Julius Caesar's Failed African Campaign

Gaius Curio, honorable tribune and senator of Rome, made his last stand fighting for the cause of Caesar in Africa. Despite his blunders, he went down fighting, and Caesar went to great lengths to recall his doomed quest to wrest Africa from the Pompeian menace for good.

[@sva33]

Caesar is about as bad as he was portrayed by the conservatives, in that he committed a number of crimes against the Roman Republic, and probably was planning on being a dictator for life (he was too smart to ever crown himself king). Also, his war against Gaul was both illegal and brutal. He just straight up invaded and conquered Gaul without Senate approval, so that's pretty evil.
When he took Gaul, he murdered and enslaved thousands, and those slaves were almost certainly subject to rape. Remember mass rape is a tool of terror and was definitely used by Rome. Everything Genghis Khan did, the Romans did, just on a smaller scale.
Now, at the same time, and this is what makes Caesar such an interesting figure, all of the good things about Caesar are also true. He was a man of the people, and he enacted necessary reforms, or tried to enact necessary reforms to help the people. Keep in mind that the conservatives in Rome were more than willing to utilize violence, and killed two tribunes (the Gracchi brothers) to preserve their holdings.
Also, a lot of the hate towards Caesar by the Senate is based around the fact that Caesar played the game better than everyone else. When he started out, he was barely a member of the Senatorial class, but through his brilliance he became the most powerful man in Rome. That's probably why so many historians like Julius Caesar.

[@jiachengwu4185]

Caesar massacred a million Gauls (not thousands!) and enslaved another million. If that is not genocide, I don't know what is.
This "human" is in the league of Hitler and friends.

[@Last555555555]

I don't think he would've remained dictator for life. He was mirroring his actions off of Sulla, who was dictator for 10 years, accomplished what he set out to do, then retired. I imagine Caesar would do the same. Implement the reforms he wanted to see, then stand down once he got everything done. A lot of his actions subverting the democratic process post-consulship and his whole Gaulic Wars were largely an attempt to build up his standing and prevent the Conservatives from pursuing criminal charges against him for legally dubious things he did as Consul. It's important to remember that Caesar did his actions in Gaul because he knew the Roman political system well. Rome was built off the conquest of other people and the wealth and manpower that could be acquired through that conquest was nothing to sneeze at. While Gaul wasn't a super valuable region, it allowed Caesar to turn his Legions into a battle-hardened force loyal only to Caesar.

[@isaacshultz8128]

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