Caesar: Life of a Colossus

by Adrian Goldsworthy

Caesar’s father died suddenly, collapsing one morning while in the act of putting on his shoes. His son was nearly sixteen, but had probably already formally become a man,

After his father’s death Caesar was not simply an adult, but also the paterfamilias or head of the household.

Instead Caesar wed Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, a fellow patrician, consul for four consecutive years from 87–84 BC, and the most powerful man in Rome.

Jupiter was Rome’s most important god, and his flamen was correspondingly the most senior.

The selection of Caesar for the vacant priesthood was a considerable honour, which would make him an important figure in the Republic and a member of the Senate at a very young age. Yet this prominence came at the price of severely limiting opportunities for his future career. At best Caesar might hope to reach the praetorship like his father, but he could not have left Rome to govern a province and certainly would have had no opportunity for military glory. Given the family’s fairly modest achievements in the past, a career of this sort may have been considered ample reward for the boy, for certainly no one would have guessed at his eventual achievements.

Sulla’s power came directly from his control of an army that had defeated all his rivals, but the man who had done so much to defend his legitimacy as proconsul soon gave himself a more formal position to justify his domination of the State. At times of severe crisis the Republic had occasionally set aside its fear of the rule of one man and had appointed a dictator, a single magistrate with supreme imperium. It had always been a temporary post, laid down after six months, but Sulla discarded these restrictions and set no time limit to his office. He was named dictator legibus faciendis et rei publicae constituendae (dictator to make laws and reconstitute the State) by a vote in the Popular Assembly. His office was unprecedented, as was the violence he used to crush any opposition.

However, he was married to Cinna’s daughter Cornelia and such a connection was not one to win favour with the new regime. Sulla instructed the youth to divorce his wife.

Caesar was the only man to refuse, and to persist in that refusal in spite of threats and offers of favours, quite possibly including a marriage link to the dictator’s family. Given recent events this was remarkable boldness, most of all for a youth who could easily be removed and anyway had connections with the opposition. Why he did this is unknown.

In the end Caesar was saved by his mother. Aurelia persuaded the Vestal Virgins, along with some of her relations–most notably her cousin Caius Aurelius Cotta as well as Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus–to plead with the dictator for her son’s life.

The lobbying of such influential men, combined with Caesar’s lack of real importance, won a pardon. Not only was Caesar’s life spared, but he was permitted to begin his public career.

Senators’ sons were raised to have a very high opinion of themselves and Caesar was no exception to this. The experience of the last few years can only have reinforced this sense of his own unique worth. He had resisted tyranny when everyone else was cowed into submission. Perhaps the rules that bound others did not apply to him?

Cato and Caesar were both recognised early on as men who already had won wide recognition and fame and who were likely to go far. Though so opposite in style, they were playing the same game.

The negotiations to create the triumvirate may have begun by letter, but it is unlikely that any real decision was made until Caesar returned to Italy in the summer of 60 BC. Agreement

Over a century and a half later, Plutarch was adamant that the friendship between the triumvirs, especially between Caesar and Pompey, was the root cause of civil war and the end of the Roman Republic.

There were also no less than 120 war elephants, which were something of a rarity by this period. Elephants were frightening, but were dangerous to both sides as they were liable to panic and stampede through friendly troops.

It was probably during this action that he had more success dealing with a standard – bearer who was about to flee. Caesar grabbed the man, physically turned him around, and said, ‘Look, that’s where the enemy are!’ As he strove to steady his wavering men,

However, he had never lacked determination or courage, and once they had gone the forty-eight-year-old tore open the stitches and began ripping out his own entrails. He was dead before they could restrain him. When Caesar heard the news he said that he bitterly begrudged the opportunity of pardoning his most determined opponent, but to a great extent Cato had acted out of a desire to avoid his enemy’s mercy.

Less than three and a half years after crossing the Rubicon most of the leading men who had forced Caesar to take that step were dead, and of the survivors nearly all had given up the fight.

Fourteen years earlier Caesar had given up the right to celebrate a triumph in his quest for the consulship. Now, after weeks of frantic preparation, he celebrated no less than four triumphs, over Gaul, Egypt and the Nile, Asia, and King Juba and Africa. In his long career Pompey had triumphed three times, and it is likely that most were aware that Caesar was now also commemorating victories won on the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, just as his great rival had done.

Others mounted placards carrying slogans-including the famous Veni, Vidi, Vici – or lists of achievements. It

Caesar had not fought the Civil War in order to reform the Republic, and in spite of what Cicero and others later claimed, there is no evidence that he had been aiming at supreme rule for much of his life. He had wanted a second consulship and doubtless had planned a programme of legislation for his twelve-month term of office. Instead, he had – at least in his own mind – been forced to fight the Civil War, and his victory brought him far greater power. His third consulship in 46 BC was followed by a fourth and fifth term in 45 and 44 BC respectively, and for most of this period he was also dictator and had a number of additional rights granted to him by the Senate. He was not in Rome for the entire time, since the last campaign of the Civil War took him to Spain in November 46 BC and he did not return to Italy until the following summer. This

It is also not always easy to establish what precisely he did do, and even harder to discern his intentions. His assassination was followed by renewed civil war between his partisans and assassins, during which it was clearly in each sides’ interest to put forward radically different claims of his long-term aims. To add to the confusion, the civil wars would finally be ended when Caesar’s adopted son Octavian-later named Augustus – became Rome’s first emperor.

Caesar did not take over a Republic that was functioning effectively. The Civil War had disrupted the entire Roman world, but even before that the institutions of the State had been struggling for many years to cope with turbulent and often violent political struggles.

Caesar’s replacement consuls can rarely have had time to achieve much during their term of office, even supposing that they were granted any freedom of action and not simply expected to put through his legislation. Yet they gained the dignity and symbols of the office. Caesar actually granted ten former praetors consular status without ever holding the senior magistracy, for he had many followers to reward and limited time.

A few of the appointments may have been unsuitable – as we have seen, Caesar is supposed often to have said that he would reward even criminals if they had helped him.

By the time of the Civil War the calendar was running some three months ahead of the actual seasons. Caesar’s system was far more logical and was intended to function without any need for annual changes. One intercalary month of about three weeks had already been inserted into 46 BC at the end of February. Two more were now added between November and December so that the year eventually consisted of 445 days. This was to allow the new calendar to begin on 1 January 45 BC at what was thought to be the proper time in the solar cycle. The Julian calendar had months that varied in length but added up to a total of 365 days.

Even so there is some sign that the change – or more accurately the fact that Caesar imposed it – was resented. When

was not simply Rome that concerned Caesar. Probably with memories of Spartacus’ rebellion, he passed a law that stipulated that at least one-third of the workforce on the great ranching estates of southern Italy must be free rather than servile labour.

Sextus escaped in command of a small squadron of ships, but for the foreseeable future he was in no position to pose any significant threat. Although a few Pompeians still kept on fighting, the Civil War was effectively over.

During his own triumph Caesar was annoyed when the tribune Pontius Aquila, alone of the college of ten, refused to stand as he passed. Aquila was a former Pompeian who had suffered the confiscation of some of his property, but had evidently been permitted to pursue a public career. The sight so angered Caesar that he lost his temper and called out mockingly, ‘Come on, Tribune Aquila, take the Republic back from me!’ Unwilling to let the matter drop easily, for the next few days he is said to have not made a promise to anyone without adding the sarcastic caveat, ‘That is, as long as Pontius Aquila lets me.’

For a senator, especially one who had held high office and was used to a prominent role in its debates, important matters should only ever be dealt with in the proper manner by the Senate. The Senate should in turn be guided by its best and most distinguished members, composed primarily of the established aristocracy, joined-so he had always desired-by a handful of talented new men like himself. That was the tradition, and Caesar’s position was a clear violation of this senatorial ideal.

Within months of his suicide, one of Caesar’s bitterest opponents was being held up as the ideal of aristocratic virtue in books which were openly circulated and widely praised. One was written by an ex-consul who was acknowledged as Rome’s foremost living orator, and the other by Brutus, widely believed to be the foremost of the up and coming men of his generation. When Sulla was dictator no-one would have dared to praise one of his enemies in this way.

It is tempting to see flashes of personal anger in the Anticato, although it is worth remembering that political invective at Rome was often wildly exaggerated and frequently vulgar. Cato had hated Caesar bitterly, had frustrated him in a number of their public encounters and, finally, had played a major part in causing the Civil War. ‘They wanted this’ – Caesar’s comment at Pharsalus could most of all be applied to Cato, the man whose implacable hostility had, he felt, forced him to cross the Rubicon, to fight and to kill so many fellow citizens and tear the Roman world apart. From his point of view there was reason enough to loathe Cato, or if not the man himself, then what he felt the man had made him do.

The Civil War was over, problems long neglected were being addressed so that large numbers of people were better off than they had been for a long time. Rome itself now enjoyed a peace and stability that had rarely been its lot for more than a decade. Yet the scars of the war were deep. So many had died-especially amongst the famous names of the Senate – and some of those who lived had to cope with the consequences of their decisions during those turbulent years. Caesar had employed clemency and political skill to win over the neutrals and his defeated opponents, but ultimately his position had been gained through military force. In a way the situation had much in common with the creation of a settlement in conquered Gaul. Caesar had to persuade his fellow citizens, especially the aristocratic elite, that tolerating his dominance was preferable to opposing it. This was the final test.

At the beginning of 44 BC Caesar was fifty-six. It would be surprising if the effort of so many years on campaign had not taken some toll on his system, and Suetonius speaks of failing health. However, there is no good evidence to suggest that his epilepsy had grown worse and certainly his great energy does not seem to have declined.

Caesar did not expect to die in March 44 BC and the men who killed him were obviously not confident that nature would do their work for them in the near future. The dictator’s death was sudden and unanticipated by all but the conspirators. Therefore, to look at Caesar and the regime he created is inevitably to examine something that was incomplete and still developing.

Rumours-often very wild ones-about his intentions were rife during his lifetime and after his death even more confusion was added by the energetic propaganda campaigns maintained by the opposing sides during the ensuing civil wars. It is especially unfortunate that Cicero’s letters for the first three months of 44 BC were never published, leaving no contemporary literary evidence from this vital period.

Inevitably some doubt must remain over many of Caesar’s long-term aims, but one thing that is clear is that he expected to be away from Rome and Italy for at least three

There were fantastic stories that he planned to return by a wide circuit, marching around the Caspian Sea through what would become southern Russia and conquering the German tribes on his way back to Gaul, but this conflicts with the otherwise methodical tone of the planning. It is also obvious that this would inevitably have taken longer than three years. It is possible that the idea of an eastern war was made more attractive to Caesar by its associations with Alexander the Great, but there is simply no good evidence to suggest that he had become prey to such megalomaniac dreams.

His success – and the failure of later emperors to win a complete victory over Parthia-does not necessarily mean that Caesar’s planned operation was doomed to failure.3

Caesar was prone to flashes of temper, but in the same way that the evidence does not support the view that his health was rapidly declining, there is no reason to believe that his character had changed profoundly.

It was not so much Caesar the man they hated, but the position that he had acquired and what it meant for the Republic.

late 45 and early 44 BC this position was still being defined, and at the same time as his power and status developed, attitudes towards it were changing. This brings us back to the fundamental question of what Caesar intended for the long term.4

claimed that when he saw Servilia’s son he stopped struggling and spoke one last time, saying ‘You too, my son’-sadly there is no direct evidence for Shakespeare’s version of et tu Brute. Then the dictator covered his head with his toga and collapsed, falling next to the pedestal of Pompey’s statue. There were twenty-three wounds on his body.

In the mood of reconciliation, the Senate voted to give Caesar a public funeral, which was held in the Forum on 18 March.

while Antony and Octavian fought for supremacy. The latter was only thirty-two when the defeated Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves and left him unchallenged ruler of the Roman world. Rome became a monarchy once again, although the hated name of king was not employed, and this time the change proved permanent. Octavian became Augustus and showed more skill in veiling his power than his adopted father had done. This was part of the reason for his success, but his ruthlessness in disposing of enemies and the fatigue of a population that had endured over a decade more years of bloodshed helped to convince Rome’s elite that it was better to accept his rule than return to civil war.

It was exceptionally rare for Roman aristocrats to commit suicide when defeated in a foreign war, for it was their job to rally the troops and rebuild their strength until they were ready to fight with greater success. In civil wars the ordinary soldiers could usually expect mercy, but the leaders could not, and so killed themselves in great numbers, whether in despair or defiance.

After he had won, the pardoned Pompeians were allowed back into public life and some treated very well indeed. Once again he clearly felt that this was more likely to persuade them and others to accept his dictatorship. Regardless of his motives, there was a generosity about Caesar’s behaviour that was matched by no other Roman who came to power in similar circumstances.

Caesar was determined to rise to the top. Shakespeare’s Mark Antony said of Caesar that ‘ambition should be made of sterner stuff’. In truth there can rarely have been a sterner or more determined ambition than Caesar’s. At times he was utterly ruthless,

Yet he was never wantonly cruel and used victory for a wider good as well as his own. Ultimately we return to the essential ambiguity of Caesar and his career with which we began.