Caesar Caesar , born Edward Sallow , is the charismatic leader , dictator and co - founder of Caesar ' s Legion in 2281 . He is the self - proclaimed " Son of Mars , " a former member of the Followers of the Apocalypse and an ex - citizen of the NCR . Background . Origins . Edward Sallow was born in 2226 as an NCR citizen . When he was two years old , he and his mother fled the Boneyard when raiders killed his father , eventually finding sanctuary with the Followers of the Apocalypse in 2231 . He received a free education from the Followers and eventually became a scribe , specializing in anthropology and linguistics . Though he was intelligent and charismatic , the narcissistic and petulant Edward was never very popular among his peers . He did not feel like he belonged among the Followers and , in hindsight , considered their goals to be utterly naive . In 2246 , at the age of twenty , Sallow , fellow Follower Bill Calhoun , and seven others were sent to the east to study tribal dialects . He was instructed to meet with Joshua Graham , a Mormon missionary and tribal specialist from New Canaan . They embarked on a journey to the region known formerly as Arizona , as part of a nine - person expedition . Disgusted by the primitive conditions in which the tribals lived , he looked down upon them as inferior and immoral . During this expedition , they discovered a cache of books about ancient . While he knew some basic facts about ancient history , the books shed new light on some of the details . Reading first " " and then ' s own " " , and personal accounts of his military conquests ; those books changed his life and were the starting point of his grand plan . Rise to Power . At some point in 2247 , Sallow , Graham , Calhoun and the others became hostages of the Blackfoot tribe . While Sallow believed the tribe did this for ransom , Graham would later attribute the change in the tribe ' s relationship with the party to a mistranslation . At the time , the tribe was at war with seven other tribes ; they were heavily outnumbered and Sallow recognized their defeat and subsequent demise was only a matter of time . Unwilling to be destroyed along with them , Sallow chose ( against the wishes of his companions ) to use his knowledge to train the Blackfoot tribe in the art of warfare after witnessing their lack of knowledge first hand . He showed them how to clean and maintain guns , operate with small unit tactics , manufacture explosives and to strike at their weakest enemies first ; " divide et impera " ( divide and conquer ) . He quickly impressed them enough to the point where he was made their leader , taking upon himself the name Caesar . Caesar introduced the tribe to the concept of total war against the tribes around them . Sallow knew that , even though the tribes had always fought each other via occasional skirmishes , he considered them to only be " playing at war , " having never seen warfare at its most destructive and barbaric state . They defeated the weakest of their enemies first and enslaved many of the able - bodied survivors ; but Sallow had the rest , including women and children , killed to the last , leaving their remains piled high . When Sallow surrounded the next of the Blackfoot tribe ' s foes , they refused to surrender . Sallow brought an emissary of the tribe back to witness the fate of the first tribe . The tribe surrendered , rather than suffer the same fate . The concept of total war was an entirely new and terrifying type of conflict that the tribes had never encountered before . Such brutality would form the core of the Legion ' s tactics and philosophy . Surprisingly , Joshua Graham decided to join Sallow as his right - hand man , in time becoming known as the Malpais Legate . While Calhoun was sent back to the Followers to inform them of what he was doing , the other six members of the expedition were murdered on the self - proclaimed Emperor ' s orders . The newly - christened Caesar formed his Legion out of the tribes that had either been conquered or had chosen to capitulate to avoid total destruction . He used the " Commentarii " as a blueprint ― after all , which illiterate tribal would know that he was not the original Caesar , and his " Rome " was merely a copy of a civilization long gone . Caesar chose the concept of the as a model for the Legion because of its parallels to what he considered the " status - quo " of the post - apocalyptic world ; he believed the concept of individualism had no place in facing the challenges of the wasteland . Ideologically , the Roman Empire also appealed to him for its ability to assimilate those it conquered ; the destruction of " tribal " identities was a key part of the Legion ' s long - term strategy for unification . He intended to erase their individual identities and replace them all with a single , monolithic culture , The Legion , where individuals have no value outside of what they offer the greater whole . By 2250 , Caesar had declared himself the son of , Roman god of war , and five years later he established his first capital in the ruins of Flagstaff . By 2274 , he had conquered most of the tribes of northern Arizona , southwestern Colorado , western New Mexico and eastern Utah , and became known as the " Conqueror of the 86 Tribes , " whose Legion had never met any serious defeat until their confrontation with the NCR at the First Battle of Hoover Dam . War with the NCR . The Republic has the dubious distinction of being recognized by Caesar as a worthy adversary . He views his campaign against NCR as similar to that of his namesake Gaius Julius Caesar who eventually seized power for himself after crossing the river and capturing Rome ; going on to take control of the Republic after years of campaigning against the tribes of more than two thousand years earlier . Likewise , the new Caesar has campaigned against the myriad tribes of the East and will now cross the Colorado River and begin his unstoppable conquest of the West and the NCR . After succeeding in destroying one of their major fortifications , Fort Aradesh , Legion forces under the command of the Malpais Legate marched against the NCR garrison at Hoover Dam , in an attempt to take the strategic asset and river crossing . In what became known as the First Battle of Hoover Dam , the Malpais Legate initially had the upper hand , able to push the NCR defenders back and lead his forces over the dam . Lead elements of the NCR , including members of the 1st Recon Battalion and NCR Rangers , executed a tactical retreat west across the dam and into Boulder City , all the while using their prowess in marksmanship to kill the Legion officers ( primarily centurion s and Decanii ) . The Legate , unable to adapt to new strategies in combat , chose to order his Legionaries to push the rangers , not knowing the NCR had booby - trapped Boulder City , laying explosives along their line of retreat , drawing the Legion into a trap . When the Legion forces entered the city , the NCR detonated the explosives and inflicted severe casualties among the Legion forces , crippling their offensive . The NCR forces then counter - attacked , pushing back and eventually routing the Legion forces who fled back east over the Dam . Caesar , angered at the failure of his Legate , made an example of him to show that failure will not be tolerated even at the highest rank . The praetorian guard covered the Malpais Legate in pitch , set him on fire , and cast him into the Grand Canyon . Now in 2281 , Caesar makes his camp at Fortification Hill , poised to take the Dam and subsequently New Vegas as his new capital . Caesar is playing his cards more cautiously this time , and will not give the order for Lanius to attack the Dam until he can unearth the contents of the vault sealed beneath his base in the Mojave . Caesar also needs to neutralize House , attempt to forge an alliance with the Boomers and the White Glove Society , destroy the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel , deal with his brain tumor and attempt to assassinate President Kimball . Philosophy . Aside from military defeat , Caesar ' s greatest fear is being exposed as a fraud . Most members of the Legion , excluding some of the most trusted ones , are oblivious to the fact that the Legion ' s culture is based on books about ancient Rome - they believe that all of the customs enforced by Caesar were dictated to him by Mars himself . Those who claim otherwise are viewed as ultimate blasphemers . While some of the newly captured slaves are skeptical , they don ' t tend to be vocal about it , and their children are taken away from their parents to be raised by Caesar ' s priestesses . Secretly , Caesar still doesn ' t feel like a real Emperor of Rome - with his loose nation of savages , he still thinks of himself as merely a barbaric king of the Gauls . By seizing New Vegas , Caesar felt that he would finally be able to elevate his Legion into a legitimate nation by giving it its own " Rome " - transforming them from a nomadic army into a true empire ; a militaristic , patriarchal , imperialist , autocratic , culturally homogeneous empire whose ruler holds undisputed power - a " Pax Romana " which would prevent humanity from ever fracturing itself again . And in the NCR he found his . He regards the NCR as only an extension of the corruption that existed during the Old World and that it is ultimately doomed to repeat the same mistakes . He sees in it similar attributes associated with the before Julius Caesar seized power ; extensive bureaucracy , corruption , senatorial infighting and filled with a people driven solely by greed and personal gain . It exists as the antithesis to the Legion and as a catalyst for change that only a confrontation with it can bring ; a clash he sees as an inevitable product of . The conflict is a vital one , not only for the future of his Legion strategically , but also philosophically ; the NCR is the first of his enemies to which he is truly ideologically opposed and the first that can truly test the Strength of his Legion , as well as his philosophy . In his view , the NCR does not have a long - term solution to the problems of the Wasteland - the bombs had reset humanity ' s progress and he believed the time had come to rebuild it into something new . He argues that NCR is weakened by its democracy , and that it was at its strongest when under the dominating rule of its second president - Tandi - whose popularity was such she remained leader of the NCR for most of her lifetime as the senate would never dare oppose her . He was taught to venerate her as a child and observes that she was ultimately more of a queen than an elected official and that it is similar centralized power that a new civilization needs . He also regards self - sacrifice as a necessary part to rebuild civilization , as evidenced by the fact that he refuses the very notion of using the Securitron s hidden inside the bunker underneath his camp . He believes that the Legion soldiers would grow complacent and lazy with robots to fight for them . Killing Caesar . If you manage to kill Caesar the effects on the game are fairly minor , ( although the Legion ending is massively changed ) , due to the fact that Caesar , as the leader of the Legion , no longer directly participates in combat . Appearances . Caesar appears only in " " but is mentioned in the " Honest Hearts " , " Old World Blues " and " Lonesome Road " . He was going to appear in " Van Buren " , the canceled " Fallout 3 " by Black Isle Studios .