order to further his interests. According to Balsdon, "he made up his mind quickly and acted always with resolution, ready often to take the greatest, even the foolhardiest of risks" (56). During his political career and later after he became Dictator, he would have recourse, when the patricians in the Senate blocked his path, to the people, "to increase his personal influence with the mob" (Duggan 63). His curried popularity when he was a middle level official (aedile) by providing gladiatorial contests. Later, he engaged in wholesale distributions of public lands to veterans and poor farmers. He never cancelled but he caused the stretchout of debt burdens incurred by the poor during the Civil War of the 50s. Never a popular tribune, Caesar was often considered a traitor to his class by the aristocratic Senate.
Caesar gained invaluable experience quelling Spanish rebels when he was sent there in 61 BC. His reputation as one of the most outstanding military commanders in history was made by his conquest of Gaul and Teutonic tribes bet
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