A Companion to Julius Caesar

Miriam Griffin, Miriam Griffin

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781119062356
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'antica Roma

A Companion to Julius Caesar comprises 30 essays from leading scholars examining the life and after life of this great polarizing figure.

• Explores Caesar from a variety of perspectives: military genius, ruthless tyrant, brilliant politician, first class orator, sophisticated man of letters, and more
  
• Utilizes Caesar's own extant writings
  
• Examines the viewpoints of Caesar's contemporaries and explores Caesar's portrayals by artists and writers through the ages

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

Miriam Griffin

In recent years the direction of scholarship in ancient history has largely shifted away from an emphasis on great rulers and generals, even from a concentration on the governing class, towards the population of the city of Rome and its subject peoples, towards the social structures and the cultural attitudes current in the Roman Empire. Yet Julius Caesar is still perceived, as he always has been, as an extraordinary individual, not just another Roman consul, proconsul, imperator, or even dictator. His name has been used in various local forms – Kaiser, Czar, Tsar – as the highest title for rulers far from Rome in place and time; his account of his campaigns has been read, not only by historians and students of literature, but by rulers and generals like the Emperor Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent, King Louis XIV, and both Napoleons, for their own instruction (Canfora, chapter 29, p. 431; Nicolet, chapter 27, pp. 411–12; 416). Biographies, of varying degrees of seriousness, still continue to be written and published, with ever-increasing frequency.

There are individuals whose lives burn through the mists of history like the path of a comet. They have, in most cases, already impressed their contemporaries as exceptional, and they have also been fortunate enough to have that strong impression transmitted by readable contemporary authors to later writers of talent. Powerful visual images, created in the lifetime of such people by gifted artists, help to establish an enduring familiarity not only with their looks but, if the artists are skillful enough, with their personalities too: one thinks of the head, immediately recognizable, of Alexander or of Nero. Such individuals often generate mysteries and controversies connected with their motives and intentions, which contribute to their enduring fascination. Finally, a violent or premature death can enhance, if not create, a haunting historical presence.

All these factors have contributed to Caesar’s posthumous fame. Another crucial ingredient is his own literary work, for Caesar did not leave his immortality to chance. He was unusual among men of action whose fame endures, in being also a brilliant writer, the author of one of the few extensive accounts by a commander of his own campaigns. Ever since they first appeared, these accounts of his campaigns in Gaul and of the civil war against Pompey have been admired, even by those who have deplored Caesar’s ambition and his autocracy (Clark, chapter 24; Biskup, chapter 26). Experienced generals, like Napoleon I, have always been able to criticize his military decisions (Canfora, p. 434); scholars have discovered in his version of events some misrepresentation and even mendacity. But his style, an essential element in his glory, has remained invulnerable and immortal.

Before we explore these factors further, however, it is important to acknowledge that the setting of Caesar’s life in time and place also helps to explain the vitality of his reputation. Caesar may have said, as he journeyed through a small Alpine village, “I would rather be first here than second in Rome” (Plut. Caes. 11), but the fact is that he was first in Rome, the most powerful nation on earth, at a time when her domains and her influence were expanding at a furious pace. Rome left her permanent mark on world history, and Caesar helped her do it, paying with his life and reaping the reward of eternal fame.

The Scheme of the Volume

Though this volume is not intended to provide a history of the Late Roman Republic, the biographical chapters, narrative in Part I and thematic in Part II, will of necessity recount some very important historical events. After all, the earliest extant biographers of Caesar, Plutarch and Suetonius, acknowledged the necessity of narrating his wars, however briefly (Plut. Alex. 1; Suet. Iul. 25), and the same was true of his legislation and of his political alliances (Pelling, chapter 18, pp. 254–5; 259). But the focus of these two Parts will be on the difference which this one individual can be seen to have made to that history.

Part III forms a bridge between Caesar’s life and his afterlife, discussing his own writings and their continuations by others. In these works Caesar presented to his contemporaries, and left for later readers, not only a record of his actions but also a carefully constructed portrait of himself. As Kraus (chapter 12) and Raaflaub (chapter 13) show, his intention to produce a self-standing literary work, not a mere sketch for later historians to elaborate, and his skill in putting himself in a good light, without actually lying, are now increasingly appreciated. His continuators fill out the story of his campaigns, and also – no less importantly – bear witness to the powerful influence he exercised over his officers and his men (Cluett, chapter 14, pp. 199–202).

Part IV explores Caesar’s posthumous reputation among the Romans themselves, as reflected both in literature of various genres and in visual representations. Part V explores Caesar’s image at certain key points in history – of necessity, a sample only. The importance of Caesar’s example, as ruler and as general, continued across Europe in the early Middle Ages when his works were little read and his reputation largely depended on the popularity of Lucan’s epic poem on the civil war (Suerbaum, chapter 22). From the fifteenth century on, editions and translations proliferated, giving solidity to the fascination with him as a general: in Italy his works were used to teach geography and as guides to military strategy, tactics, and technology (McLaughlin, chapter 23, pp. 350–5). At all times, approval and disapproval of Caesar could reflect contemporary political debates, not only Republicanism vs. monarchy, but also traditional vs. enlightened or reforming monarchy (Biskup, chapter 26; Nicolet, chapter 27; Cole, chapter 28). The effect of Caesar’s conquests on his provincial subjects was variously estimated by the descendants of those subjects, in Germany, France, and Britain (Suerbaum, chapter 22; Clark, chapter 24; Biskup, chapter 26). Finally, the continued use of Julius Caesar and Rome in political thought and rhetoric is exemplified by the twinned analogies of the Roman empire and Julius Caesar with the United States and the American president, analogies used both by the right as a boast and by the left as a condemnation (Wyke, chapter 30).

The Contemporary Impression and its Preservation

The way in which the impression made by Caesar in life was transmitted and received in all its vividness, by later generations, is well illustrated by a passage of the Elder Pliny, writing under the Emperor Vespasian, a century after Caesar’s death. In his great encyclopedia, the Natural History, Pliny writes:

The most outstanding example of innate mental vigour, in my view, was Caesar the Dictator. I am not now thinking of moral excellence or steadfastness nor of a breadth of knowledge encompassing everything under the sun, but of innate mental agility and quickness, moving like fire. We are told that he used to read or write while at the same time dictating or listening, and that he would dictate to his secretaries four letters on important matters at the same time. (HN 7.91)

These vignettes, like the story in Suetonius (Iul. 56) that he composed the two volumes of his grammatical work On Analogy while crossing the Alps from Italy to Gaul, emanate from eyewitnesses. Indeed, Plutarch actually ascribes to Caesar’s close associate Oppius his picture of the commander dictating letters on horseback, keeping at least two scribes busy at once (Caes. 17). There also survives, in addition to contemporary flattery, his loyal officer Hirtius’ posthumous testimony to the speed with which he wrote his commentarii (BG 8. pref.). Suetonius claims that Caesar himself, in his Pontic triumph , displayed the words “Veni, vidi, vici,” rather than the usual names of the places he had conquered, to emphasize the speed of his victory (Iul. 37, cf. Plut. Caes. 50).

The reservations of the Elder Pliny about Caesar’s scholarship reflect not only the encyclopedist’s admiration of Caesar’s contemporary, the great scholar Terentius Varro, but also the downside of Caesar’s speed and spread of interests, remarked already by contemporaries. Thus Caesar himself admitted that his style would not bear comparison with that of Cicero, who had the time to cultivate his natural talent, while Plutarch comments that Caesar was a talented political orator but came second, not first (Caes. 3.2–4; Pelling, chapter 18, p. 255). His contemporary, Asinius Pollio, is said to have seen signs of carelessness and inaccuracy in the commentarii, born both of the failure to check reports that came in and of disingenuousness, or possibly forgetfulness, in describing his own actions, and to have believed that Caesar intended to rewrite and correct them (Suet. Iul. 56.4). The copious and unqualified praise in Cicero’s Brutus (261–2) of Caesar’s style of oratory and of writing, so different from Cicero’s own, was perhaps inspired by the Dictator’s generous tribute to Cicero as the “winner of a greater laurel wreath than that of any triumph, it being a greater thing to have advanced so far the frontiers of the Roman genius than those of the Roman Empire” (Plin. HN 7.117; cf. Cic. Brutus 254).

It is important to note that this willingness to praise was a vital ingredient of Caesar’s great charm and also of his ability to make people feel liked and appreciated. If his soldiers adored him for his personal attention to their deeds and their hardships, even his social equals were disarmed by his courtesy and generosity (Paterson, chapter 10, pp. 138, 139). Thus Asinius Pollio wrote, just a year after Caesar’s death, “I loved him in all duty and loyalty, because in his greatness he treated me, a recent acquaintance, as though I had been one of his oldest intimates” (Cic. Fam. 10.31); while Cicero, who had been pardoned by Caesar in the civil war yet was allowed to resist his request for active support as Dictator, admitted after his death that, if the Republic turned out to be doomed, he would have at least enjoyed favor with Caesar, “who was not a master to run away from” (A...