The Assassination of Julius Caesar Quotes

“. . . [A]ny history that deals with the efforts of the populace to defend itself from the abuses of wealth and tyranny is people's history . . . A people's history should be not only an account of popular struggle against oppression but an exposé of the anti-people's history that has prevailed among generations of mainstream historians. It should be a critical history about a people's oppressors, those who propagated an elitist ideology and a loathing of the common people that distorts the historical record down to this day.”
― Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

“The prevailing opinion among historians, ancient and modern alike, is that the senatorial assassins were intent upon restoring republican liberties by doing away with a despotic usurper. This is the justification offered by the assassins themselves. I present an alternative explanation: The Senate aristocrats killed Caesar because they perceived him to be a popular leader who threatened their privileged interests.”
― Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

“It has long been presumed that the diversity of constitutional forms makes for an optimal result. In reality, it creates a system of impediments that makes popular reform nearly impossible.
As with Polybius and Cicero, so with Aristotle, and so with the framers of the United States Constitution in 1787 . . .—all have been mindful of the leveling threats of democratic forces and the need for a constitutional “mix” that allows only limited participation by the demos, with a dominant role allotted to an elite executive power. . . . Diluting democratic power with a preponderantly undemocratic mix does not create an admirable “balance” and “stability.” In actual practice, the diversity of form more often has been a subterfuge, allowing an appearance of popular participation in order to lend legitimacy to oligarchic dominance.”
― Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

“In short, those who insist that we perceive the past
“purely on its own terms”—assuming that were even possible—
often forget that this usually means seeing it through the eyes of
its predominant class, the class that practically monopolized the
recorded commentary of that day.”
― Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

“In a prologue to Caesar and Cleopatra that is almost never performed, the god Ra tells the audience how Rome discovered that “the road to riches and greatness is through robbery of the poor and slaughter of the weak.”
― Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

“Those who think that politics and history “are just all about power” might wish to reflect on the Late Republic. The wealthy class did not pursue power as an end in itself. Power was and still is an instrumental value; it enables the rich to secure and advance their opportunities to profit off human labor, exercise decisive control over disadvantaged groups, monopolize public resources and private markets, expand overseas holdings, and plunder government treasuries. Power enables them to preserve their precious privileges, their fabulous way of life, and the one thing that makes such a life possible, their immense wealth.”
― Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome