346 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



house, espoused the popular side. He did this the more 

 readily because his many gifts enabled him to control 

 the Roman mob. This man was Julius Ccesar, who 

 visited Britain and conquered the whole of Gaul from 

 the sea to the Rhine. 



During this time the Roman Government became 

 more disordered than ever. Then Caesar rebelled (49 

 B.C.) and marching on Rome got himself chosen Consul 

 and Dictator by the people. He accumulated offices, 

 becoming also Pontifex Maximus or High Priest of 

 Rome, and assumed the title of Imperator (Emperor or 

 Commander) a military appellation which he made 

 exclusively his own. After defeating Pompey in Epirus, 

 and his other enemies in Spain and Africa, he was, as 

 the reader knows, killed in the Senate House by Cassius, 

 Brutus, and others, March i5th, 44 B.C. 



Thereupon followed another civil war between Caesar's 

 partisans, under his great-nephew and adopted son 

 Octavius, and Mark Antony one of Caesar's officers on 

 one side, and the supporters of the republic on the 

 other. The battle of Philippi (42 B.C.) in Macedonia 

 crushed the latter. 



Then the triumphant Mark Antony fell, through 

 love, to be the creature of the Egyptian Queen 

 Cleopatra, and these, being defeated by Octavius, put 

 themselves to death, when Egypt became another Roman 

 province. Octavius, who had been adopted by Julius, 

 was also Caesar, and a new title, Augustus, was given him 

 by the people of Rome (27 B.C.). Thus he is known as 

 the Emperor Augustus, and he was reigning at Rome 

 when Christ was born in Judaea. Although Augustus 

 became an absolute sovereign, he assumed no royal 

 pomp, appearing but as a citizen who was the first and 

 highest magistrate, while the old republican institutions 



