In Julius Caesar, supernatural elements such as omens, dreams, and prophecies play a significant role in foreshadowing events and heightening the sense. These elements, such as the soothsayer’s warning, bad weather, wacky animal behavior, and scary dreams, serve to crystallize the larger themes of fate and misinterpretation of signs.
The large number of omens reported in connection with Caesar’s death betrays an ancient Graeco-Roman mentality. Caesar suspects that the omens are for him and Calpurnia is right, but his ego wins out, leading him to venture out of the house anyway.
Caesar is uneasy at the omens and portents, giving heed to Calpurnia’s entreaties to remain at home. However, he yields to the importunity of Decius and starts for the Capitol. The various responses to these phenomena show the struggle between fate and free will in Julius Caesar.
The characters in Julius Caesar neglect nearly universally the play’s various omens (dead men walking, sacrificed animals who lack hearts), nightmares, and other superstitious events. In Julius Caesar, signs, omens, and premonitions play crucial roles in foreshadowing events and influencing characters’ actions.
Throughout the play, there are bad omens that warn of Caesar’s death, and several different omens that pop up throughout the play. The presence of supernatural elements in Julius Caesar represents the mysterious, underlying forces at work beneath human behavior and historical events, lending an air of the supernatural to the cold political machinery of Rome.
📹 History Summarized: Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Republic
This was supposed to be a 10-minute video on Caesar and Augustus, but as you can see, I got a little carried away. My next …
What is the significance of omens in Julius Caesar?
In Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, the presence of omens functions as a symbolic representation of impending occurrences, foreshadowing events such as Caesar’s demise or the conspirators’ defeat in battle.
How is superstition shown in Julius Caesar?
In a superstitious act, Caesar instructs his servants to slaughter an animal and interpret the results by examining its internal organs. The servants reported that they were unable to locate a heart, which they interpreted as a sign that Caesar should remain at home.
What is the foreshadowing in Julius Caesar?
The soothsayer issues a cautionary prediction to Caesar, indicating that he should exercise caution on March 15th, which subsequently proves to be the date of his assassination. Caesar’s wife experiences a dream in which she foresees his demise, thereby indicating the existence of a premeditated assassination plot. In a vision, Caesar appears to Brutus, promising a reunion and foreshadowing Brutus’s death.
What is the importance of omens nightmares and other supernatural elements in the play Julius Caesar?
The play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare features a plethora of supernatural occurrences and omens that serve as a pivotal aspect of the narrative, evoking a pervasive sense of impending doom and foreshadowing the tragic events that will subsequently unfold.
What is the foreshadow of the story?
Foreshadowing is a narrative technique where a storyteller provides a hint of what will happen later in the story, often at the beginning. It helps develop or subvert the audience’s expectations about upcoming events. Foreshadowing can be used in various ways, such as character dialogues, plot events, and changes in setting. The title of a work or chapter can also serve as a clue. In fiction, foreshadowing creates an atmosphere of suspense, attracting readers and adding dramatic tension. It can make extraordinary and bizarre events appear credible, and some events are predicted to make the audience feel they anticipated them.
What is the significance of omens?
An omen, or portent, is a phenomenon believed to predict the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was believed in ancient times that omens brought divine messages from the gods. These omens include natural phenomena like eclipses, abnormal animal births, and sacrificial lamb behavior. Divorce specialists interpret these omens using artificial methods, such as clay models of sheep livers, to communicate with their gods during crises. They expect a binary answer, either positive or negative, to predict future events and take action to avoid disaster.
Although the term omen is usually devoid of reference to the change’s nature, it is more often used in a foreboding sense, similar to the word ominous. The word comes from its Latin equivalent, omen, of uncertain origin.
What is the significance of omen?
The observation of phenomena and the subsequent interpretation of these observations as either good or bad fortune, or as a sign of impending change, was a common practice in ancient times. Such phenomena included those observed in lightning, cloud movements, bird flight, and the paths traversed by sacred animals. Each sign was assigned a specific meaning, such as the type of bird observed or the direction of its flight. These signs were further subdivided into minor categories, each with a distinct interpretation.
What is an example of superstition in Shakespeare?
King James I of England was known for his superstition about witches, leading to the creation of works like Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The play features witches who manipulate characters and cast spells to destroy lives. Elizabethans believed fairies played tricks on innocent people, similar to the play. Today, Elizabethan superstitions include not walking under a ladder, saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes, not spilling salt due to its high cost, and not allowing black cats to enter one’s body due to their association with witches. These practices continue to be followed today.
What does Caesar’s response to the omens suggest about his character?
Caesar’s apparent disregard for omens, rather than viewing them as warnings, may be indicative of a certain degree of arrogance. He holds the view that the gods issue adverse omens with the intention of humiliating him for his cowardice or of testing his courage, as he considers them to be a form of retribution for his actions.
How does Caesar react to the omens?
Caesar’s arrogant response to the omen indicates that he believes the universe or the gods are attempting to challenge him, when in fact they are merely warning him. This suggests a high level of self-esteem and narcissistic tendencies.
Which line from Act I foreshadows what will happen to Caesar?
The line from Act I, “Beware the ides of March,” serves as a foreshadowing of Caesar’s future.
📹 The Life of Julius Caesar- The Rise and Fall of a Roman Colossus -See U in History
Roman History: The Life of Julius Caesar – The Rise and Fall of a Roman Colossus – See U in History #Julius Caesar …
Julius Caesar, the Romaniest Roman who ever Rome’d Politically and militarily effective, established lasting and coherent bureaucracies that both helped citizens and strengthened the country as a whole, conquered enemies and made new allies outside the borders of Rome, and to top it all off, he was an egotistical power hungry monster who would not be stopped (until he was).
The reason Caesar was able to gain power through bribes was because it was such an established practice that people would openly complain about the size of their bribes if they were too small. The discussion around Caesar always seems to single him out for paying bribes, but Roman politics were lubricated in bribes as far back as the codifying of the Twelve Tables of Law. Caesar wasn’t even the first person to declare himself dictator for life, two previous dictators, Sulla and Marius, had gained power through civil war, declared themselves dictator for life, and then been deposed by the coming of another rival for that position. They weren’t even out of living memory by the time Caesar came to power. His Co-consul declared every day for the calendar year a holiday, meaning that no business could be conducted in Rome. This was a last-ditch stab at preventing Caesar’s popular and pro-pleb reforms, and it was killing the city. Caesar ignoring it was basically saying “Yeah, this will kill Rome, so we’re not going to do that”. Caesar brought in veterans to the city because his opponent’s “Guilds” (physically oppressive political gangs, more like mafia) were bigger and Caesar had more pull with the military crowd. The political gangs were established during the time as noted by the clashes between Clodius and Milo, which became regular fair at the time. However most of Roman political “scandal” dealt with someone being outed for something bleedingly obvious and normal at the time.
While people have noticed parallels of Caesar and modern politicians, the biggest difference between the two is popularity. Caesar was seen by the general populace as sort of a savior, one who took down the corrupt Republic and brought many government reforms, today, with the much more hands-on Western Republics with the citizens, the same politicians aren’t viewed in such a positive light. The support of the people is another piece of Caesar’s success, and it’s a piece those politicians are missing.
I’m glad to see someone actually address both the positive and negative sides of Caesar in a more comprehensive way. Way too often do I see him either lionized as a people’s champion slain by a corrupt oligarchy or demonized as THE dictator who was completely irredeemable because he wanted to remove a corrup- I mean he was destroying the republic. The funny thing is is that I would expect to hear about his sketchy actions when people take the latter of those two positions, but it’s only ever that he was a dictator (with all the modern baggage that has) and destroying a (kinda) democratic system.
The Republic had been embroiled in civil war and political violence for at least a century before Caesar took power. It had long since fallen; Caesar was just the guy who came out of that mess on top. (Actually, if we’re being pedantic, Augustus came out on top, but Julius laid the groundwork for him to do so.)
Autocracy is only as good as its leader. A good leader can take a poor, war torn, country and turn it into a super power in a single life, while a bad leader can destroy it almost immediately. Democracy on the other hand, requires a great leader to do only a little good, but requires the entire system to fail in order to do a little bad.
To be fair, Caesar’s actions were not unprecedented at the time, in fact, something you missed was the reason for Caesar to have the driving need to reclaim his family honor wasn’t just that his father wasn’t consul, but because Sulla literally purged Caesar’s family when he seized all Roman power and the boy Caesar himself was narrowly spared execution. Which really should say a lot for his later clemency
Brutus: Hey Ceaser, how’s it gowing? Ceaser: Good, uh, why do you have a knife behind your back? Brutus: Uh, cutting the pie Ceaser: I don’t think we invented those yet. Brutus: CEASER! Stop ruining our continuity! Ceaser: Maybe you should stop breaking the fourth wall. Brutus: sigh This is why we planned to stab you.
Hey i love your articles and I was just wondering if you were going to do more clean versions of them. I’m a new English teacher person, teaching high school English. Your articles are great for giving background information for the books, plays, etc, that we read in class. Reds articles are also great as a refresher after we finish reading.
One thing MIGHT have saved the Republic: Cicero being a little more power-hungry. The only noble bit about the assembly of the first triumvirate was Cicero’s rejection of Caesar’s suggestion to make it an awesome foursome (the invite on the grounds that Cicero may have been nouveau riche and a bit of a blowhard, but everyone knew he was honest, so if Cicero joined, everyone would have seen it as legit.). Cicero was big on concord (except with knobs like Catilinus and Clodius), could have kept the peace between Caesar and Pompey, was smart enough to have found a way to keep things a little more Republican with well-written legislation, suggesting less dodgy ways and means to the threesome, and contributing his governing expertise to Rome as a whole rather than just a province (the province he governed absolutely loved him). Cicero was, after all, clever enough to stop a large armed coup (Catiline’s) with good intelligence, a neat bit of politics (a senatus consultum ultimum) and a couple of executions, avoiding a full-on armed conflict or a lot of knives in the night that would have involved half the senate being murdered. And he was a committed republican. He could have, with a bit of luck, saved the republic, at least while he lived. But Cicero was too principled to accept his place in an awesome foursome. He couldn’t do a little evil that could have led to a lot of good (or at least, a lot less evil overall). And that dilemma is something that has probably caused more trouble through the years than we realize, at all levels from the personal to the global.
I seem to remember some history show uncovering some details about the last days of Caesar, about how by that time he was suffering (and trying to hide) some pretty painful and serious body ailments, and that it was fully possible that, even if forewarned of the coming of the assassins, he deliberately left himself unprotected to them. Something about choosing to accept the wrath of his countrymen versus dying an indignant death due to disease or bodily failure or something. Like, on the day of the assassination, he could have had a cadre of loyal guards with him, and taken a secured route, but he chose to not be heavily accompanied (or was entirely unguarded. I forget. For all I know, the few guards he might have had might have been part of the assassins group), and took a route that guaranteed that his killers would have the opportunity to kill him.
Here’s a quick story that you’ll hopefully enjoy. Basically, my ancient history teacher is awful; straight up terrible. For all of our units, with the exception of Greece (mainly because those chapters in the textbook are way too long for me cover on my own), I’ve been going through the course material myself. Sadly, there are aspects of the Republican period of Rome that my our textbook skims over- chief among them Caesar’s rise and the Punic wars. I’ve watched all your articles on Rome, but I’m a bit fuzzy as it has been a while. But when I realize that my textbook skims so much of the topics mentioned above, who do I remember? You. Thanks a lot for the amazingly concise and information packed articles! Keep them up!
Blue, id also add that Caesar would’ve killed the republic if he was the first general or dictator to grab power and abuse the system, which he wasn’t. Hell, even right before Caesar there was the reign of Sulla who actively persecuted those who weren’t a part of his faction or were for him. Historia Civilis, in one of his articles, discusses how some of Caesar’s own family was targeted in this purge.
Red: “I gotta say, that’s a pretty hefty punishment for two dudes whose only crime is stabbing an old guy in a fancy hat.”Blue: “Dante put Brutus and Cassius in the lowermost pit of Hell for betraying their protector, and I’m with Dante on this one.”Who else is astonished by the differences of their thoughts on the guys that killed Caesar? Like, wow.
I agree good sir! Caeser dying is one of the great sad moments of history. Think about this- if caeser would have lived than he would have been able to transfer power peacefully to Octavian- to a fully grown and experienced Octavian, this would have saved Rome at least 3 civil wars. How many lives lost and how much instability came as a result of this betrayal….
This is actually really well done. Blue is writing in the shadow of Historia Civilis’ work of a long, comprehensive history of the roman republic and Julius Caesar. Rather than try and compete with this he instead uses the older work as a medium to let the viewer get additional information he doesn’t have time to explain. Blue found room in an area I thought was already complete- this serves as the perfect summary to all of the HC articles, as well as its own content by itself.
I don’t agree with your take on Brutus. This is what I gather from what I have read. Brutus betrayed a friend, yes, but he did it to save the Republic. He was edged on by the words of others like Cassius, but in his mind he was doing the right thing. Caesar had ended the republic and might have become a tyrant. If not Caesar, then his successors. Brutus was a victim of circumstance. I absolutely love reading about Caesar, and I think he was one of the greatest leaders of all time, but Brutus was not an asshole for killing him, he put the Republic before his own friend. Cassius on the other hand was an asshole, he was an ambitious man whom Caesar didn’t promote and so he chose to kill him. Cassius deserves to be at the centre of Hell, but not Brutus. Of course this is just my opinion.
When I was doing an AP Art History class in high school, my teacher assigned an emperor (starting with Augustus) to each student so we could remember the timeline of the Empire. I was Marcus Aurelius if I recall correctly. The Etruscans, the civilization with unique artwork before the Romans copied the Greeks for their statuary and portrait art, were a treat to study as well. Hearing about Caesar and Octavius/Octavian was fun, but I would love to hear about the Etruscans one day, Blue.
Ah Another well done article! Looking forward to more to come! @Red, Wondering if you can also do works outisde classic Legends, Mythos and so on, as you are doing with the likes of Frankenstein and Dracula (granted these were halloween specials but still they were well done and well presented) stuff like the count of monte Cristo, Le Miserables, The Three Musketeers, Ivanhoe, Men of Iron, and so on would be WELCOME additions to see and study 🙂
That 24 mile wall about Alesia is hella impressive, until you remember he built a similarly sized wall along the southern bank of the Rhône. So he didn’t just throw up two walls as if they were nothing, he’d done it before, and was on known territory. Poor Vercingetorix was unfortunately up against a general with much more experience than him.
Actually, the specific words Caeser used were often found on Greek curse tablets, or so I have heard. And as a fancy upper-class guy Caeser would have certainly known and used Greek. Consequently, it’s not impossible that he did say “And you, son…” but with the connotation of “Yeah same to you, asshole!”
The old Roman republic remembers me always that any systems have weaknesses (any!!) but people don’t use them because have scruples But if there is an bad example (that wasn’t punish or not hard enough to be deterrently or even gained something from this) people lose those scruples .Its like a broken taboo. This seems to be a loophole,accelerating with each new bad example. And I think this isn’t just true with military coups (late Republic,late Empire,modern day Turkey )but also in the mind s of the people in any way both in nobles(late HRE(nobles work against the emperor)) and people (this isn’t much politically but more things like drug use ore gambling,but most important tax evasion
With the sige of Alesia you forgot the part where the citys defenders were unable to sustain all the citys population so they send out everybody who was not able to fight in oder to peacefully march away, only to be denied passage by the romans so in the end they all starved to death on the field between the city walls and ceasers fortifications. Dude had zero chill and zero mercy
“But here we see just how fragile the Republic really was at this point; anyone with enough connections and resources could effectively cripple the normal flow of government and steer it in favorable directions for their own benefit.” Wow that sounds terrible. Thank god nothing like that happens nowadays, am I right?
11:19 LOL 😆. Whether or not that joke was intentional, I loved it. I always thought you and Red would make good teachers/professors, or at the very least historians or anthropologists but after perusal your “College Hell” article I’m not sure if either of you would be interested in a teaching job. I also watched your one Q and A article and besides being surprised at what you two really look like vs what I thought you would look like based on your voices and cartoon bodies, I was also surprised to find out that you two were studying things unrelated to mythology, history or literature (as far as I know/remember, sorry, bad memory).
0:37 Civil War after Civil War To Julius Ceaser 1:07 Republic had no chance of surviving on its own. 1:28 Julius Ceaser – Salitian Pirates 2:23 Arrested the Pirates. Crucified all the Pirates. 2:51 Nobleman, chip on his shoulder, “Inherited Excellence, Confirmed In The Present” 3:33 The Triumvirate Crassus, Ceaser, Pompey 4:34 A big target on his back. Trying to keep his Imperium. Trying to govern a province. 5:14 IMPERIUM 5:52 Astounding detail from writing left by Ceaser and others. Ceaser’s Campaign In Gaul 6:22 Attack The Hellveti 6:33 North, battle, ambush 6:50 Gaul is Mine!! 7:06 Fight The Germans too 7:38 Back to Germany Vercingeterix unifies The Gaulic tribe against Rome. The Battle of Alesia 8:44 Cleaning up the leftovers 9:02 The Triumvirate breaks apart Ceaser Vs Pompey Arc Battle of Pharsalus 10:00 Pompey beheaded in Egypt. NOO, says Ceaser. 10:28 Ceaser was smart with his pardons. Good deeds, power hungry Motivations, 11:27 Egypt, Cleopatra + Food + Interesting Queen 11:59 Public Welfare Reform Julian Calender Building Projects 12:44 Dictator For Life – Gets Knifed 13:36 To The Pit of Hell with thee 14:53 Teamwork and Selfishness 15:34 Ceaser kills the Republic, Next Time: Augustus Starts An Empire
I would argue that by the time you get to Caesar the Republic is basically a zombie. If anyone killed it, it would be the general Sulla who seized power and ran Rome as a dictator and ran a series of proscriptions where he basically had his enemies hunted down and murdered in the streets. To illustrate my point, Pompey was said to have said “If Sulla could do it, why not I?” in response to the idea of military seizing power in Rome. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla Fun Fact: Sulla almost had Caesar killed in one of those proscriptions but was talked out of it by Caesar’s mother (who apparently spent a lot of Caesar’s teen years working to keep him alive). Sulla was said to have declared that Caesar was gonna be a lot of trouble someday but… Not his problem. My thought is Caesar just realized the Republic was dead and needed a burial and in true Caesar like fashion, made it a splendid funeral.
Caesar’s reforms were desperately needed to solve the land crisis which the optimate party ignored because they were rich and werent effected by it. these reforms had been proposed before, even 100 years before, LEGALLY even but the conservative bloc, blocked them, with votes, with filibusters and with assassination. the 1st triumvirate really needs to have the stage set by sulla’s dictatorship to be adequately explained WHY caesar was so popular with the people and why when he took power, his mercy was so groundbreaking. when an optimate dictator ruled rome, it was a blood bath, but when caesar, the populare reformer took over, he spared anyone he could AND gave the people what they needed. not to mention he was planning a parthian campaign to avenge crassus and having beaten celts, germans, romans, and egyptians its safe to say he should have been able to destroy parthia and annex it, using loot to fund his armies, reforms, and bribes and extending the roman empire into persia. at that point its not unreasonable to see him imitate alexander and push into india.
Roman Republic: Exists Ceaser: I am about to end this Republic’s whole Career. Brutis, and the other Assassin’s: I am about to end this man’s whole Career. The 2nd Triomvert: I am about to end this man’s whole career. Augustine: I am about to end this man’s whole Career. Roman Empire: Exists Barbarians: I am about to end this Empire’s whole career. Byzantines: Exists Ottomans: Just kill it!
Rome was a dictatorship. Meaning it was only rules by one person, though I prefer a democracy because everybody gets a vote and it is based on what is most unanimous. I live in a democracy, and I’m glad. Julius was a very serious man, but once again although I love Rome it is one of the most broken types of history… Rome, you need help.
Man… I really like the articles in this website, except for most of the history ones. It just feels too centered on big personalities and ‘heroes’. And you just seem to admire Caesar too much, I don’t expect you to not have biases, but… it’s just too much for me. Also, the story with the pirates was told by Plutarch. Plutarch was born 90 years after Caesar’s death. And ancient historians usually added colour to their stories and relied in tales and made-up anecdotes for this kind of thing. It could easily be a colourful invention or even serve as some kind of Roman “propaganda”.
“Roman Republic was the best government system in the ancient world” “Caesar bypasses his co-consul veto and invest the town with his legionnaries and the Romans can do nothing about it because he was consul” Mmmmm…. Maybe the second sentence is the reason why the first is false or very sad for the ancient world :p
(Shakespeare’s) Mark Anthony: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him; The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones, So let it be with Caesar … The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answered it … Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, (For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all; all honourable men) Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral … He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man…. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.
Blue I going to be honest with you, Caesar was a monster of epic proportion who deserve no murcey. 1. He showed no murcey what so ever to his enemy Thurston ghetorix ( sorry can’t get the spelling right) as he had him dragged through the streets of Rome and strangaled to death. 2. He has no right to be morned for being assigned, this happen all the time in rome and even he is guilty of more than his far share of them. 3. His campaigns in gaul may have killed as many as half a million people and in slaved twice that.and 4. His foundations of a monarchy would lead to three tribal emperors that would comit geniside, religious persecution, nearly bankrupt the empire as a hole ( expect cluodius he was pretty good). And though we juge Brutus for killing him, he was was a man trying to save a republic from a dictatorship and if someone had been brave enough to do the same thing in 1935 Germany mabye some 30 million people in Europe (not counting asia since that was mostly japan’s falt starting 1931)wouldn’t have had to died. I know I am giving him a had time and this is not in any way amed at you or your articles I love your guys work and can’t wait to see more, but he was a man I can not ever forgive for his crimes.
Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones shares a lot of parallels to Vercingetorix, in that both defected to the other side and became kings to the opposing sides (Mance was a brother of the Night’s Watch who defected to the Wildlings and became King-Beyond-the-Wall, and Vercingetorix was a Roman soldier who defected to the Gauls and became their king, but what’s really interesting is that the actor who portrayed Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones also portrayed Julius Caesar, the man who defeated Vercingetorix, in HBO’s Rome before his stint on Game of Thrones.
“You should take your cow skin shield and hide under it You’re fucking with the most triumphant third of the Triumvirate I’m first of the Empire and last of the Republicans And hunting you accompanied by legions of my countrymen Ask my kdnappers if I’m just a shittalker Doc J dunk on ya like ‘Boom, Shakalaka!'”
I’m not sure the Roman empire was so much better. Only 2 emperors until you get to a mad tyrant and the start of a long and glorious history of emperors getting assasinated one after the other. Really, after Tiberius (the second emperor) the next 6 would be murdered or forced to commit suicide. People sometimes comment about how the roman empire declined because of the corruption and greed of the later emperors. While in reality, this was the norm rather than the exception for most of it’s history. It was a small miracle that the roman empire survived for another 500 years.
I get the “teach both sides” approach when it comes to good and bad achieved but seeing as the Gallic genocide cost an estimated 1 million of 8 million Gauls their lives, the good can’t really outweigh that at all from a modern point of view. And even to Romans (who considered anything non-Roman inferior) this was appalling.
8:39 Ah, yes. The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely… One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium… I will never get over this comic series. Gallic exceptionalism maybe, but “Vive la Gaule !”
Honestly I find this kind of careful “both-sides” approach around power-hungry dictators like Caesar (and for what its worth rome itself) to be very worrying. These guys were bad. Like very, very bad. And there are still some people today who see them as some sort of example. Every western dictator in history has taken clues from this, openly. In that context, painting Rome, and Caesar especially, in any kind of positive light seems very wrong to me.
Blue – well done. I love your stuff! And your premise that Roman Democracy had gotten too unstable to continue to work is, I think, the correct one. But nothing Caesar did was new, except he was a lot nicer about how he did what he did. Especially considering the pack of hyenas (Cato, Bibulus and the rest of the boni) that were perpetually at his political throat. He had to cover his ass with Imperium every second or he would have been indicted on trumped up charges and exiled – just like lots of other folks. It was a common way to trash your political enemies at that time. Contrast Caesar with Sulla. Caesar didn’t leave human heads in the forum or make an industry out of killing a bunch of rich people to fund the government. My assessment is Caesar died because he was too nice. Octavian didn’t make that mistake and consequently lived to a ripe old age.