Julius Caesar’s intent.
Suetonius suggests that Caesar wanted to over throw the Republic from the start of his political career and establish “the despotism which had been his heart’s desire from early youth.”[1] That is one explanation among many which Suetonius gives in ch. 30 of his biography of Caesar. But here is another suggestion: his opponents in the Senate constrained the choices he was able to make. By the time he crossed the Rubicon, the oligarchs (or optimates) in the Senate had narrowed his options to the point where civil war was the only rational choice left to him. What do you think? MLA Style please.