Lesson video

Hi guys, welcome to lesson two of Roman Britain.

And again, I'm feeling very, very lucky today because we get to learn about one of the most fascinating people, not just in Roman history, but in all of history.

And that is a man called Julius Caesar.

Let's have a look at the agenda together now.

So here is the agenda for today.

The first thing we are going to look at together is who was Julius Caesar? Secondly, we'll look at how did Caesar, which is another way of referring to Julius Caesar, how did Caesar conquer Gaul? And then finally, how did Caesar become a dictator? And we'll look in a bit more detail about what a dictator is.

Now, as with every lesson, there are three key things you're going to need.

So an exercise book or paper, a pencil, or a pen, and most importantly, our brains.

So pause the video now, make sure you've got all those things, and then let's get started learning about one of the most fascinating people in all of history, Julius Caesar.

Let's have a look now at who was Julius Caesar.

Now the first thing that you need to know about Julius Caesar is that he was one of the most famous Roman leaders in their entire history.

In fact, he might be the most famous of them all.

He won many battles for the Romans and played a really important role in growing, or another way of saying that is expanding, their empire, but he wasn't just a great military commander, or another way of saying that is general, he was very talented in other areas as well.

So he was a very successful general, but he was also a very successful politician and scholar, but historians are in a general agreement that he is one of the greatest generals or military commanders in all of history.

And you may be wondering when was Julius Caesar alive? I'll take us back to our timeline that we looked at in the previous lesson, Julius Caesar lived from 100 BCE to 44 BC.

So if we zoom in on the timeline, you can see where he fits into within the Roman period.

Now that we know a bit more about Julius Caesar, you need to complete the following task.

For each of the sentences on your screen, write down what the missing words are.

When you're ready, pause the video to complete the task and then resume once you're finished.

Okay, how did you get on? I bet you absolutely smashed it.

Let's have a look at what we got for these answers.

So A, Caesar was a famous Roman leader who won many battles for Rome and helped the empire.

What did you get for that? It was, he helped the empire grow or another word you could have put in there is actually expand.

So if you put that instead, that's absolutely fine.

Give yourself a big pat on the back.

Sentence B, Caesar had a very successful career as a general, something, and scholar.

What was the other career that Caesar was very successful career in? Politician is absolutely correct.

Yes, so Caesar, not just a military commander or a general, but he was also a politician and a scholar, and very successful in all of those things.

Sentence C, historians consider Caesar to be one of the greatest something in all of history.

Hmm, do you remember what I said he's considered to be the greatest in all of history or one of the greatest? That's absolutely right.

He's considered to be one of the greatest generals.

And remember, it's because he won so many battles that it helped the empire grow.

You should be feeling pretty confident about your knowledge of who Julius Caesar was now.

What we're going to look at in this part of the lesson is how did Caesar conquer Gaul? Now, by conquer, we mean takeover through force, and you might be wondering what is Gaul? Well, Gaul was an area in Europe during the Roman period.

So what we're looking at is how did Caesar take over through force this large area where Germany is today? Now the series of wars that took place were fought between Rome and Gaul.

And these wars became known as the Gallic Wars.

Caesar, during these wars, was the commander of the Roman legions.

And when I say Roman legions, that's just another way of saying Roman armies.

So legion is the same as armies.

Now the aim of these wars was, firstly, to expand or to grow the Roman Empire.

The Romans also wanted to protect their own borders so the Gauls could not attack Rome.

And if you can see on the map here, it shows, the red arrows show us all the different campaigns or troop movements of Caesar's army.

Now, interestingly Caesar had his own motives for becoming involved in the Gallic Wars.

One motive was that he saw this as an opportunity to make himself a more powerful leader because by defeating the goals Gauls battle, it would give him influence in Rome.

The second motive for Julius Caesar was that he actually right, he had lots of money problems in Rome and he owed a lot of people money.

And so he saw this as an opportunity to, by conquering Gaul, he could take their money and resources and use them to pay off the people that he owed money to.

Now, at the end of the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar had been very successful.

He defeated all his enemies and was able to expand the Roman Empire all the way to the North Sea.

He also was able to achieve one of his own personal aims, which was that he took lots and lots of gold from the Gauls and he could use that to pay off his debts and actually become very wealthy himself.

Okay, we're firing on all cylinders now.

We know we're starting to learn a lot about Julius Caesar and becoming better historians by the second.

What I would like you to do now is use the information that we've just learnt about Caesar's conquering of Gaul and look at these sentences and decide whether they are true or false.

And when you're ready, pause the video to complete the task and resume once you are finished.

Okay, how did you find that? Hopefully not too challenging.

Let's have a go at going through these together now.

So sentence A, Caesar was the commander of the Roman Navy during the Gallic Wars.

What did you get for that one? Let's have a look.

It was in fact false.

And the reasons it's false is because Caesar was a commander, but what was he the commander of? Say it to the screen now.

That's right he was a commander of the Roman legions, which remember is another word for the Roman armies.

Let's have a look at B.

Caesar's only aim in the Gallic Wars was to expand Rome.

Hmm, have a think.

What were Caesar's motives backing the Gallic Wars? Let's have a look at the answer.

Oh, it's also false.

Caesar, he did want to help expand Rome.

But remember he had his own personal motives.

He wanted to become a very powerful and influential leader and he also had some money problems. So he wanted to use the wars as an opportunity to take the Gaul's resources and gold, and to pay off his debts.

Let's have a look at C now, the conquest of Rome expanded the empire to the North Sea.

Hm, let's have a think.

How far did the empire grow during this time? Let's see what the answer is.

It is actually true.

Yes, that's right.

That was a very big deal for the Roman Empire to have been able to expand all the way to the North Sea.

And the reason that's important is because the North Sea is on the doorstep of Britain.

By now, Caesar has become very, very powerful.

He's won many victories.

He's got a really experienced and powerful army behind him.

And he's also managed to accumulate lots of gold and pay off lots of his debts back in Rome.

What we're going to look at in this final part of the lesson is how did Caesar become a dictator? And you may be wondering what is a dictator? A dictator is usually someone who is leader of the country and they have total power.

But the key thing about a dictator and what makes them controversial is that they do not get elected into that position, or they don't get voted.

No one chooses for them to be in that position.

So what we're going to look at is how did Caesar become a dictator? And where do you think he became the dictator of? That's absolutely right.

Caesar becomes the dictator of Rome.

Let's look at the story together now.

The story of Julius Caesar becoming dictator of Rome begins 50 BCE.

In 50 BCE, Julius Caesar is ordered by the Senate, led by a man called Pompey to return to Rome and disband, which means break up, his army.

Doesn't seem like too big a request, but Caesar is very concerned.

The reason why Caesar is concerned is that he has actually managed to make quite a lot of enemies back in Rome.

And he is scared that when he returns to Rome, his enemies will prosecute or accuse him of a crime and he will have to go to prison.

Cesar faces a very difficult decision.

And what he decides to do is he will return to Rome, but he will bring his army with him.

And this created a lot of panic.

If Caesar was to bring his army and cross this river, which is near Rome, called the Rubicon, this would cause a civil war and a civil war is a war that isn't fought between different countries or states, it's fought between people in the same country.

So what does Julius Caesar do? He takes his army to the Rubicon.

He crosses the river towards Rome and a civil war breaks out.

Now, there are a series of battles over several years between Caesar and his enemies and Caesar eventually defeats all of them.

Once he has defeated his enemies, he makes himself the dictator of Rome.

So again, that means he has total control, total power over Rome.

And no one has voted for him to do that.

This is a big change in Roman history, because you may remember before this time, what was Rome? That's right, it was a republic and the republic doesn't have a king or a queen.

It has people in charge who were voted by others to be in control over them.

But now the republic is over because Julius Caesar has not been voted in and he has total control over the empire.

And eventually he makes himself dictator for life, which means the only way that he will no longer be a dictator is when he eventually dies.

Unfortunately for Julius Caesar, he does eventually die.

And he is assassinated in 44 BC by some senators who were very upset at how much power and influence he had.

And thus the remarkable life that Julius Caesar had lived came to an end.

It's time now to complete the final task of this lesson.

What I'd like you to do is, based on everything we've just learned about Caesar becoming a dictator, please answer the following questions in full sentences.

Question number one.

Why was Caesar worried about returning to Rome? And then question number two, what happened at the end of the civil war? So when you're ready, pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

Maybe you're finding it a bit difficult to get started on these questions.

If so here's some sentence starters for you to use.

Okay, let's have a look at the answers to these questions then.

Question number one.

Why was Caesar worried about returning to Rome? He had a lot of worries.

Do we remember what those are? Absolutely right.

He thought that he would be prosecuted or you could have said accused of a crime when he returned.

Remember, Cesar had managed to make quite a few enemies back home at Rome.

Question number two.

What happened at the end of the civil war? Well, at the end of the civil war, what happened? Can't quite remember, can you? I bet you can because you're absolutely right if you got this, Caesar defeated all his enemies, classic Caesar, that, and he became the dictator of Rome.

I guess, bonus points as well if you mentioned as well that he eventually was assassinated, but give yourself a pat on the back.

If you've got both those answers.

Well done on all the fantastic learning that you've done today.

There are just two things that I'd like you to do now.

The first thing is think of the three most memorable things that you learned in today's lesson and note them down.

That's a really helpful exercise for remembering knowledge.

And the second thing I'd like you to do is please complete the exit quiz at the end.

Again, that's going to be really helpful for you solidifying this fascinating Roman history in your brain.

Have a great day and I look forward to teaching you again soon.