Some More Rome

• Proletarians- the lowest class of Roman citizens 
• The character of the Roman army began to change. Instead of the farmer-soldiers of old, it was now landless proletarians who were being drafted. The soldiers were now "semi-professionals" who fought just so they could better themselves through pay, loot, promotion, and land or money to provide for them when they were discharged. 
• Government by supreme warlords was bound to be brief and unstable- unless one of them could turn military dictatorship into legitimate power.
• Julius Caesar came from an old patrician family that had come down in the world and entered the cities politics as a young man determined to regain the power of his ancestors- very ambitious 
• in social struggles he often sided with poorer citizens
• First Triumvirate 
• Crassus- army general
• Pompey- richest guy in the world
• Julius Caesar
• Caesar won an appointemen as proconsul of Gaul (superrrrrrrrrrrrr big) 
• In eight years, Caesar conquered Gaul and parts of Britain and Germany. By 50 BC most of western Europe was under Roman rule, and Caesar had built an army personally devoted to himself. 
• Rubicon
• When Caesar returned to Rome he made himself supreme ruler of the republic, he appointed himself tribune, supreme pontiff, consul, and dictator for a ten year term