Caesar's Civil War | |||||||
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Part of the Roman civil wars | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Julius Caesar and supporters, the Populares | Roman Senate, the Optimates | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Gaius Julius Caesar Gaius Scribonius Curio † Mark Antony Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus Publius Cornelius Sulla Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus |
Pompey † Titus Labienus † Metellus Scipio † Cato the Younger † Gnaeus Pompeius † Publius Attius Varus † Sextus Pompey |
The Great Roman Civil War (49–45 BC), also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire. It began as a series of political and military confrontations, between Julius Caesar (100–44 BC), his political supporters (broadly known as Populares), and his legions, against the Optimates (or Boni), the politically conservative and socially traditionalist faction of the Roman Senate, who were supported by Pompey (106–48 BC) and his legions.
After a five-year-long (49–45 BC) politico-military struggle, fought in Italy, Illyria, Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Hispania, Caesar defeated the last of the Optimates in the Battle of Munda and became Dictator perpetuo (Dictator in perpetuity) of Rome. The changes to Roman government concomitant to the war mostly eliminated the political traditions of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and led to the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 476).
Caesar's Civil War resulted from the long political subversion of the Roman Government's institutions, begun with the career of Tiberius Gracchus, continuing with the Marian reforms of the legions, the bloody dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and completed by the First Triumvirate over Rome.