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The Best Biography Of Gaius Julius Caesar


NotTitusPullo

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Can anyone suggest a book or books that accurately tells the life of Julius Caesar from his birth to assassination (other than his own Commentaries). Thank you.

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I'm partial to Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier, and Tyrant by J.F.C. Fuller.

 

I'll write a full review later, but here's a nice excerpt so you can sample the style of the book:

Caesar was the product of what may be called the Roman Renaissance which, since the days of the Scipios, had influenced Roman society as profoundly as the Medieval Renaissance was to influence Italian society; both were rooted in the learning and culture of classical Greece.

He would have admired the Italian despots, and have approved of what Machiavelli meant by virtu -- not goodness, but vigour, ability, and above all success. Like the Medici, he was an artist of power, indifferent to moral distinctions, and, in consequence, he was possessed of an extraordinary versatility of mind. ....

A realist to his fingertips, he was not led astray by ideals and ideology. Astute, rather than imaginative, he dissected things into their constituent parts; was clear-sighted rather than long-sighted; saw the immediate problem; set out to solve it, and never discarded a possible advantage for a problematically more attractive aim, thereby risking making the best the enemy of the good.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What about Michael Grant's JULIUS CAESAR biog??? Anyone read it?

 

How do you rate Grant's other books?

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