Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator

Caesar is bringing in policies that are designed to heal Rome.

Narrator: Caesar uses his power to put other radical policies into action.

Wallace-Hadrill: Caesar has got a hell of a lot to do to deal with all the problems that have been bubbling away and try to get Rome back on-- on an even kilter.

It's astonishing how much he could do so quickly.

Malik: A lot of things aren't working, and a lot of things need repair-- roads, infrastructure, aqueducts.

There are food shortages.

Holland: But he's in a position now to ensure that the mouths of the Roman people will be fed.

He feels that he alone has the ability and the vision to solve problems that his contemporaries had manifestly been unable to solve.

He sponsors the rebuilding and beautification of the Senate House.

He draws up plans to build the largest temple of the world on the Campus Martius.

He even has an astonishing scheme to divert the very course of the Tiber, as though he is a man so divine that with his finger, he can, you know, reorder the course of rivers.

Nothing is beyond the reach of Caesar to correct, to regulate, to improve, even the dimension of time.

The Roman calendar by Caesar's lifetime is in a state of chaos.

It doesn't synchronize at all with the rhythms of the seasons, the patterns of the years.

And so, amid all the many other things that--that Caesar is doing, he orders a recalibration of the calendar.

Wallace-Hadrill: He gives us the calendar, which we have continued to use for the next two millennia.

Malik: It probably seems like life is going to get better under Caesar.

He offers the people a little bit of stability