Caesar: Life of a Colossus
by Adrian Goldsworthy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Adrian GoldsworthyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-28
ISBN: 0300126891
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Yale University Press
Book Reviews of Caesar: Life of a Colossus
Book Review: Imperator
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Adrian Goldsworthy begins the story 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: 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.
-Simon
Summary of Caesar: Life of a Colossus
As Adrian Goldsworthy writes in the introduction to this book, “in his fifty-six years, Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator . . . as well as husband, father, lover and adulterer.? In this landmark biography, Goldsworthy examines all of these roles and places his subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C.
Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Caesar?s life from birth through assassination, Goldsworthy covers not only Caesar?s accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar?s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later.
Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Caesar?s life from birth through assassination, Goldsworthy covers not only Caesar?s accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar?s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later.
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