I could easily present a blow-by-blow extended review, but instead I want to have a discussion. Fortunately for me, Julius Caesar is one of the few figures from antiquity that still provokes thought and discussion among mainstream historical and political thinkers. If I wanted to discuss the contraction of the Roman Empire under Hadrian, I might have a hard time finding an audience, but Caesar is too much fun to not have an opinion.
As I closed up the book and tucked it into my bag, my brain started wrestling with the influx of new information. First and foremost, what do I think about Caesar, in general? My view has shifted over time. After reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (in high school, if you want to judge my level of maturity), I sympathized with Caesar and thought the tyrannicide was unjust. Frankly, I was pretty happy when the conniving Brutus and Cassius wound up on the wrong end of the sword. In college and up to, more-or-less, the present, I gravitated more towards the conspirators' camp. I still love Shakespeare, but it is important to remember that the events that Julius Caesar presents do not exist in a vacuum. A lot of stuff happened before the curtain opens and a lot happened afterwards.
That brings me to my conundrum: in a system as corrupt and decrepit as the Roman Republic was in the 1st century BC, was it such a bad thing that one man overthrew the system in favor of something more effective at peaceful governance? In a system where individual ambition was poorly capped, it was an inevitability that one man would eventually rise to the top (see the Gracchi, Sulla, Marius, Pompey). What made Caesar stand out, at least for me, was his political savvy and tendency towards clemency for political rivals. Essentially, the system was broken, Caesar thought he knew how to fix it.
Compared to other "tyrants" in Roman history, Julius Caesar's rise was bloodless (at least for the Romans, the Gauls and Germans weren't so lucky). Proscriptions were never undertaken under Caesar's regime and political opponents were typically offered clemency the first time Caesar beat them. Many probably pined for the days of Caesar once the Second Triumvirate started their bloodletting. This brings me to my second interesting thought: do nice guys actually come in last place every time?
When attempting to implement massive social changes on a short time table, maybe bloody/destructive means are the only way of achieving your ends. Case one: Caesar plays nice with the Roman aristocracy and winds up dead on the floor of the Senate - more civil war, more civil strife, political changes (good or bad) tabled. Counter-cases: Caesar kills and enslaves hundreds of thousands in pacifying Gaul, Octavian takes part in one of the bloodiest Roman proscriptions and becomes the first emperor, General Sherman's "March to the Sea" scorched earth tactics delivers a crippling blow to the Confederacy, Allied forces indiscriminately bomb (conventional, incendiary, nuclear) German and Japanese cities to end fascism. Was Caesar doing it wrong?
2 comments:
Hmm, interesting questions you present.
First, I clearly don't know nearly as much about Julius Caesar as you do.
Second, I think too often nice guys do finish last. :-/
Third, to me it kind of sounds like Thucydides all over again. People don't seem to change. As much as I'd love to think that change can be brought about peacefully, I'd be naive to expect that. I mean, if people get so heated up over health care reform (perhaps not the best example?), imagine what kind of fervor other things might incite.
Another interesting aspect of Caesar's life, or rather, his death, is the delusional state of Caesar's opponents. He was simply acting as any Roman aristocratic man dreamed, was taught, and was encouraged to act. He simply combined the ambitions of the average Roman aristocrat with superior skill, strategy and luck.
Brutus and Co. claimed to be acting as defenders of the Republic, but the Republic was a sham. If you put aside the notion that a republic is an idea worth defending, what redeeming qualities did these men have? Ambition? Desire for political and financial gain? Personal glory?
Sounds like commonly cited attributes of the last dictator of the Roman Republic, but at least he had to vision to try and fix the broken state.
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