Conquests by Pompey and Julius Caesar

The Roman Empire first started off as monarchy led by the senate which consisted of well-known successful men who served as the king’s personal advisers. Throughout the years, the roman empire went back and forth from a monarchy to a republic but eventually remained republic due to the strong hatred that Rome’s highest social class had for the Etruscan king. In Medieval England, a monarchy was in place which meant that the representative assembly obtained genuine power by having control of their political leaders’ access to tax income.

While rulers of the Roman Empire ruled under a republic and used economic and war tactics to resolve legal disputes through Civil Wars, political leaders of Medieval England ruled under a monarchy using economic and conquest tactics in attempt to settle legal disputes through the Hundred Years’ War.

The Roman Civil War is known to be one of the last battles that involved both military and political problems in the Roman Republic prior to the rise of the Roman Empire.

Roman wars initially began due to a cruel struggle of power between Marius and Sulla in 88 B.C. known as the Marian-Sulla Civil Wars and ended with the Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy in A.D. 306. In regards to the second war that occurred, in their article “The Calculus of Conquests: The Decline and Fall of the Returns to Roman Expansion”, R. Morris Coats and Gary M. Pecquet argue that although “the conquests of Pompey and Julius Caesar exhausted the supply of wealthy neighbors to conquer profitably, the diminished prospects for seizing foreign booty did not alter the Roman politicians and generals’ modus oprendi.

Get quality help now

RhizMan

Verified

Proficient in: France

4.9 (247)

“ Rhizman is absolutely amazing at what he does . I highly recommend him if you need an assignment done ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

” They mention how the civil wars in general brought no additional lands or tax revenues to Rome.

Julius Caesar, Gaius Pompey, and Licinius Crassus were members of the first triumvirate and they each raised separate armies and governed different provinces. They state that according to the balance-of-power theory, any two of the triumvirs could defeat the third. After the Parthians defeated and killed Crassus, the balance fell apart and Caesar and Pompey engaged each other in the first of the three civil wars. They explain how as ruler during the time, Caesar began the civil war by marching on Rome in 49 B.C. and sought to eliminate potential rivals and the rent-seeking activities that fed them. By 48 B.C., he ended the provincial tax-farming contracts in the East. His assassination in 44 B.C. ceased his economic reforms and two more rounds of civil wars followed.

Aside from writings by historians who were not present during the Civil War, in his work “Caesar’s Commentaries”, Julius Caesar shares his experience about his plan to fight along with Pompey during the Civil Wars in attempt to restore the republic turned into their rivalry. He begins by mentioning how he held the election as dictator and was then appointed consul with Publius Servilius because it was the year in which it was permitted by the laws that he should be chosen consul. Being that credit was starting to fail in Italy and debts could no longer be paid, he decided that arbitrators should be appointed to make an estimate of the possessions and properties of the debtors, how much they were worth before the war, and that they should be handed over in payment to the creditors. Continuing his preparation for war, he left the city and went to Brundusium where he had ordered twelve legions and all his cavalry to meet him.

He scarcely found a sufficient amount of ships to transport fifteen thousand legionary soldiers and five hundred horse, but the scarcity of shipping is what prevented him from putting a rapid conclusion to the war. He mentions Pompey contribution prior to the war by explaining how he obtained a large sum of money from Asia, Syria, and all the kings, dynasts, tetrarchs, and free states of Achaia and made up nine legions of Roman citizens during his time of not being engaged in war nor employed by an enemy. After months of preparation, Caesar and Pompey’s alliance turned into a rivalry and how the war was now against each other. In regard to the results of the Civil War, Tacitus describes how the war destroyed the Roman Republic in his book “Annals” by saying that because of the rivalries and selfishness between the leading men, the protection of laws became ineffective while they continued to use violence, intrigue, and corruption against one another.

While the Romans fought in a series of war, the Europeans fought against the French in the Hundred Years’ War which is known to be the longest non-continuous war in Western history. In his article “Causes of the Hundred Years War”, G.P. Cuttino mentions that there had been tension and rivalries between France and England since William the Conqueror crossed the English Chanel with his army and defeated England, but King Edward III was the real cause of the war. He responded to the confiscation of his duchy of Aquitaine by King Philip VI of France by challenging Philip’s right to the French throne. He claimed the throne for himself in 1337 and although his claim was legally correct being that he was married to the last remaining Capetian heir of France’s king Phillip IV, the French court did not tolerate it. The French was eventually led to victory by Joan of Arc who claimed to receive messages from heaven to drive the English from France.

In his article “Edward III and the Dialectics of Strategy, 1327-1360: The Alexander Prize Essay”, Clifford J. Rodgers uses the work of Edward III to argue that there was strategy used during the medieval period while others believe that medieval commanders ‘had not the slightest notion of strategy’. He mentions how “historians now accept that Edward’s war-aims in 1337 were primary to secure sovereignty over his continental possessions and to put an end to the interference of the French royal bureaucracy in his government”. Edwards determination to be successful in the wars came from seeing his mother Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer defeat Edward II which then placed him on the throne as king at a very young age.

Edward’s later experience with the English is what led him to collaborating with his advisors to improve their tactical and strategic ideas which initially shaped the first half of the Hundred Years War. Rulers of Ancient Rome and Medieval England led, fought and carried on many wars of conquest throughout their reign of power. While Roman Civil War tactics resulted in Rome being split into eastern and western empires, England’s Hundred Years War tactics concluded with a mutual antagonism between England and France.