Julius Caesar and the Transformation of the Roman Republic

Tom Stevenson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317597537
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Altertum

Julius Caesar and the Transformation of the Roman Republic provides an accessible introduction to Caesar's life and public career. It outlines the main phases of his career with reference to prominent social and political concepts of the time. This approach helps to explain his aims, ideals, and motives as rooted in tradition, and demonstrates that Caesar's rise to power owed much to broad historical processes of the late Republican period, a view that contrasts with the long-held idea that he sought to become Rome's king from an early age. This is an essential undergraduate introduction to this fascinating figure, and to his role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire.

1 Caesar

DOI: 10.4324/9781315746173-1

The influence of Julius Caesar in Western Culture

The idea of Caesar

It is hard to imagine a more important subject for a biography. The life and achievements of Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE) have exercised a huge influence on western history and culture. Moreover, he helped to set a pattern for interactions between West and East that have arguably persisted to the present day. His name regularly evokes a kind of awe, an impression of greatness, a sense of superiority, and even the idea of someone more than simply human. An internet search for ‘Caesar’ results in millions of hits. A search for images produces an array of imposing stone portraits and coin types, along with scenes from plays and films, in which Caesar is played by actors of the highest caliber. His name is instantly recognizable and he is widely known as a great Roman, even by people who have never read about him. He has become a leading symbol of the grandeur of Rome. Yet at one time he was not the greatest name in Roman history, let alone an awesome idea. He was a man with real human strengths and weaknesses who became involved in the conflicts and struggles for power of his age. His actions eventually saw him become dictator, and even perpetual dictator, at Rome. This book will concentrate on his behavior in an age of conflict, along with his motives for doing what he did. He has been interpreted as a phenomenon, but this often means that he is examined out of context, so that he becomes superhuman rather than human. His actions and motives, however, may be understood better if he is studied in relation to the processes and values of his age. In many ways he was an extraordinary man, but a man of his time nonetheless.

In this opening chapter, the major aims are to survey Caesar's influence and to contemplate the ongoing construction of his image. The discussion is divided into three parts:

1. some remarks about Caesar's enigmatic personality and profound influence;
2. a survey of the attitudes of ancient and modern writers to him; and
3. a concluding section about the approach that will be taken by this book, which will question the deeply rooted theme that he sought kingship at Rome from an early age and will instead discuss major stages of his career in the light of important social and political ideas of the time. Such ideas demonstrate the traditional background to Caesar's motives and actions.

It will quickly become obvious that Caesar has been loved and hated. He has been admired by some writers, and damned by others. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how often a romantic image of Caesar has been accepted, even among academic writers. This view is increasingly questioned today, with some scholars seeing him as a fairly typical representative of his class and others emphasizing that a range of socio-economic and other factors underpinned Caesar's achievements. For such scholars Caesar was not responsible for all the successes and failures he experienced. Yet this kind of attitude is troubling in its implications, and it is ultimately not helpful to deny Caesar's genius or to undermine the impression that he was a charismatic leader and master motivator. Some kind of balance needs to be achieved between personal and impersonal factors. It will not be argued here that Caesar was an ideal model for contemporary leaders, but his personal responsibility for the things he achieved – and the damage he caused – ought to be emphasized in conjunction with the historical processes that prevailed in his day. He shaped his times just as, undoubtedly, he was shaped by them.

Caesar's personality and influence

The biographer Suetonius has this to say about Caesar's appearance and health (Life of the Divine Julius 45.1–2, Dillon and Garland 13.56):

Caesar is said to have been tall, with a fair complexion, shapely limbs, a rather full face, and keen black eyes, and to have had sound health, except that towards the end of his life he was subject to sudden fainting fits as well as nightmares. He also had two attacks of epilepsy while on campaign. He was fastidious in the care of his person, and so not only kept his hair carefully trimmed and shaved, but even had his body hair plucked – some accuse him of that at any rate – while he was extremely vexed by the disfiguring effect of his baldness, since he found it exposed him to the ridicule of his opponents. As a result he used to comb his receding hair forward from the crown of his head and, of all the honors voted him by the senate and people, there was none that pleased him more or that he made use of more gladly than the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath on all occasions.

Suetonius, who wrote around one hundred and fifty years after Caesar's death, paints his subject as a handsome, strong, but vain man in this passage. The alleged obsession with his hair might derive from hostile interpretations of some of Caesar's statues (figure 1). Certainly friends and enemies tried hard to ensure that people thought of Caesar in contrasting ways. As a result it is often difficult to disentangle fact from fiction, or to generalize about his personality. In some writers Caesar emerges as a restless, flashy personality, a man of notable personal idiosyncrasies, vanity, and boundless, unshakeable ambition. His personal traits were much commented upon: his clothing was eye-catching (e.g. his toga, normally a plain and restrictive sort of garment, he glamorized with fringed sleeves), he took obsessive measures with his personal appearance, he could hate with a passion, as his intense feud with Cato the Younger shows, and he was a noted seducer of women. He was a man capable of massive violence: his governorships, his consulship in 59 BCE, and the civil war prove this. As a result, the hatred felt for him by Cato and others was profound. Alongside his ambition and ruthlessness, his sexual appetite drew sharp comment (Suetonius, Life of the Divine Julius 49–52). The Romans certainly made a link between lust for political power and sexual lust, so that stories about his sexual activities should perhaps be treated with caution. They form, however, too strong an element to be treated with total skepticism.

Other reactions to his personality and achievements were overwhelmingly positive. Many people absolutely loved him. He was deified and received worship as a god of the state cult. Some scholars think this was a formal reaction to his monarchic power, rather than a truly ‘religious’ phenomenon, but it seems likely that there were many contemporaries who were convinced of his divine spirit and descent. At times he was spontaneously worshipped with sacrifices and prayers for his achievements, so truly incredible did they appear. The name ‘Caesar’ came to acquire huge charisma, especially with the soldiers. It was the name they chanted in victory and triumph, it was the single name that Octavian (the later emperor Augustus) used as his own upon learning of his adoption in Caesar's will, it became the imperial name, so that Rome's emperors were all ‘Caesars’, and it became a passionate idea for the Roman Empire. In Roman terms Caesar possessed positive and negative traits, and he was looked upon with both admiration and loathing by contemporaries – truly a man who polarized public opinion.

His name and image remained powerful in later ages. One of our months continues to be known as ‘July’. The use of the ‘Caesarian section’ in the case of difficult births perpetuates a highly unlikely story about Caesar's own birth. Dante, the famous Italian poet of the thirteenth century CE, lived in a world of Kings and Popes. Consequently, he placed Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius in the deepest circle of Hell, in the company of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus Christ. In the eighteenth century CE, however, leading lights of the American and French Revolutions saw Brutus as a hero and Caesar as a tyrant. It was Caesar, they said, who destroyed the Roman Republic, under which the state was governed by elected magistrates, and helped to found the Empire, under which power was concentrated in the hands of a monarchic emperor. Famous generals like Napoleon pored over accounts of Caesar's exploits for clues to his military success. Emperors, monarchs, and rulers were known as ‘Caesar’ from the time of Augustus until the twentieth century CE. It is less than a century since a ‘Tsar’ or ‘Czar’ ruled Russia and a ‘Kaiser’ ruled Germany, these being modern renderings of Caesar's name. The Italian fascists of the 1930s used Caesar as one of their prime models of superiority, along with Augustus. They claimed territory in North Africa and elsewhere with the argument that these places had once belonged to Rome through the conquests of such outstanding Romans as Caesar. Modern regimes like these, making core claims based on the image and conquests of Caesar, were understandably not very good at assessing him in a critical manner, preferring instead to use him as a positive symbol for their rulers or states. Caesar has appeared in literature of all kinds for centuries. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar remains one of the bard's most popular plays, though Brutus is the character presented with the tragic dilemma. It is little wonder that famous actors vie to play Caesar in drama and film, and little wonder that producers continue to see him as a bankable figure, so that plans to make films about him are quite regularly discussed. Whatever might be said about him in a negative vein, many people tend to hold the positive view as their default position and evoke the greatness of an almost mythical figure in employing his name so commonly.‘Julio’ rivals ‘Jesus’ as a personal name in large parts of the world. Men and women named ‘Julius’, ‘Julian’, ‘Julia’, and ‘Julie’ are not hard to find. ‘Cézar’, ‘Cesario’, ‘Cesare’, and ‘di Cesare’ are very common too.

Figure 1 A Contemporary portrait of Caesar. The portrait comes from Tusculum and is now in the Castello d'Algie, Turin, Italy. If this portrait is indeed the only surviving representation from Caesar's lifetime, as some scholars believe, it might be the most accurate likeness we possess. Photo: Kopperman. Neg. D-DAI-ROM-65.1111.

Attitudes of ancient and modern writers to Caesar

It is gratifying that biographies remain popular because they are concerned with the lives of individual human beings. As such, they stand for the principle that individuals can make a difference and that their lives are therefore worthy of interest. Biographies, however, form a genre of literature that is beset by fundamental difficulties. Writers have at times hoped to discover the real human being beneath the evidence, but it is the evidence that is the only ‘real’ thing left to us. In the case of Caesar, it is not possible to reconstruct a fundamental reality, which would be acceptable to all readers. It is possible, however, to read some of his writings, to read some writings about him, and to analyze archaeological and documentary sources, such as inscriptions and coins. The task becomes one of engaging with the evidence for Caesar's life, and of dealing sensitively with some of the major themes and biases of the source material.

It should come as no surprise to learn that ancient writers are divided in their attitudes to Caesar. After all, he was adored by some of his contemporaries and absolutely loathed by others. The struggle to establish an authoritative interpretation of his career and personality began during his lifetime, and it has persisted down to the present day. The evidence for his life, therefore, is a mix of positive and negative attitudes and portrayals. His own campaign commentaries, the Bellum Gallicum (Gallic War) and the Bellum Civile (Civil War), are works of persuasion that must be treated with the utmost caution. They appear on the surface to be matter-of-fact accounts marked by clarity and detached objectivity, but of course they are written from Caesar's point of view and their bias is strong. He wrote other works too, and was clearly a man of literary talent and intellectual curiosity, as emphasized by Pliny the Elder (Natural History 7.91–4), a writer of the first century CE. Fragments of Caesar's speeches survive, along with a few lines of poetry, which comment unfavorably on the playwright Terence. Along with a tragedy entitled Oedipus, written in his youth, he wrote many letters and political pamphlets, including a vicious attack on his enemy Cato called the Anticato. The author of a two–volume work on the use of analogy in oratory, Caesar was also interested in astronomy. In 45 BCE he commissioned the great scholar Marcus Terentius Varro to organize Rome's first public library. His jokes were published, though the publication was suppressed as being unseemly when Augustus, his adopted son, became emperor (Suetonius, Life of the Divine Julius 55–6).

The major contemporary source, however, is Cicero, and in fact the period of Cicero and his contemporaries is the best known in all Roman history because so much of Cicero's work has survived. There are sixteen books of letters to his friends, sixteen books of letters to the wealthy entrepreneur Atticus, and collections of letters to his brother Quintus, and to Brutus, Caesar's assassin. Of the many speeches delivered by Cicero during his colorful career, fifty-eight survive. There are, in addition, substantial treatises on rhetorical and philosophical subjects, as well as fragments of poetry. The result is a more intimate impression of Roman life than is available for any other time. Cicero and Caesar were not friends in a close, emotional sense. They were in fact political competitors, though at times they cooperated closely, and they certainly knew one another very well. After some hesitation, Cicero joined Pompey in the civil war against Caesar, but there were times when he expressed admiration for Caesar's achievements. His evidence, therefore, needs to be read in context and with a critical eye. His personal letters and speeches are extremely valuable, as are a number of his rhetorical and philosophical works, especially those written in the mid 40s BCE, in which Caesar features prominently. The works of other contemporaries form a mixed bag. Gaius Oppius and Lucius Cornelius Balbus, close advisors of Caesar, wrote appreciatively of him. There are, however, unflattering references in the poetry of Catullus (e.g. Poem 93) and the fragmentary writings of enemies such as Cato and Bibulus. The historian Tanusius Geminus, who may have been a contemporary senator, took an anti-Caesarian line. The biographers Plutarch (Life of Caesar 22.3) and Suetonius (Life of the Divine Julius 9.2) later used his work.

Caesar is given prominent treatment in Sallust's historical monograph, The Conspiracy of Catiline, written c. 42 BCE. The standard view is that Sallust depicted Caesar and Cato as contrasting figures of moral excellence, and left Cicero to suffer by comparison. Recent scholars are inclined to emphasize the complexity of Sallust's account, so that all his characters have faults, which are products of the underlying moral decline he is concerned to highlight. A couple of interesting suasoriae (‘persuasive works’) have survived. They are written in the form of letters purportedly sent by Sallust to Caesar in the latter's final years. Many historians now believe they were written as literary exercises under the early Empire. Another contemporary of Caesar, the biographer Cornelius Nepos, wrote comparative biographies of outstanding Greeks and Romans. A correspondent of Cicero and a friend of Atticus, Nepos wrote sixteen books On Famous Men. Although some of the men he wrote about are relevant to the study of Caesar's career, his work was not pitched for a scholarly audience and thus tends to appear superficial and blandly moralistic in comparison to other literary sources.

It is a particular shame that the monumental history of Rome written by Livy does not survive in its entirety for the period of Caesar's life. Livy, who worked in Rome during the reign of Augustus, wrote (in section 10 of his Preface) that history provided moral examples to emulate and to avoid. It is often said that Livy would have had to choose his words carefully, but Augustus once called him a Pompeian, and it seems that Livy was uncertain whether Caesar's birth was a greater blessing or curse for Rome (Seneca, Natural Questions 5.18.4). Caesar may have been an example to avoid, as far as the indications go. Several later writers depend heavily on Livy. Among them may be numbered Valerius Maximus, who wrote about famous deeds and sayings under a series of moral headings, and the summarizing historian Velleius Paterculus, a man of considerable military experience. Both these men were active under Augustus' successor, the emperor Tiberius. The poet Lucan, writing in the reign of Nero, around a century after Caesar's death, offers a subtle, devastating treatment of Caesar in his brilliant poem, the Pharsalia, which is concerned with the civil war between Caesar and Pompey.

The most important ancient biographies of Caesar were written in the early second century CE, around a century and a half after Caesar's death. Their authors were Plutarch, a Greek aristocrat, and Suetonius, a Roman of the ‘equestrian’ class (the non-senatorial elite) who once served as imperial secretary to the emperor Hadrian. Although these works preserve valuable contemporary material, they must be treated as biographies in the ancient tradition, with primary emphasis upon personal characteristics and moral qualities. Plutarch is famous for his twenty-three pairs of Parallel Liv...