120 Fun Facts About Julius Caesar

Which name did the senators who killed Caesar give themselves?

The Liberators expected the killing to restore the old Republic; instead, anger in the city drove them out of Rome within weeks, and the civil wars that followed ended in one-man rule.

On which date, known by its Roman calendar name, was Caesar killed?

The Ides of March had come, Caesar joked on his way in to the seer who had warned him about the day; 'Ay, but not gone,' came the reply.

Which river did Caesar famously cross with his army in January 49 BC?

The Rubicon marked the border of his province, and no governor could lawfully lead an army past it into Italy, so crossing it was an act of war; the phrase still means passing a point of no return.

Caesar's 'the die is cast', famous in Latin, was reportedly spoken in which other language?

Greek: he was apparently quoting a line by the Athenian playwright Menander, and the famous Latin wording comes from a Roman biographer writing more than a century afterwards.

In Spain, Caesar reportedly lamented that which conqueror had achieved far more by the same age?

Alexander the Great. In one telling Caesar brooded over a history of the king; in another he sighed before his statue at Cádiz, then asked to leave his post early to chase greater things in Rome.

Along with Caesar, which two men formed the First Triumvirate in 60 BC?

Pompey and Crassus had been enemies since sharing the consulship, so Caesar first patched up their quarrel; the pact that followed was a private deal between three men, never a formal office.

Which of Caesar's relatives became Pompey's wife in 59 BC?

His daughter Julia died in childbirth in 54 BC, and the family tie between the two men died with her; within five years they were at war.

Caesar's Gallic Wars all but ended with the surrender of which chieftain at Alesia?

Vercingetorix, in the most dramatic ancient telling, rode out in his finest armour, circled the seated Caesar and sat down at his feet; he was held for six years, paraded in Caesar's triumph and then executed.

At Alesia, Caesar's second wall faced outward against what?

A Gallic relief army attacked from outside while the starving garrison struck from within, so Caesar's men were besiegers and besieged at once; both assaults failed and the town gave up.

In which long-running European comic series is Julius Caesar the recurring foe?

Asterix is set in 50 BC, when one village of Gauls still holds out against Caesar's legions thanks to a druid's magic potion that gives its drinkers superhuman strength.

Which island did Caesar invade in 55 and 54 BC?

Britain's tides caught him out: on the first landing a storm and a full-moon high tide his men had not expected wrecked much of the beached fleet, so he came back the next year with a far larger force.

Across which river did Caesar build a bridge as a show of Roman engineering power?

The Rhine was bridged in just ten days; Caesar marched his army across, spent eighteen days on the far bank, then marched back and cut the bridge down behind him.

Which migrating tribe did Caesar stop near Geneva in the first engagement of the Gallic Wars?

The Helvetii had burned their own towns and villages before setting out so that no one would turn back; after beating them, Caesar ordered the survivors home to rebuild.

How does Caesar refer to himself throughout his own account of the Gallic Wars?

In the third person: it is always 'Caesar' who marches, decides and wins, never 'I', a device that lets a general's account of his own war read like detached reporting while it promotes him.

A fire started by Caesar's troops in 48 BC is traditionally blamed for damaging which Egyptian landmark?

The Great Library, or part of it, caught fire when flames spread from ships his men had torched in the harbour; how much burned is unclear, and scholars were still at work there decades later.

At which battle in 48 BC did Caesar decisively defeat Pompey?

Pharsalus was won against the odds: outnumbered, Caesar hid a fourth line of infantry that jabbed its javelins at Pompey's charging horsemen instead of throwing them, routed the cavalry and turned his flank.

How did Caesar reportedly react when shown the severed head of his murdered rival Pompey?

He wept, and far from rewarding the Egyptian courtiers who had ordered the murder to win his favour, he rebuked them and had his rival's head given an honourable burial.

Which Egyptian queen became Caesar's lover during the Alexandrine war?

Cleopatra was fighting her brother for the throne when Caesar arrived; he took her side, the young king drowned in the Nile fleeing the final battle, and she was left as queen.

What nickname was given to the son the Egyptian queen said she had borne Caesar?

Caesarion, 'little Caesar', reigned beside his mother as Egypt's last pharaoh; as her kingdom fell, the 17-year-old fled but did not escape, and the victor had him put to death.

In Dante's Inferno, Caesar's killers Brutus and Cassius are chewed in Satan's jaws beside which biblical figure?

Judas Iscariot fills the third mouth: Dante put the two assassins at the very bottom of Hell as betrayers of their lord, while Caesar himself stands armed and hawk-eyed among the noble pagans of Limbo.

What does 'veni, vidi, vici' mean?

I came, I saw, I conquered summed up a war won in a single battle within five days of his arrival; in Latin the three words share one ending, which gives the boast its punch.

Which staunch republican killed himself at Utica rather than accept Caesar's pardon?

Cato the Younger read Plato on the soul, then stabbed himself, and when a doctor stitched the wound he tore it open again; Caesar said he begrudged Cato a death that robbed him of the chance to spare him.

The last battle of Caesar's civil war, fought in Spain in 45 BC, was at which town?

Munda was so close that Caesar went into the ranks himself to steady his men; afterwards he said he had often fought for victory, but that day, for the first time, for his life.

Which animal, new to Rome, did Caesar show off at his games?

A giraffe, which the Romans called a camelopard because it looked to them like a camel with a leopard's spots; the hippopotamus and the crocodile had already been shown at earlier games.

Which Roman month was renamed in Caesar's honour?

Quintilis, literally the 'fifth' month of a year that once began in March, became Julius, our July, because Caesar was born in it; Sextilis was later renamed August.

As of 2026, the main Orthodox church based in which capital still dates Christmas by Caesar's Julian calendar?

Moscow's church still keeps Christmas by Caesar's calendar, which now runs 13 days behind the civil one, so its 25 December falls on everyone else's 7 January; the other three churches moved to a revised calendar last century.

For his triumphal games in 46 BC, Caesar had a basin dug and flooded in Rome to stage what?

A mock sea battle, the first known in Rome: warships crewed by prisoners of war and condemned men fought in earnest, and the crowds at the games were so vast that spectators were crushed to death.

Caesar's Julian calendar served the West until which pope dropped ten days in 1582?

Gregory XIII acted because Caesar's year ran about 11 minutes long, enough to slip ten days against the seasons over the centuries; his fix also drops three leap years in every four hundred.

Which statesman, kept out of the plot against Caesar, did Brutus call on by name as he raised his bloody dagger?

Cicero had not been told, though the plotters counted on his sympathy; Brutus shouted his name once Caesar was dead, and an enemy later used that cry to brand him an accomplice.

Which two destroyed cities did Caesar refound as Roman colonies?

Carthage and Corinth had been destroyed by Roman armies in the very same year; a century later Caesar refounded the pair together, keeping the old names in honour of the cities Rome had wiped out.

Which Latin title did Caesar take in early 44 BC, a few weeks before his assassination?

Dictator perpetuo, 'dictator in perpetuity', threw off the time limits of the regular Roman dictatorship, an emergency office; it looked like monarchy made permanent, and within weeks he was dead.

At which festival did Caesar publicly refuse a diadem offered by his consular colleague?

The Lupercalia crowd cheered each time Caesar pushed the diadem away and fell quiet each time his fellow consul held it out again; Caesar had it sent to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol instead.

In 44 BC, the living Caesar's own portrait began to appear on which objects produced in Rome?

Coins from Rome's mint had long shown gods and the moneyers' ancestors; in 44 BC they carried the living Caesar's own profile, along with new titles such as 'father of his country'.

Where was the Senate meeting at which Caesar was killed?

The Curia of Pompey stood in the theatre complex his dead rival had built, and Caesar fell at the foot of Pompey's statue; the hall was afterwards walled up and never hosted the Senate again.

By the usual ancient count, how many times was Caesar stabbed?

23 wounds, yet the physician who examined the body judged that only one of them, the second, a blow to the chest, had been fatal.

To whom did Caesar's will leave his private gardens beside the Tiber?

The people of Rome also got a cash gift for every citizen; when the will was read out, a wave of feeling for Caesar swept the city and turned it against his killers.

According to one ancient version, which words did the dying Caesar speak to Brutus?

'You too, child?' is the line some ancient writers reported, though they thought it likelier that he died without a word; the Latin 'Et tu, Brute?' is in no ancient text and was made famous by Shakespeare.

In Shakespeare's play, Caesar says the conspirator Cassius has what kind of look?

Lean and hungry: Cassius 'thinks too much', Caesar adds, and 'such men are dangerous'; the line echoes an ancient report that the real Caesar said he feared pale, thin men far more than fat, long-haired ones.

At his funeral, where did a grieving crowd build a makeshift pyre and burn Caesar's body?

In the Roman Forum: a pyre stood ready on the Field of Mars, but the crowd heaped up benches and tables from the square and burned him where he lay, and a temple to Caesar later rose on the spot.

When he was killed, Caesar was only days from leaving Rome to make war on which people?

The Parthians had destroyed a Roman army at Carrhae nine years earlier; Caesar meant to avenge it in a war planned to last three years, and had already named Rome's officials for the time he would be away.

Whom did Caesar's will name as principal heir and adopt?

His great-nephew Octavian, an 18-year-old studying abroad, learned of the adoption only after the murder; he took Caesar's name, outlasted every rival and became Augustus, Rome's first emperor.

What celestial event in 44 BC did Romans take as a sign of Caesar's deification?

A comet visible for seven days blazed over the games held in Caesar's honour that July; the crowd took it for his soul rising to heaven, and his statues were given a star on the brow.

Which two men joined Caesar's heir in the Second Triumvirate that hunted down his killers?

Antony and Lepidus sealed the alliance with a death list on which each of the three gave up friends and relatives to the others.

In 63 BC, Caesar spoke in the Senate against executing whose captured followers?

Catiline's captured allies were put to death anyway; Caesar, who had argued for locking them up instead, was threatened with drawn swords by armed guards at the Senate.

In 63 BC Caesar won election to which chief religious post of Rome?

Pontifex maximus was a prize for elder statesmen, and Caesar had borrowed so heavily to win it that he is said to have vowed, on the morning of the vote, to come home as chief priest or not at all.

As a young man Caesar was captured and ransomed by whom?

Pirates held him for nearly forty days and laughed when he promised to come back and crucify them; by the ancient accounts, once ransomed he raised a fleet, caught them and did exactly that.

Which dictator ordered the young Caesar to divorce his wife Cornelia, an order he refused?

Sulla stripped him of his priesthood and his wife's dowry and drove him into hiding; in the end the Vestal Virgins and his own relatives talked the dictator into a pardon.

Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia after a scandal at which religious rite?

The Bona Dea festival was closed to men, but Clodius slipped into Caesar's house dressed as a woman; Caesar said he believed no charge against Pompeia, yet his wife had to be above suspicion.

Who was Caesar's last wife?

Calpurnia dreamed the night before the murder, in the best-known telling, that she held his stabbed body in her arms; she begged him to stay at home, and he nearly did, until one of the plotters came and talked him round.

Which goddess did Caesar's family claim as an ancestor?

Venus got her reward: on the eve of the battle that decided the civil war, Caesar vowed her a temple if he won, and he built it in his new forum, honouring her as Genetrix, mother of his line.

Which of these titles derived from Caesar's name?

Kaiser and Tsar are both worn-down forms of 'Caesar', which Rome's emperors turned from a family name into a title; Ivan the Terrible took his version as Russia's ruler sixteen centuries after Caesar's death.

Julius was his clan name and Caesar his family name, so what was Caesar's personal first name?

Gaius was so common a name that Romans wrote it as a single letter, C., a spelling left over from the days when their alphabet used C for the G sound as well.

Which condition is Caesar often thought to have had, based on an ancient biographer's remarks?

Epilepsy is what ancient writers took his sudden collapses on campaign to be; modern doctors are divided, and some argue that a series of small strokes fits the reports better.

Why do historians doubt that Caesar was born by caesarean section?

His mother lived on for decades, and in antiquity the operation was performed only on women who were dead or dying; Aurelia was still alive when her son was conquering Gaul.

In the classic Caesar cipher example, each letter is shifted how many places along the alphabet?

3 places, so that A became D; Caesar wrote his confidential letters this way, and since there are only 25 possible shifts the code falls to anyone patient enough to try them all.

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which cry comes before 'and let slip the dogs of war'?

Havoc was a real battlefield signal that let soldiers loose to plunder, and a medieval English king's rules of war forbade them to raise it on their own; in the play it is foretold over Caesar's body, in a prophecy of civil war.

In Shakespeare's play, who gives the 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears' speech?

Antony keeps calling the killers 'honourable men' until the words curdle into an accusation; by the end, the crowd that had just cheered Brutus is rioting against him.

Which conspirator is the first to stab Caesar in Shakespeare's play?

Casca strikes from behind with the cry 'Speak, hands, for me!'; in the ancient accounts too the first blow was his, a wound near the throat too shallow to kill.

At which battle do Brutus and Cassius die, in Shakespeare's play as in history?

Philippi was really two battles, weeks apart: Cassius, wrongly believing all was lost, had himself killed after the first, and Brutus took his own life after losing the second.

Which ancient writer's Parallel Lives was Shakespeare's main source for his play Julius Caesar?

Plutarch reached Shakespeare at third hand: he used Thomas North's English version, which had itself been made from a French translation rather than from the original.

Caesar resigned his first dictatorship after only eleven days, having used it mainly to do what?

Hold elections is what he did: in eleven days as dictator he presided over the vote, was himself returned as consul for the coming year, then resigned and left for the war.

Which fabulously rich Roman was killed at Carrhae in 53 BC?

Crassus was so notorious for his love of money that his enemies were said to have poured molten gold into the dead man's mouth, in mockery of his greed.

Caesar's clan, the Julii, claimed descent from Iulus, the son of which Trojan hero?

Aeneas, in the legend Romans told, escaped the fall of Troy and settled in Italy; Caesar made the most of it, boasting at his aunt's funeral that the family came from kings on one side and gods on the other.

Gossip about young Caesar's stay at an eastern court earned him which nickname?

The Queen of Bithynia dogged him for life: even his own soldiers sang at his triumph that Caesar had conquered Gaul, but King Nicomedes had conquered Caesar.

Caesar struck more than half of 320,000 Romans off the list for which free state handout?

Grain had been going free to some 320,000 citizens; Caesar ordered a street-by-street count, cut the list to 150,000 and shipped tens of thousands of the city's poor to new colonies overseas.

Ancient writers say Caesar's horse had front hooves so oddly split they looked like what?

Human feet. One of those writers says soothsayers took the oddity as a sign that its master would rule the world; the horse would carry no other rider, and Caesar later set up a statue of it in Rome.

According to an ancient biographer, how did the balding Caesar respond to teasing about his hair?

He wore a combover, brushing his thin hair forward from the crown. The same biographer adds that no honour pleased him more than the right to wear a laurel wreath at all times.

Which poet wrote verses suggesting Caesar and his engineer Mamurra were lovers, then apologised?

Catullus. Caesar admitted the verses had left a lasting stain on his name, yet when the poet apologised he invited him to dinner that same day.

One ancient tale traced the name Caesar to an ancestor who killed which animal in battle?

An elephant. The tale held that 'caesai' was the Moorish word for the beast; other ancient guesses were a thick head of hair or bright grey eyes, and the name's true origin is unknown.

As aedile, Caesar restored the torn-down victory trophies of which general, his uncle by marriage?

Marius had married Caesar's aunt. In one ancient account his old supporters wept for joy at the sight of the trophies, while a leading senator accused Caesar of storming the state with siege engines.

The Roman square where Julius Caesar was killed, Largo di Torre Argentina, is now a sanctuary for which animals?

Cats roam the sunken temple ruins there by the hundred, cared for by a shelter founded in 1993 that neuters and rehomes them.

The salad that shares Julius Caesar's name was actually invented in 1924 by a restaurateur in which Mexican city?

Tijuana is where Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant, is said to have improvised it when a Fourth of July rush emptied his kitchen. The Roman general never tasted it.

Caesar's Gallic War commentaries hold the first known mention of Lutetia, the settlement that grew into which capital?

Paris grew from Lutetia, a town of the Parisii tribe, where Caesar summoned an assembly of Gaul's chieftains in 53 BC. The tribe's name outlasted the town's.

Which modern country takes its name from the tribes Caesar called the bravest in all of Gaul?

Belgium recalls the Belgae, whom Caesar judged the toughest of the Gauls because they lived farthest from Roman merchants and their softening luxuries.

Which country's English name comes from the Latin term Caesar adopted for the peoples living east of Gaul?

Germany comes from Germania, a label Caesar spread through his war reports, while Germans call their own land Deutschland, from an old word meaning 'of the people'.

Which group in Gaul does Caesar describe as memorising verses for up to twenty years instead of writing them down?

Druids held it unlawful to put their teaching in writing, so what Caesar recorded about them is the earliest detailed account to survive.

According to ancient biographers, how did Caesar punish the captors who had held him for ransom in the Aegean?

Crucifixion was exactly what he had cheerfully promised his kidnappers while still their prisoner; one account adds that he mercifully had their throats cut first.

Which title do many people wrongly give Julius Caesar, though Rome had no such office until years after his death?

Emperor is the title many people give him by mistake. He ruled a republic under older titles, and the imperial office came only once the civil wars after his murder had ended.

In which month did Julius Caesar's reformed calendar place the extra day added every fourth year?

February gained the day by doubling its 24th, the 'twice-sixth' day before March began, which is why leap years were long called bissextile.

Which honour did Julius Caesar reportedly prize most because wearing it at all times hid his thinning hair?

A laurel wreath normally crowned a Roman commander only during his triumph, but the Senate voted him the right to wear one whenever he liked.

Which mountain range was Caesar crossing when, an ancient biographer says, he wrote a study of grammar?

The Alps lay between Italy and his army in Gaul, and he used the crossing to write On Analogy, a two-volume guide to correct Latin of which only fragments survive.

As aedile, Caesar won over the Roman public by paying for 320 pairs of which fighters?

Gladiators in such numbers eclipsed every earlier aedile's games, though the show was staged on borrowed money that left him enormously in debt.

When kidnappers demanded twenty talents for the young Caesar, how did he reportedly react?

He laughed and offered fifty, saying they had no idea whom they had caught, then spent the wait ordering his captors to keep quiet whenever he wanted to sleep.

How did Caesar reportedly escape an overloaded boat during fighting at Alexandria, keeping his papers dry?

He swam to another ship some two hundred paces off, one hand held above the waves to save his documents and his general's cloak clenched in his teeth.

An ancient biographer says the young Caesar could ride a horse at full gallop with his hands where?

Behind his back is where he clasped them, a boyhood trick; on campaign he went further and dictated letters to two secretaries at once from the saddle.

Caesar reportedly ended a mutiny of his veterans by addressing them with a single word meaning what?

Citizens, in place of his usual 'soldiers', told the men they were already discharged; stung, they begged to be taken along on his African campaign.

With what object did Caesar reportedly wound the first senator to strike him on the day he was killed?

His stylus, the pointed pen used on wax tablets, was the only sharp thing he had; he drove it through the attacker's arm before the others closed in.

The year 46 BC, stretched to 445 days to launch Julius Caesar's new calendar, is remembered as the last year of what?

Confusion had built up because the extra months that kept the old calendar in step had been skipped for years, leaving it about three months adrift of the seasons.

Julius Caesar's clan, the Julii, belonged to which hereditary class of Roman society?

Patricians were Rome's oldest hereditary nobility, a rank that barred him from one office reserved for commoners: tribune of the plebs.

What did Caesar dismiss in the months before his assassination, despite the plots forming around him?

His bodyguard of Spanish soldiers was sent away, some said because he trusted the senators' oath to protect him, others because he preferred one danger to constant fear.

What was the name of Julius Caesar's mother, praised by the historian Tacitus as an ideal Roman matron?

Aurelia came from the politically influential Aurelii Cottae and was credited with giving her children the best education on offer.

Which Roman decoration of woven oak leaves did the young Caesar win at the siege of Mytilene?

The Civic Crown went to a soldier who saved a fellow Roman's life in battle, and it carried such respect that even senators rose when its wearer arrived at the games.

To which Aegean island did the young Caesar travel to study public speaking under Apollonius Molon?

Rhodes drew ambitious young Romans to its teachers of rhetoric, and in one ancient account it was on the voyage there that he was seized at sea and held for ransom.

Which sidelined co-consul of 59 BC inspired the joke that Rome was governed by Julius and Caesar?

Bibulus withdrew to his house for the rest of the year after a riot drove him from a public meeting, so wits dated their documents by one man's two names.

As a teenager Caesar was named high priest of which god, a post that forbade even touching a horse?

Jupiter's priest was also forbidden to look on an army in the field, so being stripped of the post in a political purge freed him for a military career.

Which boy king's courtiers had Caesar's defeated rival murdered as he came ashore seeking refuge in 48 BC?

Ptolemy XIII and his advisers hoped the killing would please Caesar; instead Caesar took the side of the king's sister and defeated the boy in battle within months.

Caesar's boast 'veni, vidi, vici' celebrated a five-day campaign in which kingdom of northern Anatolia?

Pontus was won in a single battle at Zela, and the three-word report was later paraded on a placard in his triumph to show how fast the war had ended.

At which battle in modern Tunisia did Caesar crush the republican army of Metellus Scipio in 46 BC?

Thapsus broke the last republican army in Africa, and his furious soldiers ignored his repeated orders to spare the survivors.

The Acta Diurna, begun in Caesar's consulship of 59 BC, are often called an early form of what?

The newspaper comparison fits: the notices were posted in public places and mixed official decrees and court news with births, marriages and deaths.

Which noblewoman, the mother of Brutus, was said to be the mistress Caesar loved above all others?

Servilia received from him a pearl costing six million sesterces, though the old rumour that he fathered her son is ruled out by the two men's ages.

Which bird topped the standard of each of Caesar's legions, an emblem his soldiers treated as almost sacred?

Eagle standards mattered so much that when his troops hesitated to land on a hostile beach in 55 BC, one bearer shamed them forward by jumping into the sea alone.

Caesar's commentaries tell of the rivals Vorenus and Pullo, who both held which rank in his army?

Centurion rivals competing for promotion, the pair charged out of a besieged camp and ended up rescuing each other; the TV drama Rome later borrowed their names for its heroes.

What did Caesar's own soldiers do as they marched behind his chariot in his Gallic triumph?

They sang rude verses about him, as custom allowed on a general's day of glory, warning the men of Rome to guard their wives because a bald adulterer was back.

At a dinner the night before he was killed, Caesar reportedly named which kind of death as the best?

A sudden one, and unexpected, was his answer when the table talk turned to dying; less than a day later he got exactly that.

Which priestesses had been entrusted with Caesar's will, which was unsealed and read after his murder?

The Vestal Virgins were trusted keepers of important wills, and years earlier their pleading had helped win the young Caesar a pardon while he was in hiding from a dictator.

Which Roman author began his Lives of the Twelve Caesars with a biography of Julius Caesar?

Suetonius wrote while serving as a secretary at Hadrian's court, and his taste for gossip is why so many personal stories about the twelve rulers survive.

Which Baroque composer wrote the 1724 opera Giulio Cesare, about Julius Caesar's adventures in Egypt?

Handel gave the title role to a star castrato, and the piece is now among the most often performed of all Baroque operas.

As curator of which great Roman road did the young Caesar spend vast sums of his own money?

The Appian Way ran south from Rome toward the heel of Italy, and paying for its upkeep himself was an early bid for popularity that deepened his debts.

Which general, Caesar's senior deputy throughout the Gallic Wars, joined his enemies when civil war broke out?

Labienus had won some of the hardest fights in Gaul, yet he spent four years in arms against his old chief and was killed in the war's final battle.

Why was the poet Helvius Cinna lynched on the day of Caesar's funeral?

He was mistaken for someone else, a namesake who had sided with the assassins, a blunder Shakespeare turned into a grim scene in which the poet's protests are ignored.

Which modern port city did Caesar's forces besiege for months in 49 BC while he marched on to Spain?

Marseille, then called Massilia, had sided with his enemies and held out through two naval battles before it finally surrendered.

In 49 BC Caesar forced open Rome's state treasury, which was kept in the temple of which god?

Saturn's temple held the Republic's reserve of gold and silver, and when a tribune stood in the doorway, Caesar reportedly threatened to have him killed.

What kind of likeness of Caesar was raised before the crowd after his murder to display all his wounds?

A wax statue marked with every stab wound was set up for the mourners, a piece of stagecraft that helped turn public grief into fury at the killers.

To draw skilled people to Rome, Caesar gave full Roman rights to teachers and to members of which other profession?

Doctors practising in the city were given the same status as teachers of the liberal arts, in the hope of tempting more of both to settle there.

Which of Caesar's legions earned the nickname 'mounted' after he put its foot soldiers on horses as an escort?

The Tenth was the unit he trusted most; when he swapped it in for unreliable allied cavalry at a parley, a soldier joked that the general was making them all knights.

After Uxellodunum fell, Caesar let the surviving defenders live but imposed which punishment as a warning?

Their hands were cut off so that the men, sent home across Gaul, would stand as a living warning against any further revolt.

Which astronomer from Alexandria is credited as the chief designer of Julius Caesar's calendar reform?

Sosigenes gave Rome a fixed year of 365 days, replacing a calendar that officials had to patch by inserting a whole extra month.

Which of Caesar's officers added the eighth and final book to his Gallic War commentaries?

Hirtius bridged the gap between the campaigns in Gaul and the civil war narrative, then was killed in battle as consul a year after his chief's murder.

Which hill fort gave the Gauls their celebrated victory over Caesar in 52 BC, months before their final defeat?

Gergovia saw a Roman assault on the heights run out of control, and the French still remember the battle as the day Gaul beat Rome.

Which captive sister of Egypt's queen was paraded through Rome in Caesar's triumph of 46 BC?

Arsinoe walked behind a burning model of Alexandria's lighthouse, and although such captives were usually strangled afterwards, Caesar was pressed into sparing her.