#hot takes with jlrrt

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And now, a book review I've been saving. I want to savor this one:

Julius Caesar and the Roman People, by Robert Morstein-Marx, 2021.

It's hard to overstate how much I love this book. If you only read one book about Julius Caesar, get this one. It's not just a biography of Caesar, but a reassessment of the role of the "People" in Roman politics, of how democratic vs. oligarchic the republic truly was, of reliability and bias in ancient sources, and how we construct history through the lens of our own values and fears. Morstein-Marx sets out not merely to describe Caesar's life, but explore where our ideas about him came from, what biases are in our sources, and how those biases erased the agency and diversity of the Roman People themselves.

When I first read this book, I found it persuasive and well-researched - Morstein-Marx is a professor of classics, after all - but its conclusions were so different from the pop culture view of Caesar I had to check if this was another Michael Parenti situation, where an author exaggerates and cherry-picks evidence to support his own political agenda. But, from all the other references to this book I found, Morstein-Marx does seem to be a respected scholar who knows what he's talking about, and other historians like Erich Gruen, Fred Drogula and John T. Ramsey seem to agree with a lot of his points.

So, what are his main points?

That Caesar was not a radical popularis or Marian, nor was he consciously attempting to subvert the republic or install himself as an autocrat; his career up till 49 BCE was broadly conventional, his policies moderate, and his rift with Cato et al is better explained by personal rivalries, not ideology.

That Caesar was in many ways more traditional and respectful of the law than Cato, Bibulus and their allies, and there was a legitimate argument for siding with him in 49 BCE.

That much of the argument for seeing Caesar as subversive or radical depends on equating the government with the Senate, and downplaying the role of the People.

That neither Caesar nor Pompey deliberately started the civil war, but that it happened due to a breakdown in communications between the triumvirs, and fearmongering from a pro-war faction in the Senate.

That the majority of the Senate and People probably sided with him during the civil war.

That it's not actually clear whether Caesar "wanted to be king." Many of his actions as dictator are better explained as ad hoc responses to immediate political crises, while others may have been taken out of context, exaggerated or misattributed to him.

Now, you might be thinking this sounds awfully pro-Caesar. And Caesar does come across more sympathetically than in most portrayals. But Morstein-Marx also reminds us that Caesar killed or enslaved about two million people, ended free Roman elections, and other awful things. He tries to explain Caesar's actions, but not to excuse them.

Morstein-Marx's argument is not that Caesar was a hero, or a villain, but an ordinary man and product of his time. He was, to be honest, just not that important until his runaway success in Gaul. He had no long-term master plan, but was reacting to immediate issues most of the time, like all politicians do. His policies were mostly conventional, not revolutionary.

Julius Caesar and the Roman People is an attempt to take off the filters of hindsight, myth, and propaganda, and try to understand Julius Caesar's actions in the context of his time. And it will teach you a lot about how history is "constructed" along the way.

#i really need to reread this one and see if i still agree with all his conclusions #but he definitely Did The Research #robert morstein-marx #julius caesar and the roman people #jlrrt reads #book rec #book review #julius caesar #hot takes with jlrrt

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Roman politicians can't be easily classified as liberal, conservative, socialist, libertarian, or other modern political groups. It's much more informative to classify them like so:

#just roman memes #hot takes with jlrrt

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One of the biggest influences on how I view Julius Caesar is my belief that unchecked power is inherently unjust. Even if a dictator only created laws in favor of causes I agree with, the mere idea of a dictator who cannot be held accountable would be horrifying.

Accountability means free elections, fair trials, and distribution of power between institutions that can check each other. It means abuses of power can be addressed without resorting to mob violence, vigilantism or civil war. You can't fix the system just by ensuring the "right people" have all the power - that's authoritarian thinking. Bad actors are very good at saying the right lines to appeal to you, and good people may change their views, make mistakes, or die.

Caesar's popularity appears to have declined during his dictatorship, particularly after 45 BCE, when people expected him to step down after he stamped out the last band of Pompeian holdouts in Spain. The civil war was over; there was no remaining crisis that needed a dictator to enforce order. His decision to hold onto power - and in fact, to pre-arrange sham elections for his supporters up to three years in advance - made both senators and the public nervous. And angry, because it denied the people their voice in government. It's really no surprise that a group of senators decided to stop him with the only way they still saw: death.

We can argue about Caesar's policies, and reforms, and how the republic was corrupt and unjust. But for me, the ultimate form of corruption is the ruler who cannot be held accountable. And it's pretty damn unjust, too.

#when i first started this blog i was concerned i'd get mistaken for a caesar apologist. i shouldn't have worried lol #i don't personally hate caesar. he's interesting and multifaceted and often very funny/clever #but it's useful to distinguish 'i find this guy entertaining' from 'i think he was in the right' #hot takes with jlrrt #julius caesar #jlrrt essays

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It's actually kind of messed up that a lot of media portrays Julius Caesar as a populist/reformer/advocate for the "common man" against the elites.

It's not true. Caesar supported some anti-corruption bills and moderate reforms, and he wasn't a conservative by any definition. But he also reduced government benefits for the poor (debt relief, the grain dole), and he cut the common people out of government by ending free elections. Even before his dictatorship, Caesar was very much part of the aristocracy and had no desire, or reason, to overturn the social order.(1)

It gives authoritarians false credibility. Fascist leaders have directly cited Caesar as a precedent, claiming to be "advocates of the people."(2) But free elections, and accountability for leaders, are critical to prevent power from being abused. Democracy is frustrating, unfair, often corrupt, and frequently fails to live up to our ideals, but you cannot fix this by finding the "right" person and giving them absolute unchecked power. Unchecked power is inherently unjust.

It discredits the common people's voice in government. If you see Caesar as a populist rebelling against "the elites," it's not hard to twist that into "any leader overly popular with the common people is another would-be dictator." This idea, that the poor and working classes cannot be trusted to make good government decisions, has had insidious effects on democracy. The American founding fathers explicitly created the electoral college to try to prevent an "American Caesar" - with the result that multiple presidents have been elected against the will of most US citizens.(3)

(1) See Julius Caesar and the Roman People, by Robert Morstein-Marx (2021), for an extensive breakdown. Or "Caesar as a Politician" by Erich S. Gruen (2009) for an overview.

(2) "Caesar for Communists and Fascists," Luciano Canfora, 2009

(3) "Republicanism, Caesarism and Political Change," Nicholas Cole, 2009. These last three articles can be found in A Companion to Julius Caesar, ed. Miriam Griffin.

This isn't in response to anyone on Tumblr, by the way. I'm mainly thinking of nonfiction books/TV with a very one-sided view of the man.

#hot takes with jlrrt #julius caesar #jlrrt speaks #caesar also wasn't a fascist btw. but that's another conversation #historiography #jlrrt essays

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Every Roman history nerd has at least a few takes that are sheer lunacy. These are mine.

At least three ancient historians had parasocial crushes on Marcus Agrippa (Dio, Pliny and Josephus).

If you gave Caesar cocaine he wouldn't get high, he'd just turn into a normal person.

Cato the Younger hated Caesar because Caesar dumped him for his sister.

Scipio Africanus and Hannibal should've retired together.

Marcus Agrippa was an isekai protagonist.

Cato the Younger was killed by a time-traveling Robert Morstein-Marx.

#puttin' all this Lore in one place so i can reblog this anytime someone starts taking me too seriously <3 #hot takes with jlrrt #just roman memes #this blog has lore now #jlrrt speaks #octagrippa is not on this list because it is actually plausible

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Limits of Propaganda in the Augustan Regime

I saw a neat post earlier about how Augustus used propaganda to justify his control of Rome and establish permanent one-man rule. It got me thinking about what we picture when we say "propaganda," how Roman propaganda differed from modern propaganda, and how we talk about the interactions between governments and their people.

Augustus' cult of personality has some parallels with monarchist propaganda in early modern Europe, and with authoritarian governments today. But there were also major differences that I think we need to remember, or else we may wrongly project modern assumptions onto the past. In particular, I think the predominance, effectiveness, and superficiality of Augustan propaganda are often overstated. And I think this distortion reinforces a classist bias in our perception of the people of Rome, a bias that contributes to the erasure of ordinary people's contributions to history.

This isn't a formal essay, and I'm not a historian. I may have misremembered some things. But, if you'd like to hear me ramble...

How powerful was Augustan propaganda in shaping people's views of the government?

The word "propaganda" was popularized in the 20th century, in association with mass communication. Modern governments can ensure their propaganda is seen by millions of people at once, and restrict access to opposing viewpoints. Massive amounts of money, equipment, and professional teams are employed to spread these messages.

The only mass media in Augustan Rome were coins, which Augustus could only put very limited text and images on. He erected numerous monuments, but those are limited to a few paragraphs at most, and only to the people who visit them. He could patronize writers and poets like Livy and Vergil, but even they lacked the reach of television, radio or the internet. And all of these methods would have been far more expensive than the mass media of today.

Augustus' propaganda wasn't novel. Roman leaders had been stamping their messages onto coins, monuments, writing memoirs and hiring poets for centuries. Throughout his reign people still would have seen coins and monuments from the republican period, and read the works of Cicero, Brutus, and other republican leaders. In the same way most people today have learned not to trust everything they see on TV, most Romans would have known not to believe everything they saw on monuments, coins, or in state pronouncements.

Nor was Augustus able to limit the spread of contrary narratives like modern dictators can. The Roman government was extremely barebones by today's standards, lacking the bureaucracy and resources to surveil the population. Most Romans didn't get their news from public announcements, state-sponsored art, or politicians' books, but from gossip, letters, and their own information networks.

Over half of all male Romans traveled abroad at some point in this period (Mary Beard, SPQR, ch. 5). They had many different viewpoints available, and other sources of information about what was happening in the provinces. Augustus thus could only bend the narrative to his benefit so far. When several legions were annihilated in Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, he didn't even try to cover it up; people would've called him on it.

Augustus had more control over how he presented himself and his family to the public than over the narrative of tangible events in the world. Thus most of his propaganda either focuses on shaping his image of himself, his family, or on the personal character of Antony and Cleopatra instead of events Romans could verify or disprove.

But he couldn't stop information from leaking, family scandals from happening, or rumors from spreading. He exiled his daughter Julia, in part for her extramarital affairs, but also because the notoriety of the scandal undermined the squeaky-clean "Roman family values" image he intended for his family to present. When he sent Agrippa to govern the eastern provinces, rumors abounded that some rift had formed between the two. Whether or not such a rift actually happened, the fact that the rumor existed, and survived for 150 years into Suetonius' era, shows how limited Augustus' control of public perception actually was.

How independent were Roman citizens, soldiers, and senators?

These are three very distinct groups that behaved in different ways. Let's start with the general public.

The Roman People

The evidence is clear: we know people organized public protests and petitions throughout Augustus' reign, and even spoiled elections sometimes by voting for the "wrong" candidates.

A group of women took over the forum to protest his tax hike in 42 BCE, despite a wave of proscriptions. He was nearly stoned to death by an angry mob in 39 BCE. The Romans repeatedly petitioned for Julia's freedom, and as late as 9 CE we hear of protests against his marriage laws.

Why did the public express themselves so freely? Well, for one thing, Augustus chose not to suppress popular demonstrations. In fact, he seems to have used the semblance of "free speech" as a tool to deflect accusations of tyranny. By cultivating an image of himself as a moderate who permitted public dissent, he made his political dominance appear less authoritarian and more palatable to the people of Rome.

Augustus probably also thought it was impossible to control what people said, so didn't bother to try. In one of his letters to Tiberius, Augustus says as much:

Suetonius, Augustus, 51

Another big factor was that many public protests tried to persuade him to take on more power. They repeatedly demanded that he take up the dictatorship, or tried to elect him consul when he wasn't running. And no, this doesn't seem to have been the "fake elections" you see in modern dictatorships. The reason is that people's trust in the Senate's competence had collapsed, so when national crises arose like famines, plagues, or debt problems, they tried to make Augustus take back the reins, instead of sharing the power with the Senate as he pretended he was doing.

Which brings us to Augustus' bizarre relationship the Senate.

The Senatorial Class

How independent were the senators? Suetonius gives us a raucous picture:

Augustus also reintroduced competitive elections. Not free, really - everyone knew Augustus' power far outweighed the consuls and praetors. But we do have records of candidates attempting to bribe voters and slinging accusations at their opponents, similar to republican times. This was another way that Augustus tried to distance himself from the dictatorships of Caesar and Sulla, and make his authority palatable to people who valued republican liberty.

He also collaborated with senators behind the scenes, and selected some of them as advisors and proxies for introducing legislation. Augustus' rule was negotiated in a series of settlements, public and private, with the same class of people who had killed Julius Caesar for threatening their place in the public order.

Augustus needed the aristocracy's skills, education, and resources to administer the empire. He also needed to placate them enough to avoid getting the Ides of March Special. They, in turn, needed a way to maintain their dignitas and roles in government, which had traditionally been conferred by elections. By permitting elections, incorporating senators into policy-making behind the scenes, and giving them the outward appearance and status of their old authority, Augustus satisfied them enough to stabilize his rule.

However, the value of elections, and of being in the Senate, clearly declined over time. In the second half of his reign senatorial attendance declined so sharply Augustus introduced penalties for senators not showing up to "work." Eventually elections for the high magistracies were phased out, and the Senate was allowed to elect consuls from among themselves. This was actually popular with senators, since it spared them the expense of campaigning.

And although Augustus did permit senators' input into his government, his control steadily increased over time. Part of this was official, as re-settlements granted him additional powers. And part of it was de facto, as he simply outlived everyone who had experience managing the government. Augustus' longevity, experience, and informal network of advisors effectively made his household the hub of government policy. (His nepotistic habit of giving his relatives the most important jobs also contributed.) Meanwhile, the Senate had a sort of "brain drain" effect as a new generation of senators grew up without the experience of running the state themselves.

By the ascension of Tiberius in 14 CE, senatorial autonomy was dead. Even when Tiberius attempted to step back from government and encouraged the senators to state their own opinions, this only resulted in paralysis. He could not replicate the personal, unofficial relationships Augustus had developed to govern without appearing "tyrannical," and tension between the Senate and emperors would plague Rome for another 200 years.

The Military

Although Augustus took pains to disguise it, we should never forget that he was a military dictator. His power came first and foremost from the loyalty of the army, and their loyalty depended on getting paid. The last great threat to his rule wasn't Antony or Cleopatra, but a huge mutiny in Italy after the Battle of Actium. If he hadn't annexed Egypt and distributed its riches to his troops, there's a high chance he would have been overthrown.

Augustus also needed to convince the legions and public of his military ability, and thus that Rome was safe under his rule. He was not a gifted commander, but he was usually good at selecting them, most notably in Marcus Agrippa, Drusus, Tiberius, and Germanicus. On the other hand, the catastrophic loss of several legions in Teutoburg Forest seriously frightened him. He feared a loss of public confidence, and thus rebellions and political rivals, and quickly sent Drusus and Tiberius with their armies to retaliate.

Augustus established a permanent army to guard the entire empire, which strained the empire's budget to its limit. He managed to pay for it all, barely. Later emperors would repeatedly run into mutinies and even be overthrown by troops who weren't satisfied with their wages.

Augustus' reign was a difficult balancing act between the needs of many competing interest groups, especially early on. After multiple civil wars, the state was poor, the people were exhausted and traumatized, the Senate and citizens feared each other, Romans opposed provincials, soldiers opposed civilians - it was a mess. It's hard to describe the damage to Rome's social and economic infrastructure.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Augustus' reign was that he managed to navigate between all of these groups, get each of them to trust him to look out for their interests, and gave Roman society enough time to knit itself back together. To win that trust, he couldn't rely on bribes and propaganda alone. He had to prove it through action.

Augustan propaganda had to be justified through tangible benefits, not mere words and imagery.

The word "propaganda" is usually used to refer to rhetoric, advertisements, and manipulation. It connotes hollowness and subterfuge. But Augustus did not trick people into liking him by just hiring the right poets and erecting statues. His most effective propaganda was demonstrated through public renovations and the assurance of public order.

The bar wasn't high to clear. We have to remember that Augustus wasn't a dictator replacing a functioning republic; he was introducing a stable government with competitive (but not free) elections after 20 years of civil war, and another ten years of political violence before that. Peace alone was a major reason why people accepted his rule.

The quality of life for both Romans and provincials mostly improved during his reign, too. From Marcus Agrippa fixing the sewer system and providing the entire city with clean water, to Rome's first permanent fire brigade, to increased economic mobility, to safer long-distance travel, to stabilizing the grain supply, even down to individual tax disputes and court cases Augustus encountered while touring the provinces. The Romans would also have seen Augustus' military victories as a form of public service, a way of enriching the empire and restoring national pride. (And they were officially his victories, since he remained the commanding officer, even if the campaigns were masterminded by Agrippa or another subordinate.)

I think that history books sometimes frame Augustan propaganda as a sort of trick to make the populace accept one-man rule. But you can't really separate the effects of his propaganda from his demonstrable actions that most Romans approved of. The Romans were not simpletons, and they weren't afraid to express their anger with him violently. (Even with the Praetorian Guard present: a mob attacked him and his soldiers in 39 BCE.) Augustus was testing out a fragile and experimental form of government, and had give people results.

That said, we should not attribute the benefits of Augustus' rule to autocracy. We certainly shouldn't use it to justify authoritarianism, as many fascists have attempted. Augustus' government was better than an ongoing civil war; that does not mean it was better than a democracy. And the downsides of autocracy rapidly took effect after his death: first in Tiberius, who initiated the first purges since 42 BCE; then with Caligula, who was...well, Caligula.

If anything, I think Augustus' reign shows how goddamn hard it is to kill people's desire for liberty and their voice in government. If we overlook the protests, the riots, and the constant need for the princeps to justify his regime with military and domestic success, then we erase the input of the common people. And that contributes to a classist view of history in which only rich, powerful men can make meaningful contributions.

Augustus used propaganda, absolutely. But the Roman people were not satisfied with pretty words and images. They paid attention to what the state was doing, they expected it to serve, feed, and protect them, and they even intervened in issues like Julia's exile that didn't personally affect them.

Perhaps we should give them a little more credit.

Further Reading/Watching

Mary Beard, SPQR

Anthony Everitt: Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome

Erich Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic

Robin Seager, Tiberius

Historia Civilis (YouTube channel)

#jlrrt speaks #octavian #propaganda #hot takes with jlrrt #once again i'm not a historian this is all just my opinion #i would totally stuff augustus into a locker and then run like hell before agrippa could catch me #jlrrt essays

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Did I ever tell y'all about the time Adrian Goldsworthy said Octavian was a better general than Mark Antony?

(Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra, "Conclusion")

It's a pretty rare view, and I'm happy to hear contrary ones. (I make fun of both sides!) But anyway, Goldsworthy's argument runs like this:

Octavian eventually recognized his weaknesses and let more able generals (especially Agrippa) do their job unimpeded; in contrast, Antony fired his most successful general, Publius Ventidius.

Antony's elevation to the consulship and triumvirate came more from family connections and being in the right place at the right time, than from extensive military experience. He was at Alesia, and the most successful commander at Philippi. But he wasn't a major player in the rest of the Gallic Wars, and Octavian and the Senate's army did beat him at Mutina.

Octavian's successful operations in Mutina, Perusia, Illyria and the Actium War are usually overlooked, and his reputation for cowardice is untrue. (I'm planning to do a more thorough analysis of Octavian's military skills - and weaknesses - eventually.)

Antony handled the Parthian and Actium campaigns poorly, resulting in major losses.

After the Parthian campaign, Antony still surpassed Octavian in resources and manpower, yet failed to press his advantage in 33 BCE and yielded the initiative to Octavian. (However, Historia Civilis points out that invading Italy with a mostly non-Roman army could have backfired badly on Antony.)

That's not to say Goldsworthy hates Antony. He gives credit to Antony's administrative abilities, personal courage, charisma and loyalty. But he does think Antony's image as the "military paragon" versus Octavian's "wimp hiding behind Agrippa" has been exaggerated. He also speculates that Antony may have been hindered by illness: what we'd now call depression, PTSD or alcohol misuse. And this book spends little time on Octavian's embarrassing performance against Sextus Pompey, which occurred between the Perusine War and Illyria.

Anyway, I just felt like throwing a curveball out there. What do you think?

#jlrrt reads #adrian goldsworthy #antony and cleopatra #mark antony #octavian #marcus agrippa #hot takes with jlrrt #jlrrt essays

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Hi can you explain why you think Agrippa is better than Julius Caesar? No hate just curious

Sure thing! This is all just my opinion; y'all are welcome to disagree.

I've posted before about why Caesar was such a successful general. But he was also incredibly lucky. His poorly-planned landing on Britain should have killed him. The time he got encircled/besieged at the Battle of Alesia should have killed him. The time Pompey kicked his ass at Battle of Dyrrachium should have killed him. The utterly unnecessary Alexandrian war, and logistically disastrous African campaign should have killed him.

His resourcefulness, ability to improvise, and great relationship with his troops saved him each time. But he survived despite taking needless risks, disregarding logistics, and poor strategic choices.

There is nothing as thrilling as the Battle of Alesia in Marcus Agrippa's story. That's because Agrippa never got himself into such a bad position in the first place.

His most famous victory, at Actium, was an anticlimax that ended with Antony and Cleopatra running away. Agrippa never lost a major battle like Caesar did at Gergovia, Dyrrhachium and Ruspina.

Besides sharing most of Caesar's strengths, Agrippa was superior at:

Logistics. In all my reading of Agrippa I found no examples of him running out of supplies, communication disruptions, or overextending his forces.

Naval warfare. He surpassed Sextus Pompey, the other great admiral of the age, in tactics and seamanship. Agrippa surpassed everyone in his ability to navigate far from shore and incorporate naval operations into combined land-sea assaults. Actium was an anticlimax because Agrippa had used these skills to capture most of Antony's ships, destroy his supply lines, and trap his navy in a terrible position long before the battle itself.

Grand strategy. Tactics win battles; strategy wins operations; grand strategy is the ability to comprehend a whole war from a bird's-eye view, identify what big goals must happen in order to win, and stay focused on those goals. Agrippa's skill with grand strategy is most obvious in his reconquest of Illyria, where he used multiple fronts with interconnected objectives to ensure that no one defeat could be decisive. Caesar, in contrast, had a habit of making detours (like Britain and Alexandria) that didn't help his bigger campaign objectives.

And finally, Agrippa didn't kill a million Gauls or start a civil war just to further his career. This is a matter of ethics, not ability. But I include it because Caesar is an incredibly charismatic man even today, and a lot of us feel instinctively drawn towards a winner. I say this as someone who thinks most fiction characterizes Caesar unfairly. Even I must admit that Caesar was a profoundly selfish and hypocritical man whose actions harmed his country more than they helped. You could criticize Agrippa's actions too - and I have - but he didn't slaughter people for his own personal advancement, or at the expense of his country's stability.

The main reason we don't hear more about Agrippa is that he downplayed his achievements, and gave the credit to Augustus whenever possible. He declined triumphs he was offered and rarely put his name on monuments (the Pantheon excepted). Also, his memoirs haven't survived, while Caesar's Gallic Commentaries did.

Sources:

Historia Civilis - His videos are the best introduction to Agrippa's military achievements.

Agrippa: Right Hand Man of Caesar Augustus, by Lindsay Powell

Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, by Adrian Goldsworthy

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor, by Anthony Everitt

A Companion to Julius Caesar, anthology, ed. Miriam Griffin; particularly "General and Imperialist" by Nathan Rosenstein

#just roman asks #julius caesar #marcus agrippa #ancient rome #military history #hot takes with jlrrt #jlrrt essays

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what is your most controversial opinion about ancient rome?

Many things about Julius Caesar.

He was an ideological moderate, not a radical populist or demagogue, and his career shows repeated attempts to compromise with and reconcile other parties.

During their consulship, Caesar followed the spirit of the law more than Bibulus, who tried to shut down a year's worth of government business out of pure spite. The first triumvirate did not rule like dictators, nor were any of them trying to overturn the republic.

A rogue consul declared war on Caesar first, against the will of the Senate, and rejected Caesar's attempts to de-escalate for over a month before he finally crossed the Rubicon. If not for Cato and Marcellus, Caesar and Pompey would've almost certainly settled matters peacefully.

Caesar's dictatorships were ad hoc responses to breakdowns in public order, and more closely resemble "martial law" than an attempt to set himself up as king. It's not till 45 BCE that he seems to have changed his mind and decided to hold onto power indefinitely, and then only after his attempts to step down had only led to further revolts and disasters.

The popular image of Caesar as power-hungry and with no respect for the law better describes Catiline or Pompey.

Oh, and he wasn't born by Caesarian section. The word actually comes from the Lex Caesarea, a law mandating the procedure if a mother died while pregnant.

That's not to say I'm pro-Caesar in everything. In my book, his most unjust acts were the Gallic Wars and the end of free elections under his dictatorship. His plan to invade Parthia and Dacia would've led to even more horrific, unnecessary suffering. I think the assassination was justified (and I would've killed Antony and Lepidus too). But I would rather people criticize Caesar based on the facts, and not the myths.

Sources that have influenced my views:

Iulius by Suetonius

Bellum Catilinae by Sallust

Julius Caesar and the Roman People by Robert Morstein-Marx

Caesar as a Politician by Erich Gruen

The Last Generation of the Roman Republic by Erich Gruen

The Proconsular Years: Politics at a Distance by John T. Ramsey

The Dictator by Jane F. Gardner

Cato the Younger by Fred Drogula

#i highly recommend morstein-marx's book in particular #julius caesar #just roman asks #ancient rome #hot takes with jlrrt #jlrrt essays

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I have complicated opinions about Julius Caesar. The man did a lot of awful things, yes. But there's a strange moment during the Catiline conspiracy that has always stood out to me, because it foreshadows so much of his later career. And it says something about his character that I think most people overlook.

(Mary Beard, SPQR, chapter 1)

It's only a blip, since Beard is trying to cover most of Roman history in one book, but the more context you add, the bigger the implications get - both for Cicero and for Caesar.

First, the legal issues:

The Catilinarian leaders were unarmed and under guard. But there had just been an attempt to spring them, and it's not clear whether they could be securely held in custody for long. (Caesar thought it was, Cato argued it wasn't.)

Roman citizens could not be executed without a trial, except in cases of immediate danger to the state, e.g. while leading an armed rebellion.

It's not clear whether Cicero had the authority to violate this right. For one thing, the captives weren't an immediate threat, since they were unarmed. For another, even if you believed Rome was in immanent danger (as Cato argued), killing them wouldn't remove that danger - because the threat came from Catiline's army outside the city walls. The fact that Cicero consulted the entire Senate before taking action also suggests that he wanted to give his decision more legitimacy.

The custom that supposedly granted Cicero executionary power was itself questionable: normally Senate decrees did not have the force of law, and not everyone agreed that the senatus consultum ultimum did, either.

So Caesar appears to be protesting what might be a breach of civil rights, or might be urgent necessity to protect people's lives. (Depends how much you credit Cato.) What else do we know about Caesar?

This was the first time unarmed Roman citizens were selected for death without trial since the Sullan proscriptions 19 years earlier - a generational trauma in which thousands of people died, most innocent of any crime. Caesar had nearly been killed by these proscriptions when he was 18, before being pardoned. In other words, Caesar's opposition to execution may have stemmed from personal experience being on the other side.

Cato and Catulus accused Caesar of opposing execution because he was part of Catiline's conspiracy, but this is extremely unlikely. Cicero himself acknowledged that Caesar had assisted his investigation sometime before Catiline's departure in November. As an incoming praetor, it would also make no sense for Caesar to rebel against a government that was about to give him more power and prestige.

Was Caesar just opposing execution to win popularity with the Roman people? Also unlikely: he was nearly killed by supporters of Cato and Catulus on his way out of the Senate meeting. It's also very strange that he'd go against the consensus of all previous speakers at said meeting, who supported the death penalty, if he were courting popularity. Caesar wasn't really a radical at this point, and didn't try to start fights with important people on purpose. (Though he certainly held a grudge against Catulus after Catulus tried to get him killed here!)

Robert Morstein-Marx proposed that Caesar was attempting to find a compromise that followed the letter of the law, and respected Roman civil rights, while preserving Rome's safety. I find this pretty persuasive, especially because Caesar had made a name for himself prosecuting violations of citizens' rights. Compromise is also a recurring pattern in a lot of Caesar's legislation.

Even later in life, Caesar avoided executing Romans whenever feasible. There are only three Pompeian officers likely to have been killed on his orders, two of whom had been spared before, and only one battle during the civil war in which he didn't grant Pompeian foot soldiers amnesty: Munda, where he was mostly fighting Iberians. (He did have a double standard in how he treated Romans versus non-Romans.) Doubly notable because the Pompeians threatened to kill all the Caesarians and neutral parties, even harmless folks like Cicero's friend Atticus.

Caesar's subordinates repeatedly asked him to proscribe Pompeians to alleviate his army's financial difficulties and keep his officers loyal. His refusal to do so likely angered some of the men who eventually assassinated him.

This is not an attempt to eulogize Caesar. I'll be the first to criticize his conquest of Gaul and abuse of power as dictator. But let's consider just this part of him. His near-proscription in his youth, his opposition during the Catiline conspiracy, and his preference to pardon enemies during the civil war, all line up in a consistent direction. It points to Caesar just not wanting to kill other Romans.

And when a man takes a consistent stand on the same issue, throughout his life, even at financial cost and strategic risk to himself, I'm inclined to think he means it.

#julius caesar #catiline conspiracy #ancient rome #mary beard #jlrrt reads #hot takes with jlrrt #roman trials #spqr book #jlrrt essays

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I'm mostly enjoying Gruen's book, but his portrayal of Caesar's motivations bugs me a little.

See, most historians portray Roman politicians of Caesar's era as opportunists, with the exception of Cato and maybe Cicero. I call it the "pit of vipers" model, this idea that most politicians were purely self-interested and only advocated for causes to get more power. And sure, some folks are like that. But how many purely pragmatic, self-interested, value-less people do you know? I reckon most folks at least passively care about some kind of cause, even if they don't act on it.

Consider an issue that Gruen says Caesar only cared about pragmatically, not from genuine conviction: restoration of political rights for the sons of people Sulla had proscribed. Look carefully at the bits I highlighted below:

Some of these lines imply the cause was important to the people. Other lines imply the cause was not important to them. Which is it, Gruen? How can Caesar cynically exploit a cause for his own popularity if the cause doesn't really matter to people?

It gets even odder when you look at one of the footnotes:

So apparently, when Caesar had full control of the state, and no need to win more votes, he...returned to an issue that he didn't care about 15 years before? Why?

Let's add a few more facts Gruen isn't mentioning:

Caesar had been personally targeted by the proscriptions, including having to go into hiding, pay off people who wanted to kill him, and losing most of his family fortune. Although Sulla technically relented, Caesar still left Italy and didn't return until after Sulla died.

Caesar consistently pushed for the expansion of political rights to several groups, throughout his career: to proscribed families, to Cisalpine Gauls, to Sicilians, and to Jews.

He does not appear to have changed these positions based on expediency. In fact, his prosecution of Calpurnius Piso for infringing the rights of Roman citizens in Gaul contributed to Caesar's isolation from the optimates, and earned him harassment and attempts on his life during the Catiline conspiracy soon after.

If consistently pushing for a cause, both when it's personally dangerous and as when it's no longer necessary to gain power (i.e. as dictator), isn't enough to indicate someone is genuinely committed, what the hell more evidence do you want?

Now, don't start stanning Caesar yet. We're still talking about a mass murderer. My argument is not that Caesar was a good person, but that at least on this issue, he was acting out of sincere belief about an issue that had personally affected him. If you analyze Caesar's behavior as mere pragmatism, you miss a great deal of context, and end up with Gruen's bizarre self-contradictions above.

It is tempting to portray politicians as cynical, pragmatic machines who only act in their self-interest. But politicians are human, and we cannot understand them - or history - unless we allow humans to be complex and emotional.

#erich gruen #last generation of the roman republic #julius caesar #literary analysis #jlrrt reads #hot takes with jlrrt #historiography #jlrrt essays

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I wonder about 13. If Caesar really was unlikely to face prosecution, why the Civil War? We know that had he been elected Consul again, the threat of prosecution would have virtually disappeared. If he could have crossed the pomerium without fear, why wouldn't he?

From @solidorange69 on my misconceptions post. I've made a few posts before about why Caesar's civil war erupted:

Why I don't believe Caesar was at risk for prosecution, and alternate explanations for his behavior.

The Road to War: A Timeline of Caesar and Pompey's Breakup

Erich Gruen argues that multiple factions strained Caesar and Pompey's alliance to the breaking point.

Robert Morstein-Marx puts a lot of blame on the anti-Caesarian hardliners in 51-49 BCE, and believes there were genuine ideological differences in each side's arguments, as well as several missteps that eroded trust between Caesar and Pompey over the course of 50 BCE.

Fred Drogula also has a good discussion of the civil war's causes in his biography of Cato. He also faults Cato and the anti-Caesar hardliners, and believes they were trying to bluff Caesar into stepping down from his command. They misjudged, badly.

Gruen and Morstein-Marx don't agree with the prosecution theory; Drogula and some other historians do. Personally, I think Morstein-Marx's arguments are the most thorough and plausible. If you want to judge for yourself, check out Drogula's Cato the Younger (chapter 7), Morstein-Marx's Julius Caesar and the Roman People (pp. 259-263, 622-624) and Gruen's Last Generation of the Roman Republic (chapter 11).

#caesarhell #<- my general tag for hot takes about julius caesar #the man's been dead 2000 years and is still controversial! #julius caesar #the prosecution theory #caesar's civil war #jlrrt essays

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I’m about halfway through Cicero by Anthony Everitt. I like the book on the whole, and it’s excellent at bringing Cicero and his contemporaries to life.

However, I do disagree with Everitt’s portrayal of Caesar and the First Triumvirate. It’s a quite standard narrative - Caesar the radical populist, the Triumvirate steamrolling their opposition - but I think Robert Morstein-Marx (2021) makes a stronger case for Caesar as a moderate pre-50 BCE and the Triumvirate as only partly effectual.

Here’s an example of how they read the same set of events differently:

Everitt blames the First Triumvirate for Cicero’s exile in 58. Then he acknowledges that Cicero himself didn’t blame the triumvirs. Everitt also alludes to Caesar offering Cicero a military commission, at the same time, but doesn’t mention this would’ve given Cicero immunity from Clodius’ attacks.

Compare to Morstein-Marx’s take:

Where Everitt supposes that Cicero failed to notice who his real enemies were, Morstein-Marx assumes Cicero knows what he’s talking about. He also points out that Cicero didn’t change his mind about who was “really responsible” even after Caesar crossed the Rubicon, which is when you’d expect Cicero to start blaming Caesar more. The five footnotes here refer to lines from Cicero’s letters, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio, as well as sources that point out Clodius’ independence from Caesar and Pompey.

So far I think Morstein-Marx’s interpretation is more persuasive.

#i need to post a summary of RMM's 2021 book sometime #i refer to it constantly #it's full of Hot Takes but super well researched #literary analysis #cicero #julius caesar #anthony everitt #robert morstein-marx #jlrrt reads #ancient rome #jlrrt speaks