very influential family environment, and he took the decisive step to consolidate that family environment by marrying Cornelia. Cornelia was the daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna. I told you he was the other great figure of Roman politics at that time. He was consul four times. With the combined influence of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna, at a very young age, 16, Julius Caesar was appointed Flamen Dialis. Flamen Dialis was the high priest of the cult of Jupiter, and this automatically made him a very respected member of the Senate.
However, everything began to go wrong when Gaius Marius died in 86 BC, and a ruthless struggle arose between Cinna, who held power in Rome, and the general who was beginning to become a key figure commanding the legions in Asia. This general was Lucius Cornelius Sulla. When Cinna saw that Sulla was becoming a very powerful rival, he tried to take away his command of the armies in Asia. Sulla refused, rebelled, defeated the king of Pontus, Mithridates, and began a return to Rome to confront Cinna. Cinna was assassinated by his men in 84 BC. So when Sulla finally arrived in Rome, he did so triumphantly, was proclaimed dictator, and established a regime we could call terror, establishing proscriptions against all his political rivals. This left Julius Caesar in a very delicate situation. Julius Caesar was married to Cinna's daughter, who was Sulla's great rival. Therefore, Sulla also turned his attention to Julius Caesar. He was willing to make him pay with his life for his alignment with Cinna. He demanded that he divorce Cinna's daughter, and Caesar refused, whether out of pride or because he had sincere affection for his wife Cornelia. The case is that only the intercession of Aurelia, Caesar's mother, saved his life, but he had to go into exile. So, Julius Caesar at 18 years old set course for Asia, also seeking to acquire some military experience. He put himself at the service of Marcus Minucius Thermus, who was the governor of Asia, and acted as the governor's special envoy to the court of Nicomedes, who was the king of Bithynia. Julius Caesar was fascinated by the luxury and sophistication of Nicomedes' court, and malicious tongues say that an intimate relationship was established between Nicomedes and Julius Caesar, and that Julius Caesar acted as Nicomedes' lover. This would follow him for the rest of his life. Caesar was always accused of being bisexual and of having had this lover relationship, subordinate in a sentimental relationship with Nicomedes. But at the same time, Caesar distinguished himself with extraordinary valor on the battlefield, in the conquest of Mytilene. At 19, he was the first Roman assailant to stand on the wall of the city, and this earned him the civic crown, the highest recognition of military valor granted by the Roman Republic. And this, as I say, at 19 years old. He completed his mission in Asia by putting himself at the service of the governor of Cilicia. He also had brilliant feats of arms, but when Sulla died, Caesar decided to return to Rome. He did so in 77 BC, and he sought a way to immediately gain public brilliance and continue his career. He did what Roman patricians did when they were not at war, which was to devote themselves to trials, to judicial activity, seeking notoriety. He accused the former proconsul in Macedonia, Dolabella, of extortion. Dolabella was acquitted, but Caesar gained great popularity, but at the same time earned the enmity of Dolabella and a good part of the more traditional, more conservative Senate.
This advised Caesar to flee Rome again and he decided to go to Rhodes to study rhetoric with Apollonius Molon, who was a great teacher of rhetoric at that time. But I tell you this because there is an anecdote that reflects Caesar's personality very well. When he was sailing to Rhodes, his ship was captured by pirates. The pirates realized they had a Roman senator in their hands and set a ransom for his release. Caesar was enormously offended because he thought that amount was not worthy of his status and demanded that they raise the ransom they asked for him. Note also his personality and fame: the cities of Asia Minor, led by Miletus, quickly raised the ransom amount and obtained Caesar's freedom. When Caesar arrived in Asia Minor, already as a free Roman citizen, he gathered a fleet of warships, pursued the pirates who had previously kidnapped him, recovered the ransom, and executed them. He still had time, immediately after, to return to Rome, but not before raising an army and defeating the troops of Mithridates, who had again taken up arms against Rome. Well, you see that little more can be done in so little time. When Caesar returned after all these vicissitudes, he was a senator who was first elected military tribune, soon after he turned 30, and was at the age to seriously begin his cursus honorum with his election as quaestor. This indeed happened; he was elected quaestor at 30 years old. As the Roman prescription said, in his year we have Caesar at 30, elected quaestor. We are already at the beginning of 69 BC, and in the allotment of provinces, Caesar was assigned to Hispania Ulterior as quaestor of the new governor, the new praetor, who was Antistius Vetus. It was also a dramatic year for Caesar because within a few weeks his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia died. The case is that Caesar arrived in Hispania, as I said, in the spring of 69 BC. And he knew he had to hurry because one peculiarity of the positions in the Roman cursus honorum was that they lasted one year. And note the time it took to travel across the Mediterranean at that time. He quickly got to work and took advantage of the two great opportunities that the position of quaestor gave him. Being quaestor allowed him to travel throughout the province acting on behalf of the governor, administering justice, and establishing the basis for tax collection. That allowed him to get to know the province very well. The province had an advanced degree of Romanization at that time. It was a key source of supplies for the city of Rome, such as olive oil and the famous garum sauce, which was used as a highly appreciated and valuable condiment in meals.
Caesar first noted the enormous footprint that Pompey had left in Hispania Ulterior. Pompey was the general who received the mandate from the Roman Senate to end the rebellion of Quintus Sertorius. You have heard a lot about the Sertorian War. Let me make a brief parenthesis. Quintus Sertorius was elected praetor in 83 BC. When Sulla seized power and was appointed dictator, Sertorius aligned with the popular party opposed to Sulla and traveled to Hispania to try to create a power base there to oppose Sulla. And note how extraordinary it was that with his personality, winning the adherence of the peoples that existed at that time in the interior of the Iberian Peninsula, the Celtiberians, the Lusitanians, Quintus Sertorius would resist for ten years the armies sent by the Roman Senate to depose him and eliminate that focus of rebellion in Hispania. This was achieved by Pompey. Pompey was appointed by the Senate along with Quintus Caecilius Metellus in 77 BC. A war developed for five years, but it ended with the death of Sertorius at the hands of one of his lieutenants, by treachery, but it led to Pompey's victory in 72 BC. Note that we are talking about three years before Caesar's arrival as quaestor in Hispania Ulterior. The footprint of the Sertorian War, the footprint of Pompey the Great in Hispania at that time was enormous. Pompey's prestige was enormous. He had created extraordinarily solid client networks, and what Julius Caesar tried to do during that year was to obtain his own client network. Let me make a parenthesis here because we also wanted in this talk to follow the traces of Caesar. And there is a very endearing trace in Cordoba that you can go visit at any time, in the gardens of the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos. There you will see a pond with tiles, with a poem written on them. And if you can read the poem, you will see that it is a poem by Martial, the poet from Calagurris, where he refers to the famous shade tree, the plane tree that Caesar planted in Corduba when he was there as quaestor. And there you can see that there is a large plane tree that legend says is the one Caesar planted a little over 2000 years ago. Obviously, the gardeners and mayors of Cordoba over the centuries have allowed us to keep that beautiful legend alive. And there is Caesar's plane tree to give you shade and evoke the time when Caesar was quaestor. You will see that later Caesar had a very dramatic relationship with the city of Corduba, and that is why he is not remembered with special affection in Corduba because he was the cause of the destruction of the city later during the civil wars.
Very well. So Caesar, as I said, as quaestor, did everything possible to rebuild his own client network. He relied heavily on a key figure, Lucius Cornelius Balbus. Balbus was a member of one of the richest and most influential families in Gades. Probably of Carthaginian ancestry, that name Balbus evokes etymologically Baal, the god Baal. But the case is that Lucius Cornelius Balbus was a very determined person, with great fortune. He first supported Pompey to defeat Sertorius. That earned him Roman citizenship, granted by Pompey, and when he saw Caesar, he realized he was a very prominent figure with a great future, and he also gave him his unconditional support. Julius Caesar during this time had a very rich collection of anecdotes, and within that collection I would like to highlight Caesar's visit to the temple of Hercules in Gades, in Cadiz. The temple of Hercules, of Heracles, of Melqart, depending on whether the Carthaginians, Greeks, or Romans referred to it, was one of the great sanctuaries of antiquity. It had extraordinary importance from the time of the Barcids and even before, but certainly Hannibal Barca was also captivated by the influence of this sanctuary. It established a custom that powerful figures who visited Gades would go to visit and worship at this sanctuary of Heracles. There is some controversy about where the great sanctuary of Hercules was in Gades. The traditional version is that it was on what is now the islet of Sancti Petri. You can go to the beach next to the islet of Sancti Petri and see there something worth seeing: a monolith with a text dedicated to visitors, where they refer to those personalities who visited the sanctuary. It says, 'Wayfarer, from here your eyes contemplate today the same scene that the Phoenicians chose to build their famous temple of Melqart. You now enjoy this unique spectacle that both the Phoenicians and Hannibal and Julius Caesar could see at sunset during the spring and autumn equinoxes, when the burning solar disk set just over the vertical of the sanctuary of Hercules before, according to their beliefs, it went out in the waters of the Atlantic with loud hisses.' This text was made available to visitors on the seventh centenary of Chiclana de la Frontera in 2003. In any case, if you go there, I recommend you stay to watch the sunset over the islet of Sancti Petri, seeing, as this message says, the sun collapse over the ocean with loud hisses.
Well, Caesar had time during this visit to the sanctuary to dream that he was having sexual relations with his mother. Dreams in antiquity give a lot of material. There is an enormous collection of dreams of great figures. What is surprising is that Caesar's dream consisted of having sexual relations with his mother. Fortunately, there is always some dream interpreter who puts things in their place. Here the augurs told him that his mother was not his biological mother, but that his mother was Mother Earth, the entire globe, and that the globe was destined to be possessed by him. In that temple, in the temple of Hercules, there was a legendary statue of Alexander the Great. You know that Alexander, like later Hannibal, adopted the figure of Hercules/Melqart as a protective figure, and those figures are often associated with the figure of Hercules. So there was the statue of Alexander the Great, and when Julius Caesar saw it, the chroniclers say, Dio Cassius tells this anecdote very well, that Caesar burst into tears, realizing that at his age, 30, Alexander the Great had conquered the world, and he had not yet done anything really notable. So he interrupted his work as quaestor and rushed off to Rome to be able to imitate Alexander's career by doing something more notable.
Well, the first thing Caesar did upon arriving in Rome, since Cornelia had died, as I said, was to marry Pompeia. Pompeia was Sulla's granddaughter. Note that after having married Cinna's daughter, he now married the granddaughter of his great rival, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. This woman, Pompeia, was also the granddaughter of Quintus Pompey, a distant relative of Pompey. Caesar was very clear that he had to seek the closeness and support of Pompey, who was the great man of the moment in Rome. As a young senator, he dedicated himself to supporting all the laws favorable to Pompey that were brought to the Senate. For example, the Lex Gabinia in 67 BC, which gave Pompey sole command in the Mediterranean for the fight against piracy. All this allowed him to consolidate himself in the popular party. He managed to be elected aedile in 65 BC. He was 35, two years short of the minimum age, but he obtained a dispensation from the Senate and spent lavishly on festivals and ornamentation of the city. He did this obviously seeking the friendship of those who could provide him with the financial resources he did not have, and in particular he sought the friendship of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the rich Crassus, who would support him in the following years in his career. In this year 63 BC, Caesar made a miscalculation. There was a trial in which Lucius Sergius Catiline was accused. Catiline had been governor in Africa, and he denounced that he had not been allowed to stand for the consulship, and was generating rumors of conspiracy, which led to his trial, but he was acquitted at that moment. Acquitted, but shortly after, Catiline indeed put himself at the head of a rebel army that was quickly defeated, but it led to Marcus Porcius Cato initiating a trial in the Senate against Crassus and Caesar, accusing them of being accomplices of Catiline. They managed to save themselves largely thanks to the support of Cicero. Caesar managed to be elected praetor in 62 BC. He was assigned the province of Hispania Ulterior, where he had been as quaestor, and he was accompanied by Vetus, the son of the man who had been governor when he was quaestor. So there was a kind of role reversal. Note the critical situation Caesar was in at that time in Rome. He had large debts. His political position was doubtful, and he decided to leave even before the Senate ratified it. At that time, a new incident occurred: his wife Pompeia had a scandal: Publius Clodius Pulcher introduced himself into his house during the celebration of the ceremony of the Bona Dea, where the Vestal Virgins acted and where no man could be present. This is the reason Caesar had to divorce Pompeia, and he coined that phrase: 'Caesar's wife must not only be free of guilt, but also free of suspicion.' Caesar sought the support of Crassus at that time. Crassus lent him the 830 talents he had to pay to his creditors to be able to leave Rome, and he set off as propraetor in Hispania Ulterior.
As I said, they only had one year, he had to hurry, and in that year he had to consolidate his client network in Hispania and he had to achieve military glory, so he had to find an enemy. The enemy that came most handy were the Lusitanians. The Lusitanians had theoretically been defeated in the Lusitanian Wars led by Viriathus, which ended with the death of Viriathus in 139 BC. But the Lusitanians had continued to be a rebellious people. They made incursions into the Ulterior province, into Baetica, and assaulted cities, causing thefts and plunder. And then there was a great petition from the citizens of the province that measures be taken against the Lusitanians. Caesar quickly completed his military forces. When he arrived, he had 20 cohorts; he recruited 10 more cohorts of Hispanics and 8,000 auxiliaries, and launched himself to fight the Lusitanians and their allies, the Vettones and the Carpetani. And in those central months of the year 63, he defeated the Vettones and the Carpetani, forced them to abandon their hillforts, their oppida in height, and come down to the plain, closing a kind of cycle with Hannibal, who had been there a century and a half before. These great hillforts had been built in response to the military campaigns of the Carthaginians, and it was Caesar who, 150 years later, arrived there and forced the Vettones and Carpetani to come down to the plain again, and conquered spectacular oppida that I strongly recommend you visit. Don't miss them. The Vetton hillforts in the Sierra de Gredos are wonderful places. The Ulaca Hillfort in Villaviciosa, which is in an impressive location, has wonderful Vetton remains, or the Mesa de Miranda Hillfort in Cardeñosa, also in Ávila, or the Raso de Candeleda Hillfort. Don't fail to go see them; they are magical and wonderful places. After having subdued the Vettones and Carpetani, Caesar could then dedicate himself to the Lusitanians. He defeated them time and again, pursued them to the sea, definitively defeated them on the island of Peniche, and since he was there, he decided to make some expeditions of a military nature, but also of economic plunder, in what he called the Gulf of the Artabri in Brigantium, which is the area of present-day A Coruña and Betanzos. There is some controversy about where exactly the Gulf of the Artabri was. The case is that Caesar gathered a fleet with his partners, the merchants of Gades, quickly defeated the Artabri because they had never seen a military squadron in their lives and realized he was an adversary they could not fight, and he opened the territory of Gallaecia to Roman rule, took great booty, and destroyed the great hillforts of the Artabri. Among them, I also have to recommend that you visit the Elviña Hillfort, very close to the city of A Coruña. It's a wonderful place, being gradually recovered by the City Council of A Coruña. A very meritorious work by the municipal archaeologists of A Coruña. If you have the chance, go visit the Elviña Hillfort and you will see Caesar's footprint in the Gulf of the Artabri. He put the affairs of the province in order and returned to Rome at the end of his mandate.
He now had an extraordinarily prestigious position, but he faced a dilemma. He wanted to be granted a triumph, but that would mean having to renounce his candidacy for the consulship. To receive the triumph, he had to wait outside the city until the Senate granted it. He could not enter the pomerium, the sacred precinct of the city, in his condition as praetor. And the Senate refused to give him a dispensation, so if he wanted to eventually receive his triumph, he would lose the opportunity to run for consul. He renounced the triumph, entered the city, ran for consul, and won the consular elections by a landslide, beating Cato's son-in-law, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. Caesar's dominance in the consular elections was such that he won by a wide margin. That made him hold the principal consulship in the first part of the year. His consulship was so overwhelming that the malicious legend, the saying that went through the streets of Rome, was that the year 59 had been the consulship of Julius and Caesar. As I said, Caesar was clear that he had to get Pompey's support. He dedicated himself to seeking Pompey's complicity to climb positions in Rome. He created the so-called triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus. With the support of Pompey and Crassus, he managed to get the so-called Lex Vatinia approved, which granted him a five-year mandate with proconsular rank in Illyria and Cisalpine Gaul. Just at that moment, the governor of Transalpine Gaul, Metellus Celer, died. And then the Senate, also with the support of Pompey and Crassus, extended his mandate to Transalpine Gaul. With this mandate, you know perfectly well that Caesar marched to Gaul, and over ten years, because he obtained a renewal of his mandate after the first five, over ten years he conquered the Gauls, leaving behind a million dead, according to ancient sources, and having made an additional million prisoners. He had written during these last years his Commentaries on the Gallic War because he began to feel great nervousness that he was spending too much time away from Rome and was losing the influence he had in Rome. But again he faced the same dilemma. If he returned to Rome, he had to renounce his command over his legions to enter the city, and then he would be exposed to the actions his enemies might take against him. By then, Crassus had disappeared from the scene. He undertook a campaign against the Parthians in Mesopotamia and was defeated at the Battle of Carrhae and killed there. Pompey had been distancing himself from him, and it was Pompey himself who established that Caesar should renounce his legions at the end of his mandate to be able to return to Rome. Caesar realized he would be left in the hands of his enemies, and he made that dramatic decision to cross the Rubicon. That's when he said that phrase, 'Alea iacta est' – 'The die is cast' or 'The dice are thrown' because he had just broken republican legality. He relied on the fact that he had nine veteran legions that would follow him wherever he wanted, but he faced Pompey, the legions remaining in the Italian peninsula, and a large part of the Senate.
Caesar tried to capture Pompey before he left the Roman peninsula, but Pompey managed to escape in a kind of ancient Dunkirk, where Caesar, with an enormous military force, tried to eliminate Pompey once and for all, but Pompey managed to escape from the port of Brundisium, counting on recovering later with the support of Syria, Greece, and Asia. Caesar then considered what to do, how to continue facing Pompey, and realized that Pompey had been appointed governor of Hispania, that he had seven very veteran legions there under the command of his legates, which were a great threat if Caesar decided to cross to Greece to face Pompey there. So Caesar turned around, took the land route to Hispania, passed through Massalia, Massalia resisted, he left three legions there, advanced three legions to cross the Pyrenees under the command of one of his legates, and he followed with a force of horsemen. They crossed the Pyrenees and besieged Pompey's forces, which in Hispania Citerior numbered five legions under the command of the legates Afranius and Petreius. Caesar, in a lightning campaign, managed to surround the Pompeians, won the support of the peoples of the Ebro valley. The Pompeian generals tried to escape to take the war to Celtiberia, where they had enormous support from the client network Pompey had left. But Caesar managed to cut off their passage to the Ebro River and left them without supplies, without water, without food, and managed to get Pompey's five legions to surrender to him at Ilerda. With this, he dismantled a large part of Pompey's military force in Hispania. He had two legions left under the command of Varro in Ulterior. He moved with great speed to Ulterior. He demanded that all the cities of Ulterior surrender their arms and put themselves under his authority. He drew on that client network he had created in his two previous stays in Ulterior as quaestor and propraetor. All the cities turned their backs on Terentius Varro, the Pompeian legate. Even of his two legions, one, the vernacula, raised its standards and left and placed itself under Caesar's authority. Varro finally had to surrender, handed over the public accounts, which is very significant, to Caesar, and gave him complete control of the province. We will see that this control was less solid than Caesar believed. Caesar left three legions under the command of Quintus Cassius in Ulterior and then quickly left to continue the direct confrontation against Pompey, with the peace of mind that he had left Hispania completely pacified.
He arrived in Italy, raised an army, marched to Brundisium, present-day Brindisi, had to face the climatic difficulties of winter, but finally managed to cross to Greece. He did so together with his lieutenant Gaius Marius and quickly resumed hostilities against Pompey and his army. By then, Pompey had indeed rebuilt his army with the support of Asia and Greece and had an extraordinarily powerful force. He already had 10 legions gathered in his great supply port and interaction with the rest of the Mediterranean, which was the port of Dyrrhachium. Caesar tried to besiege Pompey at Dyrrhachium. Pompey built a defensive line of 22 km. Caesar tried to surround him with a defensive line of 27 km. The engineering works of those times were absolutely astonishing. Pompey managed to break Caesar's siege, and Caesar pursued him, seeking a favorable opportunity to fight in the open field, which finally occurred at the Battle of Pharsalus on August 9, 48 BC. I highlight this date because it was one of the great battles of antiquity. I will mention another one later, at the end of this talk. At Pharsalus, Pompey faced 11 legions. He had received a legion from Syria with Metellus Scipio. 11 legions, 110 cohorts, 45,000 legionaries, 6,400 horsemen. Caesar had a less numerous force: 80 cohorts, 22,000 men, a thousand horsemen. But Caesar had greater military strategy capability, let's say. That day three lines were formed, all the legions facing each other, bounded on one side by the Enipeus River, and Caesar, who knew he had a great vulnerability because Pompey's cavalry was much more powerful. The cavalry was placed on the right flank, and the battle began. They engaged in combat along the entire line of legions. Pompey's cavalry tried to make a decisive advance on the right flank. It was much more numerous. Caesar, who had foreseen that this would happen, had his cavalry flee before the attack of Pompey's cavalry, but behind Caesar's cavalry he had formed a fourth line made up of six cohorts. It was not a very powerful force, but when from the cloud of dust left by the cavalry this force of legionaries in perfect formation appeared, marching towards Pompey's cavalry, led by Labienus, the cavalry fell into confusion, fell into disorder, fell into panic, turned around, fled in disorder, and those few cohorts of Caesar fell on Pompey's left flank, completely disordering it and causing Pompey's army to break formation and try to flee. That was a colossal victory for Caesar. That day 15,000 of Pompey's men died, according to the chronicles of Caesar's own civil wars, compared to 200 of Caesar's men. Caesar captured the eagles of nine legions, completely destroyed Pompey's army. He only failed to capture Pompey himself. Pompey managed to escape and headed to Egypt, where he expected to be welcomed by those who had been faithful to him. They made him believe they would receive him amicably. They sent a boat to his ship in the port of Alexandria. But when he was heading to the port in that boat, they cut off his head, a head that they would later deliver to Caesar when Caesar, shortly after, arrived in pursuit of Pompey. Caesar in Alexandria, you know what happened there. I won't dwell on it much, but he supported Cleopatra to impose herself on her younger brother, who was trying to take the throne from her. Caesar began a romance with Cleopatra, including a cruise on the Nile, and delayed for months, causing everyone in Rome to wonder what was happening to Caesar, why he was delaying like that. Finally, he left. On the way to Rome, he passed through the Bosphorus, where he defeated Pharnaces of the Bosphorus. He did it in a battle at Zela on August 2, 47 BC. He did it so quickly that on the standards, in the triumph later granted to him in Rome, there shone that famous sentence: 'Veni, vidi, vici.'
Caesar, having returned to Rome, celebrated his triumphs, but he knew that a great Pompeian resistance had been consolidating in North Africa. All the followers of Pompey who had survived these encounters gathered in Africa under the protection of Juba, the Numidian king. And under the command of Metellus Scipio, they faced Caesar at the Battle of Thapsus. It was an equal battle. Caesar decisively defeated the Pompeians. Almost all of them took their own lives. Juba himself, Petreius, Metellus Scipio, Petreius, who had been one of the legates who had surrendered to Caesar at the battle in Hispania. Caesar came to the conclusion that if he was magnanimous to those he pardoned, they would later face him again, and he made a real carnage. He killed 10,000 enemies, even when they were trying to surrender. What he could not calculate was that what remained of that army crossed to Hispania, where they met with the sons of Pompey, Sextus and Gnaeus Pompey, who had managed, due to the bad reputation acquired by the governor Caesar left, who was Cassius, to regain the loyalty of the cities of Hispania Ulterior and to gather a large army again. Caesar did not hesitate; he crossed to Hispania, passing through Rome to gather the legions he needed. Arriving in Hispania between January and March of 45 BC, he faced a cat-and-mouse game with the sons of Pompey and the army they had managed to gather in Hispania. This campaign was resolved again in a great pitched battle that took place at Munda on March 17, 45 BC. At Munda, the forces of the sons of Pompey, commanded by Gnaeus Pompey, and Caesar's forces faced each other. The sources tell us that 13 legions fought on Pompey's side, eight legions on the Caesarian side. In total, 120,000 combatants face to face in an unknown location, but tradition agrees that this location was the plains of Llanos de Banda, in the municipality of Montilla in the Cordoban countryside. It was an absolutely merciless battle. At first, it seemed that the Pompeians would win. They had the support of the oppidum of Munda behind them. They were on the ascending part of the hill that led to the oppidum, and during the first moments of the battle, it seemed they would have the upper hand. However, on the extreme right of the front, the Tenth Legion managed to resist all attacks. Caesar joined them, dismounted, put himself at the head of the Tenth Legion, and managed to break the Pompeian front. The Pompeians moved a legion from their right side to reinforce the fight with Caesar, and that was a way of weakening their front that allowed Caesar's cavalry to also find a way to enter completely. The Pompeian army collapsed. That day 30,000 of Pompey's men died, 3,000 horsemen, some of his legates. Pompey's eldest son, Gnaeus, managed to escape, but only for a short time. He was pursued, located near the strait, killed, and his head was cut off and sent to Caesar, who by then had finished off all resistance in Corduba and had arrived in Hispalis. He had also conquered Hispalis, present-day Seville, and arrived at Gades, where he received the head of Pompey's son and confirmed that now his confrontation with Pompey, his sons, and his allies had ended.
Our story will end here. There is very little left of Julius Caesar's life. Julius Caesar returned to Rome after putting order in the province. He made an enormous effort to found cities. Perhaps we can talk about that another time. He created eight or nine colonies where he distributed land to his legionaries. He also sent a large number of colonists from Italy. The sources say that up to 800,000 Romans were sent by Caesar to his colonial enterprises. He returned to Rome as the most powerful man of a Republic that was clearly entering a crisis. Caesar was appointed dictator for five years, shortly after he was appointed dictator for life. Caesar began to prepare his plans for conquest. He intended to gather a huge army to go fight the Dacians and then the Parthians. He announced that he would leave Rome with 16 legions on March 18, 44 BC. And as everyone knows, the conspiracy against Caesar caused, a few days earlier, on March 15, the Ides of March, a conspiracy of senators angry with Caesar, disappointed because they had not received sufficient honors or simply worried that they were witnessing the death of the Roman Republic, killed him in a session of the Senate. And there, at 56 years of age, having received 23 stab wounds, Gaius Julius Caesar died. This is where our story ends. An incredible character who shaped the ancient world, who ended the Roman Republic, but at the same time gave way to the era of Augustus and the Roman Empire, who made his career largely in his four great stays in Hispania, who was sometimes magnanimous forgiving his enemies, who sometimes adopted popular, even democratic reforms, but who also caused enormous tragedy among the peoples who faced him. He caused immense bloodshed, as I said, for example, he is attributed with a million victims in Gaul, and in the end he accepted turning the Roman Republic into a one-person regime that could hardly have been reversed had it not been for his own death. So thank you very much for your attention. I hope I haven't gone on too long, and I am at your disposal for any questions you may want to ask me.
