Caesar

by Adrian Goldsworthy

Few would dispute Caesar’s claim to greatness, but it is much harder to say that he was a good man, or that the consequences of his career were unambiguously good.

At Rome there was nothing even vaguely resembling modern political parties – although given the stifling impact of these, this may well have made it more rather than less democratic than many countries today – and each candidate for office competed as an individual.

Ultimately, most of the Roman elite preferred to allow some of the major problems facing the Republic to go unanswered rather than see someone else gain the credit for dealing with them.

‘Let the die be thrown!’ (aneristho kubos). Suetonius gives the more familiar Latin expression ‘The die is cast’ (iacta alea est).