Annexation Of Julius Caesar Essay

After this defeat Pompey fled to Egypt, under the rule of the Ptolemy family, in a last ditch attempt to rebuild his forces. Unfortunately for Pompey, the king of Egypt, Ptolemy XII, thought it would be an easy way to gain Caesar’s favor by beheading Pompey and giving the head to Caesar when he arrived. Caesar, who arrived to find his son-in-law’s head in a basket, was not amused with Ptolemy’s decision to kill a distinguished Roman general and statesman and ended Ptolemy’s control over his own kingdom in favor of his sister Cleopatra VII (Mathisen 2012: 323). This in turn eventually led to the ‘annexation’ of Egypt into the future Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus. After spending the winter in Egypt with Cleopatra, Caesar returned to Rome in the spring of 47 BC. Caesar would spend the next two years finishing off his remaining rivals across Africa and Spain. It was at this time that Caesar began to attempt to maintain his control over the government by continuously serving as Consul and eventually as Dictator for
Gaius Octavius was Caesar’s grandnephew that had been adopted into his will. When Caesar was assassinated, Octavian had been in Greece attending school and quickly returned to lay claim to Caesar’s legacy. Together with Marc Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the three formed the Second Triumvirate (or the Avengers) to fight against Caesar’s assassins, the Liberators, in 43 BC. While Lepidus remained in Rome to look after things, Antony went to face Cassius and was able to defeat him while Octavian finally managed to defeat Brutus after two battles (Mathisen 2012: 326). After this the three members divided the Roman world among themselves, this did not last long. In 31 BC Octavian and Antony’s armies met anticlimactically, and culminated at the Battle of Actium in which Octavian defeated an escaping Marc Antony (Tacitus, The Augustan