But he's only really to blame if he was the first one to do that. And he wasn't. Look at General Marius, for instance, who rose to power on the strength of his generalship and on his willingness to open up the army to the poor, who were loyal to him personally and not to Rome, and whom he promised land in exchange for their good service in the army. This, of course, required the Romans to keep conquering new land so they could keep giving it to new legionnaires. Marius was also consul five times in a row, 60 years before Caesar. Or look at the Roman general Sulla, who, like Marius, ensured that his armies would be more loyal to him personally than to Rome, but who marched against Rome itself and then became its dictator, executing thousands of people in 81 BCE, 30 years before Caesar entered the scene. There's another way of looking at this question altogether if we dispense with great man history.