Julius Caesar, greatest historical figure of all time?

Caesar definitely wasn't the greatest historical figure of all time, he is obviously in the ten or twenty, but definitely not the greatest.

How can you list off all these Roman emperors without naming the greatest of them all? Justinian is a glaring omission.

i did say many more :| :|

His sucessor, Augustus was more important.

I agree with Dan Caesar is of no doubt, to me at least, the greatest historical figure

Depends on the situation you are end, but even though the republic was one the way out. To be the one to do it will gain you a place forever in history. But personally I liked Caesar and consider his death a tragedy.

Just to correct a common misunderstanding, Julius Caesar did not claim himself Emperor neither created the Roman Empire, he declared himself the perpetuous Dictator. He didn't dissolve the senate or something like that, neither the Praetors or Quaestor or higher positions.

Genghis Khan was so much more!

as a young boy he was orphaned (together with his 4 siblings) and banished to live without a tribe (essentially an outlaw)
he was able to survive on the harch steppes, gather other outlaws to his banner and unite all the mongol peoples.
this in itself is quite an achievement.

after that he invaded and succesfully conquerd the chinese (who were the largest, richest, advanced and mightiest people in the world at the time)

from China he Marched his entire army into Europe and the middle east.

now you tell me was he just an mass murderer?

That was a almost annual necropost bravo.

lol, but yeah it wasn't me.

He is definatly one of the greatest, and he is my faviorite general of all time. He was better then alexander(ghengis khan was to), alexander had everything set up for him. Caesar had to build his army, while working his way up through the roman political machine and ghengis khan was exiled as a kid and had to basically start from scratch. Alexander started out as king and already had a badass army at his disposal.

In terms of greates figures I am a bit biased because I love romans, so I am going to have agree with dan, Caeser was the greatest.

I wouldnt consider Caesar the best general though. Sure, he was a great tactical leader and strategical genius. But most of the time he didnt really think about the bolts and nuts of warfare.

That place in my opinion is held by Napoleon. =)

What do you mean by bolts and nuts.

Caesar was always preparing for post victory (even though victory most of the time was far from inevitable). He knew that sacking every Gaulish city would turn ALL of Gaul forever against him, so most of the time, ensured that his soldiers would keep strict discipline and treat the Gaulish people nicely. However, he knew that sometimes he had to set an example by sacking some cities, which convinced other cities to join his cause solely because they didn't wanna end up like said city.

He did the same thing during the Civil War, even going as far as releasing the Pompeian generals who surrendered to him. (Some of them went back and fought him again. Ahenobarbus was captured by him like 3-4 times and was released and went to fight against him every time).


However, I think Pompey The Great does not get the credit he deserves. People forget that up until the very end, he was considered to be a better general than Caesar. He had one three triumphs, on 3 different continents, and was largely responsible for Caesar getting the resources and positions to achieve his success. By the time the Civil War had came around, he had not been in command of an army for about 13 years, and was 57, so it is understandable that he made mistakes. The only reason he attacked Caesar at Pharsalus, was because many of the prominent Roman senators and leaders that had joined him, pressured him, and some threatened to take their own sector of the army and go on their own against Caesar, which would have severely weakened Pompey, and his prestige. If Pompey had had his way, he would have starved Caesar into submission, and would have more than likely won the Civil War.

Spartacus: Logistics,moving your troops fast to in forced marches, keeping them fit to fight after the march. These things were made by his generals and men under them. Ofcourse the Roman army was very organized for such a thing already.

How do you know this? I have never seen anything that suggested he ignored logistics.

What? He was an expert in logistics and forced marches. You gotta remember, he had to rely on the Gallic tribes to supply him with grain and other essentials. He was great at organizing everything, but sometimes, the Gauls would purposely slow down the convoys, or deliberately give less or stop them altogether, and he did all that he possibly could do to fix that.

Oh right, well sorry my mistake. I always thought he was like Rommel.

Nah, he was always prepared.