(

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

: "dictator in perpetuity"), also called ''dictator in perpetuum'', was the office

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

held at the end of his life. He was granted the title between 26 January and 15 February during the year 44 BC. By abandoning the time restrictions of the regular

Roman dictator A Roman dictator was an extraordinary Roman magistrate, magistrate in the Roman Republic endowed with full authority to resolve some specific problem to which he had been assigned. He received the full powers of the state, subordinating the oth ...

ship, it elevated Caesar's to a rank more akin to the ancient

Roman kings The king of Rome () was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom, a legendary period of Roman history that functioned as an elective monarchy. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hil ...

. This change, among other monarchical tendencies, motivated his assassination a few weeks later on 15 March 44 BC.

History

Julius Caesar held the dictator position for only eleven days in 49 BCE (holding elections either as ''dictator Comit. habend.'' or as ''dictator rei gerundae causa'') and again for the year 48/47 BCE. In 46 BCE, he was elected dictator for the next ten years. At some point between January and February 44 BCE he was appointed , but was assassinated less than two months later, on the

Ides of March The Ides of March (; , Medieval Latin: ) is the day on the Roman calendar marked as the , roughly the midpoint of a month, of Martius, corresponding to 15 March on the Gregorian calendar. It was marked by several major religious observances. ...

. Stefan Weinstock has argued that the perpetual dictatorship was part of the senatorial decrees regarding Caesar's divine honors, as well as his planned

apotheosis Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The origina ...

as ''Divus Iulius'', a complex of honors aimed at

eternity Eternity, in common parlance, is an Infinity, infinite amount of time that never ends or the quality, condition or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside tim ...

and

divinity Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a single ...

References

{{Julius Caesar, state=collapsed 44 BC Heads of government Heads of state Latin political words and phrases Positions of authority Julius Caesar Dictatorship Coups d'état in Europe Self-coups

History

See also

References