indianasmith

His treatment of Vercingetorix was pretty standard by Roman law and tradition. The man was too dangerous to be trusted as a client king, so he marched in Caesar's triumph, and then was taken to the Temple of Mars and strangled, as King Juba and many other before him had been. Arsinoe is an interesting case - I think that it was Cleopatra who wanted her dead and Caesar who decided to spare her for political and PR reasons. Interestingly, Antony had no such compunction and had her killed at Cleopatra's request.

I think that Caesar was a product of his time and his class. That being said, I think he was remarkable gifted and far-sighted. There is no doubt that the was a hero to the common working class Romans. I think that cruelty was always his last choice and clemency his first. To me that makes him more hero than villain. That being said, when the situation called for ruthlessness, he could be ruthless with the best of them!!!

I seem to recall that Caesar was outnumbered in virtually every battle in Gaul, especially at Alesia. He didn't start "mass worship of the Emperor." For one thing, he was not an Emperor and did not envision becoming one. He asked for the appointment as dictator so he could legally, constitutionally institute the reforms that the Republic desperately needed. When the cowed Senate offered him the appointment for life, he reluctantly accepted - because he needed longer than a year to fix things and wanted to make sure his reforms would not be undone the minute he left Rome. While I think the point about the Emperors being a monarchy under a different name has some merit, let's be honest: most of that can be laid on the lap of Augustus, not Julius. I think Cato, the pigheaded Caesar-phobe, did far more to destroy the Republic than Gaius Julius Caesar did. Why was it so wrong for Rome's greatest general to come home and run for another term as Consul? If Cato had allowed this, the Republic would have endured and been better for a year of Caesar's guidance.

I must say, Onasander, that I could not disagree more. The whole dream thing honestly sounds like propaganda made up by Caesar's enemies. But that's completely irrelevant to the broader question. Gaius Julius Caesar generaled fifty battles in his career. Despite being drastically outnumbered in most of them, he rarely lost a battle and never lost a campaign. Look at the siege of Alesia - Caesar had fewer than sixty thousand men, and was facing fifty thousand Gauls bottled up inside a walled city on top of a mountain, in addition to a relief army that numbered well over 250,000. He managed to defeat the forces marching to Vercingetorix's rescue and a sally in force from inside the city AT THE SAME TIME. He was always in the thick of the fighting, and he won the loyalty of his men by sharing their dangers and hardships. In the Civic Wars, he defeated two of Rome's greatest generals - Pompey at Pharsalus and Titus Labienus at Munda - despite bing outnumbered on both occasions. He was renowned for being able to move his armies faster and further than anyone else, and still have them ready to fight at the end of the march. As a statesman, I think that it's erroneous to say Caesar wanted to transform Rome's government into a monarchy or any other system, What he wanted to do was return to Rome, serve a third term as Consul after standing for election in the legal, traditional manner, and then lead an army to defeat the Parthians and avenge his old friend Crassus. The war that followed I lay entirely at the feet of the pigheaded, blind hatred that Cato, Bibulus, and the other members of the bonii (or optimates if you prefer the traditional term) bore for Caesar. After eight years as governor and a spectacular string of victories that no other Roman could boast of, they were going to have him tried like a common criminal and sent into permanent exile. Caesar offered a series of compromises, and even Pompey was willing to go along with a couple of them. But the fanatical ravings of Cato poisoned the well of compromise and forced Caesar into a civil war he never wanted. However, once the Rubicon was crossed (2065 years ago TODAY!) Caesar was going to make sure that he won the conflict that followed. After the dust settled, there was no one else left capable of setting the Republic back on its feet, so Caesar took the mantle of dictator to try and fix the glaring flaws that he had tried to deal with as consul and been stymied by again and again. Even most of his enemies agreed that the reforms he undertook during the last two years of his life, when his control over Rome was absolute, were benevolent and beneficial to the people of Rome and its government. Caesar's great weakness was his mercy - he pardoned his enemies, restored them to the Senate, and asked them to work with him to rebuild and improve his beloved Rome. They repaid him with daggers, because they were (and remain) lesser men than he was. Gaius Julius Caesar, IMO, deserves serious consideration as the greatest general of all time. And his skills as a statesman were so superior that no one could beat him at the polls, or in the love of the common people of Rome. If someone's greatest political fault is their clemency towards those that they have defeated, is it really their own fault when those same enemies abuse that clemency? Or is it a mark of how fanatical, hateful, and unforgiving those political foes were?

I think Mark Anthony's greatest mistake was imagining he was as good a general as Julius Caesar.

A bit late to the party, but wishing everyone a joyous MMXV!!!

Whenever I encounter a grammar Nazi, I just tell them "There, their, they're!"

Quit that!

I must admit, Ghost of Clayton, that response made me laugh!

That's an interesting question you pose. I think what changes from age to age are the views of what behaviors are considered acceptable and which are not, and the philosophies and religious beliefs that undergird those views. I live in America in the 21st century, specifically in the South. We have a culture where certain ideas have been engrained in us, which are developed from philosophical trends that did not exist two thousand years ago - Protestant Christianity, the Enlightenment, Marxism, the notion of equality between genders and races. Just to pick one example, my current project about Claudius Caesar. The idea of women being fully equal to men, legally and morally, would have been alien to him or almost any man of his era. His culture was accepting of things that we find morally reprehensible - infanticide, for one (infant exposure was still practiced by Romans in this era), and of course, the biggie, slavery, was accepted as a natural part of the order of the world. His religious worldview would have been based on a set of assumptions largely foreign to the modern world as well. Let me pick an example of the kind of writing I had in mind: Ken Follett's historical works, like THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH - a great story overall, but most of his characters seem to be a lot more contemporary in their thinking than they should be. So do you think my criticism has any validity, or do you think that humanity is, at its core, unchanged?

Very interesting.

I am a huge fan of Colleen McCullough's novel series - I've read all of the books at least 3 times each. I love the way she really does capture the attitudes and mores of the ancient world instead of taking 20th century characters and dressing them in ancient clothes. I do think she tries to stick as close as possible to the actual train of events (although her huge crush on Julius Caesar is painfully obvious!). So what do all of you think of this series? What are its greatest strengths and weaknesses? Any passages that really spoke to you - or turned you off?

JOURNEY - Don't Stop Believing

As a newly promoted member of the Ordre Equites, I thank you!

Well, he saw what being merciful did for dear old great-uncle Julius!

I get the feeling I just stepped into the middle of a long running crossfire . . .

CATACLYSM 90 BC looks really interesting!

I'm jamming to a little Trans-Siberian Orchestra during my conference period.

I can't even imagine what it must have been like to be trying to flee that city as the skies turned to fire and hell rained down on them!

And it is worth pointing out that what you cited is the opinion of a historian who lived three centuries after the fact. Many in America called Andrew Jackson "King Andrew the First" while he was still alive - but that didn't make it so!

I've never heard any reference to such a thing. I believe the tour guide was pulling someone's leg!

Hadrian was generally regarded as a benevolent and enlightened ruler, except where the Jews were concerned. I am not sure if he simply never understood them, or understood them and absolutely despised them.

As long as mankind exists, there will be a military arm of some sort. Either to bend other nations to the will of another, or to keep your own nation from being so bent. Most military organizations are a reflection of the society that creates them, and the social mores of that society.

I've always said that the guillotine was the most quick and humane means of capital punishment ever devised. Still . . . eeesh!

I wonder how many precious artifacts and sites will be destroyed by ISIS? I've never forgotten the wanton destruction of those two ancient statues of Buddha by the Taliban.