Sublime

At the end of 45 BCE he caused a particular stir when the death of one of the sitting consuls was announced on the very last day of the year. Caesar instantly convened an assembly to elect one of his friends, Caius Caninius Rebilus, to the vacant post for just half a day. This prompted a flood of jokes from Cicero: Caninius was such an extraordinar

Caesar’s victory over Mithradates’ son Pharnaces, who had died in battle near the Black Sea, was commemorated in the same celebrations by a single placard on which was written one of the world’s most famous slogans ever: ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ (‘I came, I saw, I conquered’, intended to capture the speed of Caesar’s success).

Caesar was duly elected consul for 59 BCE and, among a series of measures that strongly resembled the programmes of earlier, radical tribunes, sponsored legislation on behalf of the other two. He also secured a military command for himself in southern Gaul, to which a vast area on the other side of the Alps was soon added.