In the year 75 BC , a young Julius Caesar (Gustavo Rojo) is forced to escape , -leaving his sweetheart Cornelia : Franca Parisi - from Rome for saving his life because being Dictator Sulla's enemy . He flees on a raft with his friend, Publius and his faithful assistant , Frontone (Ignacio Leone) . After that , they are given sanctuary by the King of Bithynia (Mario Petri) , but are attacked and captured by pirates (the pirate leader is Gordon Michell as Hamar) when they sail on one of the king's boats for Mileto with Quintilia . As Caesar and his companions are taken prisoner at an impregnable island . Later on , Caesar exacts a merciless vendetta .
An acceptable sword and sandals movie with intrigues , thrills , emotion , spectacular sea battles and impressive fights . Freely based on Julius Caesar's life , the film inspires itself onsome historical events taking parts here and there . Here appears some historical characters, as the notorious ruler Cornelius Sulla who battled fiercely dictator Marius as well as Julius Caesar . Decent main cast as Gustavo Rojo , Abbe Lane and Gordon Mitchell . Support cast is pretty good , full of secondaries of the 60s and 70s , such as Erno Crisa , Mario Petri , Piero Lulli , Franca Parisi , Ignacio Leone , among others .The motion picture was professionally directed by Sergio Grieco. He was a good craftsman who made a lot of adventures, action and thrillers movies as Sergeant Klems, SOS agent 017, Rififi in Amsterdam, The mysterious swordsman , Lucrezia Borgia, La regina dei Tartaro, Il Capitano di Ferro, Pirates of the Black Hawk..
The actual deeds occured in the following way : In 85 BC, Caesar's father died suddenly, so Caesar was the head of the family at 16. His coming of age coincided with a civil war between his uncle Gaius Marius and his rival Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Both sides carried out bloody purges of their political opponents whenever they were in the ascendancy. Marius and his ally Lucius Cornelius Cinna were in control of the city when Caesar was nominated as the new Flamen Dialis (high priest of Jupiter), and he was married to Cinna's daughter Cornelia.Following Sulla's final victory, though, Caesar's connections to the old regime made him a target for the new one. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry, and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding.The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar. The loss of his priesthood had allowed him to pursue a military career, as the high priest of Jupiter was not permitted to touch a horse, sleep three nights outside his own bed or one night outside Rome, or look upon an army.Caesar felt that it would be much safer far away from Sulla should the Dictator change his mind, so he left Rome and joined the army, serving under Marcus Minucius Thermus in Asia and Servilius Isauricus in Cilicia. He served with distinction, winning the Civic Crown for his part in the Siege of Mytilene. He went on a mission to Bithynia to secure the assistance of King Nicomedes's fleet, but he spent so long at Nicomedes' court that rumours arose of an affair with the king, which Caesar vehemently denied for the rest of his life.Hearing of Sulla's death in 78 BC, Caesar felt safe enough to return to Rome. He lacked means since his inheritance was confiscated, but he acquired a modest house in Subura, a lower-class neighbourhood of Rome.He turned to legal advocacy and became known for his exceptional oratory accompanied by impassioned gestures and a high-pitched voice, and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption.Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla stripped Caesar of the priesthood.On the way across the Aegean Sea,Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held prisoner.He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. The pirates demanded a ransom of 20 talents of silver, but he insisted that they ask for 50. After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them. He had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised while in captivity-a promise that the pirates had taken as a joke. As a sign of leniency, he first had their throats cut. He was soon called back into military action in Asia, raising a band of auxiliaries to repel an incursion from the east.On his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, a first step in a political career. He was elected quaestor for 69 BC, and during that year he delivered the funeral oration for his aunt Julia, and included images of her husband Marius in the funeral procession, unseen since the days of Sulla. His wife Cornelia also died that year. Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Hispania after her funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC.While there, he is said to have encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realised with dissatisfaction that he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little. On his return in 67 BC,he married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla, whom he later divorced in 61 BC after her embroilment in the Bona Dea scandal. In 65 BC, he was elected curule aedile, and staged lavish games that won him further attention and popular support
