Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, episode 42, meanwhile, back in Rome.

After completing his conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar entered into a sort of holding pattern.

The Senate refused to let him return to Rome until he disbanded his army, but Caesar refused

to return unless he was allowed to keep his army.

It was a critical moment, not just for Caesar, but for the fate of the whole Roman world.

We all know what happened, or we will shortly.

But before we get into that tense showdown, I want to wind the clock back a few years.

Though the war in Gaul is unquestionably the most famous thing to have occurred in the

decade, the rest of Rome did not simply stop what they were doing and wait for another

dispatch from mighty Caesar.

Indeed, it would be difficult to understand why Caesar felt he was forced across the

Rubicon without understanding what had happened in this absence.

It was a decade that saw the death of Crassus after one of Rome's greatest military defeats,

the breaking of the Triumvirate, and increasing civil unrest in the city as both the populous

tribunes and the conservative Senate grew more inflexible and radicalized.

Rome and Caesar were on a collision course that would destroy the 500-year-old republic.

You may recall that near the end of his consulship in 59 BC, Caesar sponsored the adoption

of a one-myster clodious culture by a plebeian, allowing the flamboyant demagogue to abandon

his patrician status and run for Tribune.

This was in retaliation for the sharp attack Cicero had publicly leveled against Caesar,

as clodious was one of the great orators most bitter enemies.

The whole adoption was completely illegal for a laundry list of reasons, but you may have

...