From: Simon Laub Date: 14 April 2009 19.14 NewsGroup: soc.history.ancient Keywords: Ancient Rome, Caius Julius Caesar, Imperator, Mistresses, Servilia, Slaves, Morals, Human Character over the ages, Repeating patterns in history Subject: Imperator - Adrian Goldsworthys Caesar =============================================== The ancients believed that life was cyclical. They would cry in the middle of triumph - certain that misfortune would follow inevitably after the heights of triumph. And they could braze themselves with stoical, austere fortitude in times of crisis, certain that bad would eventually give way and good would return. ------------ Now, as a society, we no longer believe in a cyclical world. Instead we believe in progress! Onwards and upwards! Yet, human nature does not seem to improve as reliablely as technology. Goldsworthy takes us through the last years of the Roman Republic. As Caesar - brilliant politician and military genious - turns the Republic into an empire. We learn how a little corruption gives away to more, with the death of free men as a consequence. We see how personal ambition and greed ruins a good society - and how, if controlled better, it could have made the republic grow. Essential knowledge if we want human nature to be something else than just endlessly repeating patterns of corruption and other malpractices - followed by death and, eventually, reconstruction of society. Adrian Goldsworthys book takes away much of the ignorance. And gives us the patterns and the consequences of the ancient world. With that follows questions to our own world: How should society manage personal ambition? How should society deal with corruption? Can a just society have slaves? Or people without influence? Questions we better answer if we dont want to suffer the same consequences as the ancients. If successful we might prove the ancients wrong even when it comes to human nature. It might actually be possible to improve human nature little by little, instead of just having repeating patterns of justice followed by corruption and horror. ------------- ------------- The story begins in 753 BC. The year Rome was founded. The year 1 - where later events were dated as so many years from foundation of the city (ab urbe condita). The story of Caesar begins much later though: July 13th 100 BC. A man who possessed the full tria nomina or three names of a roman citizen. Caius Julius Caesar. The first name (praenomen) identifies the individual member of a family in informal conversation. The second name (nomen) is the name of the clan or broad group of families to which a man belonged. The third name (cognomen) specified the particular branch of this wider grouping. The Julii were patricians .They were said to have settled in Rome in the middle of the seventh century BC. Derived from Iulus, leader of Trojan exiles. A Julius Caesar - the first man to have had that cognomen - reached the praetorship during the second punic war. Some claimed he took that name because he killed an elephant in battle and that Caesar was copied from the punic word for elephant. Caesar lived in the Suburu, a rather unfashionable district of Rome. At some distance from the main Forum. A place with large areas of slum housing, disreputable activities, such as prostitution. As he began seeking office he would wear the Toga Candidatus - a whitened Toga, intended to make candidates stand out as they walked around the Forum. A normal beginning for a Roman senator. Eventually leading to the military and civilian tasks to be performed throughout a career. Both being a normal part of public life. Caesars times were violent times of civil war. Yet it had little to do with conflicting ideology or policies, but were violent extensions of traditional competition between individuals. Politics was essential an individual struggle, where everybody else was a competitor. The politician could then woo the electorate by lavish expenditure. Obviously only a few would flurish under this system. but certainly those who did saw no reason to change it. So it is in all times.It is common for those who flurish under any system to think that failure of others is deserved. Around 61-60 BC Caesar sees a statue of Alexander the Great in the Temple of Hercules and is distressed, because he has done so little at an age when the Macedonian king had conquered half the world. More distressing still is a dream where he rapes his mother Aurelia. He consults a soothsayer who tells him "that he is destined to rule the Earth, since the mother he has ravished is mother Earth - parent of all." Encouraged, he could continue his career. He runs for election to the post of Pontifex Maximus, Chief priest of the Roman state religion, after the death of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who had been appointed to the post by Sulla. His opponents are two powerful optimates, the former consuls Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus. There were accusations of bribery by all sides. Caesar is said to have told his mother on the morning of the election that he would return as Pontifex Maximus or not at all, expecting to be forced into exile by the enormous debts he had run up to fund his campaign. In any event he won comfortably, despite his opponents greater experience and standing, possibly because the two older men split their votes. It greatly increases his Auctoritas - the prestige and influence of a Roman senator. Privately he is married three times. In marriages designed for political purposes. Perhaps with rituals not unlike the ones we see today. E.g. in his days - the bride was carried over the threshold, a gesture that was believed to go back to the rape of the Sabine women, when the first Romans had only been able to find wifes by kidnapping the daughters of the neighboring community. But there are many more women in his life. Caesar may well have amused himself with courtesans, slave girls - such behaviour was not considered especially significant. He also seduced many distinguished women. Wives of important senators. Suetonius lists 5. His relationship with Servilia was special - as she was loved before all others. Servilia was attractive, intelligent, well educated, sophisticated and ambitious. And apart from the affair with Caesar Servilia was otherwise faithful to her husbond. Obviosuly, there was also the affair with queen Cleopatra. In 58 BC he sets of to Gaul. It should be noted that the great noble families of Rome were not part of Caesars staff for the Gaul campaign. Well established men did not need to tie themselves to Caesar in the beginning if the Gaul campaign. Eventually Gaul is conquered. And peace restored. I.e. Pax was the outcome of a Roman victory. Caesar often makes use of the of the verb pacare - which means to pacify, and was used for defeat of any people who did not summit to Roman authority. Losses are enormous though. Historians speak of as many as a million dead, and as many taken slaves, in a population of perhaps 15 million. In one final Gaul rebellion centered around the hill town of Uxellodunum more outrage. When rebel defenders came out to surrender, Caesar decides to make an example of them - each of the warriors had his hands cut off and was then set free as a warning to others. Returning home he is not treated as he sees fit. He utters the famous Iacta alea est and the road to civil war begins. His soldiers trust him more than senators in Rome. Afterall, Legions like The Thirteenth had served him for seven years and trusted him to bring vicory, as he had always done in the past. They remembered the generosity with spoils. Caesar believed he - and by extension they - had been mistreated by a group of senators whose own behaviour made it difficult to see them as the legitimate leaders of the republic. A sense of what right, along with old loyalty and self interest, combined to ensure that Caesars army had no hesitation to fight other Romans. And off we go to the battle at Pharsalus. Where Battle in Civil war is especially confusing. To reduce the chance of mistaking friend for enemy and vice versa each side issued a password. Caesars side used "Venus the bringer of Victory", the Pompeians used "Hercules the unconquered" In the end all his opponents foreign and domestic are dead. And the Imperator can return to Rome. So, at least according to custom: After an especially great victory, an army's troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. After being acclaimed imperator, the victorious general had a right to use the title after his name until the time of his triumph, where he would relinquish the title as well as his imperium. But Caesar of course had no intention of relinquishing anything. Not a popular move. Ultimately no Roman senator liked to see another man excelling him in glory and influence. It was not so much what Caesar had done - if only not one individual gained so much glory. Men from established families were raised to believed that they were to lead the Republic, but Caesars eminence robbed them of much of this role. One man possessing as much permanent power as Caesar is incompatible with a free republic. The state should be led by elected magistrates holding office for a limited term and guided by a senate whose debates were open. Under Caesar many decisions were made behind closed doors by the dictator and his close advisors, not the way a republic was supposed to work. Eventually, 60 Senators (7 % of the Senators) joins the plot to kill Caesar- But within three years after Caesars murder all the conspirators are defeated and dead, and the senatorial and equestrian orders purged by new proscriptions. Eventualy Octavian becomes emperor of the Roman world - age 32. Still, it all starts with Caesar. The politician who outshone everybody else. So, for two thousand years after Julius Caesar's assassination, there was at least one head of state bearing his name. Hoping to get a little of his glory. -------- Caesars days might have been the days of a dying Republic. But themes and human characters from Caesars world is still with us. Surely we need to know how everything played out back then, so we can hope for a better outcome this time around. An absolutely brilliant book by Adrian Goldsworthy. Surely it is about Caesar, but in the end it is as much about ourselves and our days. The questions any society needs to address to make the best of human nature. So we can actually make human nature a noble thing. Something that improves little by little. April 14th 2009 Simon Laub