This article examines Julius Caesar’s political strategy under the conditions of the Roman Republic’s crisis in the middle of the first century BCE. Caesar’s political activity is interpreted not as a series of isolated decisions, but as a coherent strategy combining popular support, elite bargaining, military resources, legal legitimacy and the conversion of personal prestige into political capital. The study focuses on Caesar’s use of the Marian political legacy, the alliance with Pompey and Crassus, his agrarian measures during the consulship, the transformation of military success in Gaul into political leverage, his attempts to negotiate a compromise before the civil war, and the decision to cross the Rubicon. The article argues that Caesar’s strategic advantage lay not only in his ability to acquire power but also in his capacity to connect the interests of different social and political groups around a single political centre. At the same time, his strategy did not resolve the institutional causes of the republican crisis. Instead, the concentration of authority in one political actor accelerated the erosion of republican constraints and contributed to the transition toward a new political order.

Julius Caesar, Roman Republic, political crisis, political strategy, Senate, First Triumvirate, Pompey, Gaul, Rubicon, civil war, dictatorship.

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