Before his reign Rome was still a republic and the empire was only really beginning. (Chloe Mulvihill).
When he was young Caesar lived through one of the most horrifying .
Decades in the history of the city of Rome. The city had been captured and attacked twice even before Caesar was in his teens. When Caesar reached his early teens he was ready to take control of Rome. Caesar was a major part of the Roman Empire because of his strength and his strong war strategies. (Jona Lendering page 5) He married Sulla an enemy of Marius.
Caesar left Rome for the province of Asia on the condition .
that he divorce his wife because Sulla would only allow him to leave .
on that condition. When he heard the news that Sulla had been killed .
he returned to Rome. He studied rhetoric under the distinguished .
teacher Molon. .
In the winter of 75-74 BC Caesar was captured by pirated and, .
while in their custody awaiting the arrival of the ransom money which .
they demanded, threatened them with crucifixion , a threat which he .
fulfilled immediately after his release. He then returned to Rome to .
engage in a normal political career, starting with the quaetorship .
which he served in 69-68 BC in the province of Further Spain. .
In the Roman political world of the sixties the dominance of .
the optimates was challenged by Pompey and Crassus. The optimates, .
led by Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Lucius Licinius Lucullus , were .
chiefly men whose careers had been made by Sulla. Pompey and Crassus .
were consuls in 70 BC and had rescinded the most offensively .
reactionary measures of Sulla's legislation. During Pompey's absence .
from 67 to 62 BC during his campaigns against the Mediterranean .
pirates, Mithridates, and Crassus, his jealous rival. Caesar married .
Ponpeia after Cornelia's death and was appointed aedile in 65 BC As .
aedile, Caesar returned to Marius" trophies to their former place of .
honor in the Capitol, thus laying claim to leadership of the .
