![]() ![]() Of course, this is just one historian's account - others claim the Battle of Zela wasn't so easily won, but "I came, I saw, I conquered" sure does make Caesar sound cool. In the quick and apparently cursorily won Battle of Zela, Caesar defeated Pharnaces and, according to Appian, sent a report back to Rome that he arrived, possibly did a little sightseeing and then totally annihilated the competition easily, quickly and blindfolded. On his way back to Rome from Egypt, Caesar stopped by to rein in Pharnaces, ruler of Cimmerian Bosporus in modern-day Turkey, as he had been making land grabs of his own. This is where the immortal words "Veni, vidi, vici" show up in the history books. Pompey was assassinated by the Egyptians before Caesar could get to him, but while he was there he canoodled with Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, helping her defeat her brother/husband Ptolemy. The consul, Pompey (coincidentally one of the rich guys who had gotten him elected consul a decade earlier) fled to Egypt and Julius Caesar named himself both consul and dictator of Rome and took off after him. He was eventually called back to Rome and would probably have been thrown in jail for exceeding his authority as governor of Gaul, but instead he decided to invade Rome. After serving a year as consul of Rome, he was made governor of southern Gaul (modern day France), where he spent eight years conquering the rest of Gaul and Britain with his four big armies, or "legions." He got two of his rich friends to bankroll his campaign to run for consul - the highest elected official of Rome, a position so powerful it was only able to be held for one year out of every 10 by one person. Born into the elite Senatorial class, Caesar rose through the ranks of both the military and the Roman senate and served for a year as the governor of Spain. The thing about Julius Caesar is he loved to win.
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