♪ Narrator: The Roman Republic is mourning the death of its most senior priest-- the pontifex maximus.

It's a religious position of enormous prestige that also brings political authority and influence.

Now the people of Rome must vote for their next pontifex.

Candidates are expected to be senior politicians with established careers.

Two elder statesmen have put themselves forward.

But so, too, has a politician half their age.

Julius Caesar.

Man: This is an outrageous move.

It is a blatant flouting of convention, it is arrogant, it is improper.

But the thing is that Caesar doesn't really care for convention.

Caesar is a gambler.

Throughout his life, he is always rolling the dice.

And I think it's actually pretty clear what Caesar wants right from the beginning.

He wants to be the greatest man in Rome.

♪ Narrator: At the heart of the most powerful empire in the ancient world stands Rome.

For 500 years, it was ruled by elected government.

But in a little over a decade, this republic was overthrown by the ambitions of one man.

Man: The story of Caesar is an incredibly enduring one, the resonance of it so powerful.

It remains the most thrilling, the most extraordinary political story in Western history.

Narrator: Now historians and experts who understand the nature of political power will chart his rise... Woman: Rome is ungovernable, and there's only one man in the city with the power to take control of the situation.

Narrator: and ask how an individual can bend a centuries-old political system to breaking point.

Julius Caesar is the most dangerous kind of demagogue.

Narrator: This is the story of how ambition turns to tyranny... Man: He's a disgrace in every single way.

He's immoral, he's irreligious, and he's a potential tyrant.

Narrator: and how a dictator is born.

Man: The awful lesson is that in the end, a populist can corrupt an entire state.

Man 2: For every other political system, that values stability and justice and liberty, that should be, at the very least, a wake-up call.

Woman: Democracy has to be constantly fought for.

If we take it for granted, a new Caesar will come.

♪ [Birds squawking] ♪ Narrator: The election of the new high priest of Rome is imminent.

A surprise contender is 37-year-old Julius Caesar, a mid-ranking politician in the government at the heart of Rome and its empire.

Tom Holland: In 63, Caesar is, relatively speaking, a junior magistrate, perhaps a kind of junior member of the cabinet, perhaps on the margins of the cabinet.

Caesar is very cool, I think, in almost every sense of the word.

He is very dandyish.

He wears his toga in a distinctive way to stand out from the crowd, to set aside conventions.

He's making a statement about the kind of man, the kind of politician that he wants to be.

Narrator: Caesar lives in a time when most countries are ruled by kings.

Rome prides itself on being a republic.

Here, elected representatives share power.

Holland: Five centuries earlier, the Roman people had risen up and expelled their king, a haughty tyrant, and brought the monarchy to an end.

And the republic was designed precisely with the aim of ensuring that there would never be a king again.

And there's a kind of collective memory among the Roman people, a deep-seated dread of tyranny.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill: The basic principle of the republic is that no individual can dominate the system.

It's a fundamental part of their rhetoric.

We just don't do monarchy.

Narrator: At the heart of the republic is the Senate, the seat of government presided over by an elite body of wealthy aristocratic men.

Shushma Malik: Rome was not a democracy as we might recognize it now.

But living in a republic in Rome gives the people more participation in how Rome makes decisions, and the republican system of government essentially means that you have an advisory body, which is the Senate, made up of the best men, what the Romans thought of as an aristocracy.

Wallace-Hadrill: Senators are elected in very sharp and bitter competition with each other, and Caesar has been making his way up the ladder.

Narrator: Caesar's ambition is to maneuver his way up the strict hierarchy of the Senate.

The higher the rank, the fiercer the competition.

Right now, Caesar's a mid-ranking aedile.

The ultimate prize is the consulship, a year-long post shared by two men.

Wallace-Hadrill: To make your way in politics in Rome brings you status.

And the key Roman word for that is dignitas, your dignity.

Caesar says repeatedly that dignity was dearer to him than life itself.

"My reputation is everything."

Holland: And so, to win the consulship, this is what dignitas is all about.

That is the kind of the sweetest fulfillment for a Roman.

I mean, this is why, basically, Caesar wants to be pontifex maximus.

It's not an end.

It's a steppingstone to an end.

[Bird caws, horse nickers] Narrator: Putting himself forward for the role of high priest is brazen, but Caesar is willing to gamble.

Winning would fast-track his political career.

Malik: The pontifex maximus is the chief priest in Rome, and as a result, they have quite a lot of power in determining big questions to do with public business and the daily routine of Roman political life.

Holland: To hold the most eminent of all the priesthoods is a very great thing indeed.

It marks you out as a figure of incredible authority.

It's absolutely not the kind of role that someone like Caesar, a dandyish, slightly louche man, should be going for.

Only someone of supreme self-confidence and a readiness to play fast and loose with the rules, who actually enjoys tweaking the tails of the conservative establishment, could do that.

[Cawing] Narrator: But Caesar can't do it alone.

He needs a backer to finance his campaign.

Holland: Caesar was aristocratic, but by the standards of many in the Senate, he's not particularly rich.

Not only is he not rich, he's essentially mortgaged up to the hilt.

Narrator: Caesar's solution is to broker a dangerous alliance.

[Growling] If you want to borrow an enormous sum of money, there's only one person you go to.

And this is a figure who's notorious as the richest man in the city, a man called Crassus.

Federico Santangelo: Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome.

He has a real estate empire, owns significant stretches of the city, and Crassus likes to have people in his debt.

He uses his money to develop, consolidate, and expand his network of support.

Holland: Think of the figure of a godfather, a mafia boss, the most intimidating, the most powerful.

Everyone sees Crassus as a kind of rather menacing spider at the center of a web that spreads everywhere.

Santangelo: It can be very dangerous to be in Crassus' debt.

He can be, according to some ancient reports, pretty brutal.

Crassus sees in Caesar an extremely capable individual.

He knows that he has all the talent, all the potential to do extremely well in the Roman political game.

Caesar is a tremendously valuable asset and one very much worth investing into.

Holland: It's a gamble.

Caesar knows that by borrowing from Crassus, there is a risk that he will end up as a fly wrapped up in the web.

♪ Narrator: The high priest will be elected by a public vote.

Caesar plans to appeal to the ordinary people of Rome by exploiting their plight.

Rome is increasingly divided.

Over 100 years of violent conquest, it's grown from a small city to a vast empire stretching across the Mediterranean, and the spoils of war have brought a handful of men outrageous wealth.

Wallace-Hadrill: The scale of conquest is producing enormous influx of money, influx of slaves.

Rome is richer than it's ever been before.

And yet, the greater the wealth of the wealthy in Rome, the greater the poverty of the poor in Rome.

The people of Rome are half-starved, ill-housed.

They're hundreds of thousands of people who are not sharing in the wealth that they can see.

And Caesar says, "How do you win the support of the Roman people?"

By being their friend, by being their supporter, and be recognized as someone who is on their side.

Narrator: In his current political position, Caesar's in charge of public festivals and gladiatorial games.

It gives him a direct line to the impoverished masses.

Malik: Games in Rome are entertainment.

They're something to do, and they're free.

Not only do you get some way to escape the mundane reality of your life, but also there's some really vital food as part of that package as well.

Caesar makes the decision to spend a considerable amount of money on the games that he throws.

He makes them bigger and better than those who have gone before him.

Great tables groaning with food, supplied with wine, um, all kinds of dazzle, of spectacle.

The accounts we have of Caesar's games suggest that he did extraordinary things with gladiators in silver armor.

These kinds of things would be memorable.

Holland: It's about branding so that your name is on everybody's lips.

And it's a kind of policy, I think, that perhaps has echoes of the way that in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, say, would buy football teams or own TV channels.

It's a way of wooing potential voters by entertaining them.

Malik: I don't think there's necessarily any evidence that Julius Caesar really cares for the day-to-day welfare of the people of Rome.

Rather, his tactics are very successful for getting him where he wants to go politically.

♪ [Caws] Narrator: It's the day of the pontifex maximus vote.

All Caesar can do is hope his financial and political gamble will pay off.

Holland: Caesar is getting ready to leave his house to go and hear the election result, and there's a famous story told about this, that he kisses his mother good-bye and he says to her, "Mother, either I come back "as pontifex maximus, or I won't be coming back at all."

He knows the stakes are that high, that he either wins or he faces bankruptcy and political ruin.

♪ [Birds cawing] He's rolled the dice.

He has wooed the voters.

He has convinced them he's their man.

He has won.

He wins the office.

♪ It is a very key moment for Caesar.

It lifts him up out of this mass of aristocrats like him, and it gives him a kind of dignity that he hadn't previously had.

♪ And now the path stretches ahead of him.

Narrator: High Priest of Rome and popular with the voting public, Caesar is now a rising star in the Senate.

Malik: Julius Caesar is very much in tune with how politics is developing.

Caesar recognizes that the people are going to be an important part of politics going forward.

Narrator: There are no political parties in Rome, but politicians fall into two camps.

Caesar is a populares, a politician who believes decisions should be placed in the hands of the people.

Populares stand in bitter opposition with the optimates, who believe government ought to rest solely in the hands of a conservative elite.

Caesar absolutely hates the optimates.

"Optimus" means the best.

These are the best people.

And undoubtedly, the optimates in Rome think of themselves in those terms.

But what Rome needs is not this mob rule, this horrendous appeal to the unwashed masses.

A populares politician, on the other hand, thinks that the people have been neglected in the bigger picture of Rome.

Holland: Caesar's contempt for the conservatives in the Senate is entirely genuine.

I think he feels that their perspective is old-fashioned, it's hypocritical, it ignores the needs of a people in a great imperial capital.

The population of Rome is in a really agitated condition.

Poverty of the masses can lead to revolution.

It's dynamite.

It can blow up at any moment.

♪ Narrator: Caesar's brazen wooing of the people has angered conservative optimates.

So, when, just a few months later, a conspiracy to violently overthrow the Senate comes to light, Caesar is dangerously exposed.

Malik: In the same year as we get a new pontifex maximus, we also have a conspiracy in Rome known as the Catiline Conspiracy.

And this rocks the political establishment.

A man named Lucius Sergius Catilina allies himself with those who are disenfranchised, the poor in Rome who do have resentment against the Senate, and decides that, actually, revolution and the overthrow of the Senate is the way forward.

Narrator: Rumors begin to circulate that Caesar may have had a hand in the plot.

Caesar may be increasingly popular with the people, but that, of course, just means that his rivals in the Senate are watching him with ever greater suspicion.

And those who want to thwart his rise are, therefore, unsurprisingly, very, very keen to implicate him in the coup.

♪ Narrator: The conspirators are betrayed before they can act.

Five senators, one a former consul, are arrested and await their fate.

The current consuls want to send a clear message-- execute the conspirators without trial.

Holland: Caesar knows that his enemies are trying to tar him as someone who perhaps had been taking part in the conspiracy.

So, by taking part in the debate, Caesar is repudiating that.

This is an opportunity for him to sway the Senate, and he's not going to let it go to waste.

And he does it very, very brilliantly.

Wallace-Hadrill: Caesar launches into a most moving speech.

And he says what these conspirators have done is the most appalling crime for which there should be no mercy.

But our ancestors have established laws.

If we start executing Roman citizens, what will the Roman people make of it?

He points out that it is against every law of the Roman state to put to death fellow citizens.

"Therefore, I, Caesar, propose that rather than execute them, we hand them over and imprison them."

Holland: This is something that is unheard of.

The Romans don't have a kind of prison system.

So, he's doing something radical, thinking outside the box, but at the same time, and this is the genius of it, he's casting himself as the defender of tradition.

Everyone has said, "Oh, yes, we agree.

They should be executed."

Now they say, "Oh, Caesar's right.

"Of course it's much better not to execute them and to have them imprisoned."

Narrator: Caesar appears to have swayed the Senate.

But the optimates have one young senator yet to speak.

Holland: Rising to his feet, a man who will become his nemesis, a man called Cato.

Rory Stewart: Cato and Caesar come from similar backgrounds, but they are total polar opposites.

Caesar is known for his flamboyant fashion, rickety finances, bribing electors.

Cato is somebody who represents the very most old-fashioned ideal of a Roman gentleman.

Very, very austere.

Very simple.

He actually walks around barefoot.

But above all, what he stands for is the old Roman constitution.

And he sees Caesar as a populist.

In other words, somebody who claims to be speaking on behalf of the people but is, in fact, just using that as a way to destroy the Constitution and take power for themselves.

And he's disgusted.

He, too, knows how to speak powerfully, and he puts exactly the opposite case, which is, This is no time to show mercy.

Preserving the republic is the ultimate priority.

"These people are planning to burn our houses, "to rape our wives, to end our civilization.

"This is the worst threat you could have.

We must execute them now."

Narrator: Cato is also convinced that Caesar is in on the plot.

But he has no proof.

Holland: Cato is in full flow.

The great conservative, the man of dignity.

And he looks around, and he sees that Caesar has been given a message.

And Cato, put off his speech, thinks, "What on earth is going on?"

And his first thought is, "Wait a second, "this is a letter from one of the conspirators, and here's Caesar smirking at me."

Holland: The letter has been sent by Cato's half-sister Servilia.

Stewart: Caesar, who's having affairs with everybody else, is also sleeping with Cato's sister.

Holland: Caesar is dragging Cato down into a kind of dimension of tawdry humiliation and smut that is calculated to infuriate him.

Stewart: And this is the moment he gives an astonishing, blistering speech.

Takes no prisoners, and says, "These people, these populists, "you can't see it yet, but I promise you, "these people pose an existential threat "to the survival of the republic, "and unless you act against them now-- "and by the way, I want to include Caesar in that-- "these people are ultimately going to bring the whole house crashing down."

[Applause] Wallace-Hadrill: The Senate swings right around behind Cato.

[Indistinct shouting] Holland: Caesar is obviously disappointed, I'm sure.

It confirms him in his contempt, both for the mass of his conservative opponents and, most specifically, of course, for Cato.

Stewart: Caesar, above all, is ambitious.

He wants to become consul.

He wants to rule Rome.

Standing in his way is this infuriating man that he despises called Cato.

Wallace-Hadrill: This young man shouldn't be one of the leading figures, but somehow his speech has established him as a man with enormous moral authority.

Stewart: This is the moment where he realizes that he's standing for something.

And that is-- and I was a politician-- it's an incredibly powerful moment in a politician's life when you find a cause.

And from then on, the cause in Cato's life is the cause of defending the republic against tyranny.

The time will come when historians of the age look at this as a defining moment, because the tension between Caesar and Cato is clearly expressive of deep tensions within the fabric of the republic.

[Applause] Cato wins the day.

Holland: The order is given.

The conspirators will be put to death.

I suspect that the lesson that Caesar takes from the whole Catilinarian debacle is that it's fine to play the populares, that Caesar is brilliant at that, but that ultimately just doing that is not enough.

He has to have allies in the Senate.

Because if you push too hard against them, people in the Senate still have the power.

They have the will to close ranks.

He, too, could end up with a noose around his neck.

♪ [Woman speaking indistinctly] ♪ Narrator: As Rome reels from the Catiline conspiracy, some senators demand extreme measures to guarantee their safety-- a military presence on the streets of Rome.

♪ They call for Rome's greatest general to return with his army from campaign in the east.

Shelley P. Haley: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was born into a military family.

Pompey grew up on his father's military campaigns.

When he was young, his enemies call him "The teenage butcher," and he becomes the most powerful general in Rome.

Narrator: The Roman Empire has expanded so far and fast it's had to hand huge powers to men like Pompey to command armies and govern territories far beyond the reach of Rome.

Haley: Pompey has as much power, if not more, than the Senate.

The best modern equivalent is warlord.

Holland: Caesar sees in Pompey a kind of harbinger of the republic's future.

Because what Pompey has done with the scale of his conquests is essentially to put the whole of the republic in his shade.

Pompey is a disruptor, and his return will set the kaleidoscope spinning.

And that offers opportunity for someone with Caesar's abilities and talents.

Narrator: Caesar backs the call for Pompey's return, but not all in the Senate agree.

For many optimates, the idea that one man should take charge of Rome is unthinkable.

Haley: The Senate is extremely worried about the power that Pompey has.

At their core, they are very distrustful of one man with too much power.

Narrator: But by supporting calls for Pompey's return, Caesar's not just rankling his political opponents... he's risking his alliance with his financial backer--Crassus.

Marcus Licinius Crassus has good reason not to love Pompey.

Narrator: Crassus fought alongside Pompey against the slave rebellion led by Spartacus.

Crassus secured the decisive victory, but Pompey took the credit.

Santangelo: There is a degree of bitterness on Crassus' part.

Let's be clear.

Crassus hates Pompey.

Narrator: Caesar pushes ahead.

The law prohibits armed soldiers from entering Rome, so, Caesar backs a new law that would allow Pompey to enter the city with his troops.

Like all new bills, it must first be debated in the Senate.

If the majority agree, only then will it be presented in the Forum, Rome's public square, for the people to have their vote.

Holland: Caesar, ever unconventional, sees an opportunity here to play the populares card again.

And so, what he does, he just bypasses the Senate.

He takes the bill directly to the Forum, which is obviously greeted with fury by conservatives in the Senate and particularly, of course, Caesar's great adversary Cato.

[Liquid pouring] Stewart: Cato walks out and sees to his disgust that Caesar is trying to whip up a mob in favor of Pompey, and that Caesar has surrounded himself with gladiators.

And gladiators are basically hired ruffians.

Cato doesn't care.

He walks absolutely alone, straight up the steps, and tells Caesar and the crowd that they should be ashamed of themselves.

Cato does this nonsensical speech.

"We don't need to put this much power into the hands of one man."

Cato's fundamental point is the republic should defend itself through the constitution, and asserts that the Senate will continue to rule the country as it should.

And bedlam breaks out.

Stewart: He's hit from every side.

The crowd throw stuff at him.

The gladiators beat him up.

But he doesn't care.

Cato senses that by allowing himself to be beaten up, he's showing the public what is happening to Rome.

And he will wear those bruises as a source of pride, because what he's saying is, "Look at these people.

"Look at how they've battered me.

"Look at the kind of leaders that you are "going to let come into Rome.

How can you possibly support a man who's done this to me?"

Narrator: Cato's tactic works.

Holland: In the end, it's Cato and his followers who have the better of the whole occasion.

For Caesar, obviously, infuriating.

[Thunder] [Cawing] Narrator: The Senate, horrified by Caesar's brazen use of violence, have him immediately suspended, and the public vote on the bill to recall Pompey is aborted.

Holland: Caesar is staring down the barrel, potentially, of the ruin of his career, having worked so hard.

But actually, what might seem a humiliation, a defeat, can be turned around.

And this is something that Caesar does again and again over the course of his career.

Narrator: Caesar uses his sway with the people to show the Senate he won't bow down.

Two days later, a crowd spontaneously manifests itself outside Caesar's house.

People in the Senate fear that this is potentially an armed mob, that, before you can say it, will be marching on the Senate House.

It's very clear to all concerned that everyone has a stake in deescalating this.

[Men murmuring] Narrator: Caesar stands down his angry mob.

The Senate decide it's better to keep him onside and allow him back.

Holland: Caesar is always alert to new ways of doing politics, and his use of intimidation and combining it with violence is a way to, to make things happen in Rome.

Stewart: From Cato's point of view, the Senate is being weak.

They're worried by his popularity, but they're also trying to convince themselves they can somehow control him.

And Cato is increasingly convinced that the Senate must act against Caesar before it's too late.

[Birds cawing] Narrator: Rome is in turmoil, and Caesar's place in the Senate precarious.

[Indistinct conversations] But his role as high priest offers him a chance to regain trust amongst his peers.

His household must host an important ritual in honor of the goddess Bona Dea, who looks after the safety of Rome.

Holland: In the case of Bona Dea, Caesar himself is not personally in charge, because the Bona Dea is a female-only ritual, and so, on this occasion, Caesar is going to have to rely on the women in his family.

Nandini B. Pandey: So, on the scene, hosting this mysterious and incredibly important party is Caesar's wife Pompeia.

Caesar's mother Aurelia is part of the ceremony, and there's no direct evidence that Caesar's daughter Julia is present, but it's impossible to imagine that she isn't, given the importance of this ritual.

I suspect that Julia and Caesar are quite close.

Julia is, in a way, his most valuable possession.

She is his only legitimate heir.

Ultimately, she'll be there to make a very useful political alliance for him through her own marriage.

Narrator: The ritual sacrifice is overseen by one of the sacred order of priestesses, the Vestal Virgins.

Pandey: Everybody who was anyone in Roman elite society who was also female would be part of the ceremony.

So, there's a lot of pressure on his household to perform the ceremony right, to perform it well so that the gods that take care of Rome will be placated.

♪ Suddenly, the word comes to Aurelia that a mysterious stranger has entered disguised as a harp player.

♪ It turns out this is a man in drag trying to sneak into the house of Caesar as pontifex maximus.

Narrator: It's a serious violation.

The women go home, and gossip about Caesar and his wife spreads like wildfire.

The man who had desecrated the rites of the Bona Dea by going into Caesar's house had, it was said-- this is the rumor that is buzzing round Rome-- had been conducting an affair with Caesar's wife.

This is not the kind of thing that a Roman man wants to have said about him.

If he can't control his women, if he can't control his family, it would reflect very, very badly on the pontifex maximus.

Narrator: This is a scandal that Caesar could do without.

To minimize the damage, he's willing to sacrifice his marriage.

If there's one thing that Caesar hates, it's the idea that people might be laughing at him.

He doesn't want to seem a figure of ridicule.

So, what he does is brilliantly ruthless, brilliantly witty.

He proclaims that he is going to divorce his wife not because she had actually been conducting affair, but because, as he puts it, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

♪ Pandey: There is no way that young Julia could have been unaware of the trouble that this scandal causes for her family.

Julia fully recognizes the responsibility that falls on her shoulders, not just to be a good wife, to be beyond suspicion in her own marriage, but also to ensure that she's protecting the Julian family name.

Caesar's entire genetic future and some of his political future are going to rest on little Julia's shoulders.

♪ Narrator: Caesar's reputation has been damaged.

He needs to take back control.

Now the conquering General Pompey has stood down his army and is due to return to Rome.

It offers Caesar a fresh chance for a powerful alliance.

Holland: Caesar sees in Pompey the face of the future, that this is what it is to be great in-- in what the republic has become.

Running through his head is, "I want that."

Narrator: For Caesar, Pompey is the model of success.

But whilst everyone welcomes the wealth he brings to Rome, many in the Senate are wary.

There's the fear, always the fear, that the conquering general may set himself up as the new tyrant of Rome.

Narrator: But Pompey has just one thing on his political agenda.

Holland: The huge challenge that Pompey faces when he comes back is to provide land for his veterans, the legions who've been following him.

This is what Pompey has promised.

The demand for land by the veterans of the great campaigns is persistent through time.

What they need is a plot of land to live off.

Haley: Land means independence.

You're not dependent on granaries in Rome for your little ration.

It means dignity.

Pompey is a man of integrity.

He gives his word.

You will have a farm.

He is going to see that through.

Narrator: Pompey puts forward a bill to award land to his veterans.

But many optimates, including Cato, are keen to cut him down to size and reject it.

Stewart: Cato still sees Pompey as a danger to the republic.

He's a billionaire celebrity coming in and throwing his weight around.

It's vital to Cato that these big, overweening men are marginalized.

When he sees Pompey facing major difficulties in the Senate, on the Roman political scene, surely Crassus must be taking a good deal of pleasure.

Holland: Caesar sees the astonishing spectacle of Pompey, the conqueror of the gorgeous East.

He's frustrated.

He doesn't know what to do.

He's absolutely paralyzed.

Santangelo: Pompey realizes that he's becoming an increasingly isolated figure, and that presents him, Pompey, with a very real strategic challenge-- how to get out of this impasse.

♪ Haley: Pompey realizes that one way to win over the opponents is through marriage.

Marriage was a tool for a Roman politician.

Everybody knew it.

Pompey is probably the most eligible bachelor in Rome at this time.

He's known to be beloved by the ladies, but also has a strange sense of sexual fidelity for a man.

He's not gadding about, bed hopping, playing the field like Caesar is.

Stewart: Pompey, this billionaire celebrity general, comes to Cato and says he wants to marry his niece.

This is a big moment of decision for Cato, because if Cato allies himself with Pompey, there's a possibility that through that compromise, he can keep Pompey on the side of the republic against people like Julius Caesar.

But in the end, he won't compromise.

Flat out, flat out rejects it.

Stewart: He's not prepared to sully his family by allying with Pompey.

He says, "I'm not going to be outmaneuvered by the bedroom of a girl."

This is purely political.

Pompey feels like he has no control over what's happening politically.

And Cato is thinking, "I've got him."

♪ Narrator: Watching the great commander Pompey belittled by conservatives in the Senate, Caesar sees an opportunity that could serve both of their ambitions.

Holland: Caesar recognizes in the problems that Pompey is facing massive opportunity.

Pompey needs Caesar, Caesar needs Pompey.

Nothing was going to happen for either one of them unless they joined forces.

Narrator: Caesar knows the consulship election is imminent, when the public will vote for two men to share the most prestigious and powerful political position in Rome.

[Flames crackling] With Pompey backing him, Caesar is certain their combined popularity will win him the highest seat in the Senate.

Holland: To be a consul, to be known by the Roman people as someone who has served as a consul, this is the dream that every ambitious citizen in the republic nurtures.

♪ Narrator: Caesar wins the election by a landslide.

♪ Holland: It's only a few years since he was facing the potential utter ruin of his career.

Had he failed to win election to pontifex maximus, he might have ended up a Catiline.

But now he's won the consulship.

It is a great, great thing.

Narrator: But two consuls are elected, and Caesar is expected to share power.

Stewart: The only consolation that Cato has got at this stage is that the second consul is one of Cato's allies, but Cato must already be beginning to suspect that he's maybe not the man to stand up to Caesar.

Narrator: Now he's consul, Caesar needs to make good on his promise to Pompey by proposing a bill to award land to his veterans.

Convention dictates that the Senate must debate it first, and if the majority agree, it will be put to a public vote.

Holland: It's at this point that Caesar's familiar nemesis, Cato, stands up.

Stewart: Cato filibusters.

It's something that's still done in the House of Commons, something that's done a lot in the U.S. Senate.

He speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks, and he speaks out the debate.

Holland: It looks as though the bill has been defeated.

Caesar's defeat, however, turns out to be only a seeming defeat.

Narrator: Caesar knows conservatives in the Senate will do everything they can to obstruct him.

So, he decides to play populares once again and bypass the Senate entirely.

[Crowd cheering] He takes the bill straight to the public Forum for the people to have their vote.

Stewart: What Caesar does is that he moves out of the Senate and he goes back to the people.

Holland: He takes the bill into the Forum, and there in the Forum, gangs of heavies, gangs of Caesar supporters, Pompey's veterans.

A very, very menacing atmosphere.

Stewart: He stands on the rostrum, and he basically whips up a mob to try to get through what he wants.

Then Caesar brings out his celebrity support... [Cheering] Pompey the Great.

It's absolutely political theater.

Crowd goes crazy.

"Yay!"

[Cheering continues] Holland: The real jaw dropper is when Caesar reveals his second celebrity backer.

And the people go, "Wait a minute.

What is going on here?"

And that second celebrity backer is Pompey's deadliest enemy--Crassus.

[Crowd cheering] Stewart: Crassus.

Crassus, a disgusting billionaire who made his money in the most unscrupulous fashion, has now allied himself with Caesar and Pompey.

Santangelo: Crassus seized the opportunity to make himself central in Roman politics by forging an alliance with two rather unlikely but extremely effective partners.

Holland: Cato and his supporters gaze in horror as they realize what this means, that Caesar somehow has brought together the two most powerful men in Rome.

Haley: Three men, taken from the Latin "triumvirate."

Whether the Senate likes it or not, whether Cato likes it or not, doesn't matter.

They are going to control Rome.

It is Cato's nightmare coming to fruition.

♪ Narrator: Caesar presents the land bill to the people.

But before they take their vote, there is one voice of opposition.

Stewart: The second consul, the elected co-consul of Rome, effectively the elected prime minister of Rome... steps forward onto the rostra to try once more to argue against this bill.

Caesar's not having any of that.

[Crowd cheering] Holland: Caesar's heavies pile in.

They attack him, they beat him up.

Stewart: It's that moment, I think, Cato must sense that he's lost.

Caesar just smiles.

He laughs, leaves his colleague to crawl off and leave Rome to Caesar.

♪ [Birds chirping] Narrator: Caesar will ensure Pompey's veterans get their land and that Crassus gets lucrative tax breaks.

For himself, he's lining up the command of Gaul, now modern France, a vast, unconquered province that promises him even greater power and glory.

And he's securing this future with a marriage.

Haley: Pompey, as we know, was rejected by Cato.

But that's a blessing in disguise, because now he can accept Caesar's proposal that he marry Julia.

Pandey: All these years, Caesar has been holding on to Julia as his ace in the hole for maintaining and creating political alliances and opportunities.

Caesar sees the perfect moment to play that card.

Pompey's marriage to Julia is absolutely essential to Caesar's ambitions.

It's really this event that solidifies that alliance is more than just political.

Both Pompey and Caesar are really putting their skin in the game by committing to this relationship.

Holland: Caesar has really been adopting a kind of two-pronged strategy.

The first strategy is to accumulate honors.

So, he's become pontifex maximus.

He's become consul.

But it's that fusion of the traditional statesmanship and a readiness to play fast and loose with the rules that marks him out as someone, by the standards of the republic, of menace.

He's won the highest political position in the land.

He is effectively the master of Rome.

But here is the question.

What next?

♪