49 BC

Year 49 BC was a year of the pre-Julian calendar.

Events

By place

Rome

• Consuls: Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus, Gaius Claudius Marcellus Maior.
• The Great Roman Civil War commences
  • January 1—The Roman Senate receives a proposal from Julius Caesar that he and Pompey should lay down their commands simultaneously. The Senate responds that Caesar must immediately surrender his command.
  • January 10—Julius Caesar leads his army across the Rubicon, which separates his jurisdiction (Cisalpine Gaul) from that of the Senate (Italy), and thus initiates a civil war. In response, the Roman senate invokes the senatus consultum ultimum.
  • February—Pompey's flight to Epirus (in Western Greece) with most of the Senate.
  • March 9—Caesar advances against Pompeian forces in Spain.
  • April 19—Caesar's siege of Massilia against the Pompeian Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; the siege was conducted later by Caesarian Gaius Trebonius.
  • June—Caesar arrives in Spain; seizes the Pyrenees passes against the Pompeians L. Afranius and Marcus Petreius.
  • June 7—Cicero slips out of Italy and goes to Salonika.
  • July 30—Caesar surrounds Afranius and Petreius's army in Ilerda.
  • August 2—Pompeians in Ilerda surrender to Caesar and are granted pardon.
  • August 24—Caesar's general Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in North Africa by the Pompeians under Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia (whom he defeated earlier in the Battle of Utica), in the Battle of the Bagradas River, and commits suicide.
  • September—Decimus Brutus, a Caesarian, defeats the combined Pompeian-Massilian naval forces in the naval Battle of Massilia, while the Caesarian fleet in the Adriatic is defeated near Curicta (Krk).
  • September 6—Massilia surrendered to Caesar, coming back from Spain.
  • October—Caesar appointed Dictator in Rome.

Births

Deaths

• Gaius Scribonius Curio (suicide) (b. 90 BC)
• Xuan, emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty (b. 91 BC)
• Lucretius, Roman poet and philosopher (b. c. 99 BC)
• Zheng Ji