"As this day was Cassius born." Julius Caesar

I quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Casear’ (V,i, 71-2) as the book I’ve recently finished was Philip Freeman’s 2008 biography of Julius Caesar, and because I’m writing this on my birthday. Caesar is a character that loomed large in my imagination as a child because, I suspect, he looms large in world history. The most famous leader of the Roman Empire (although the Empire only existed after his death) we still use, in the main, the calender he invented, the rulers of Germany, Russia and other nations took their title from his name, and many of us are born caesarean. We all may cross the Rubicon, cast the die, and come, see, and conquer. He was also a continuing character in Goscinny and Uderzo’s 'Asterix' comics.

Philip Freeman’s book is well-written, very clear and readable. It takes what could a complicated story and makes it accessible and entertaining for the layperson such as myself. And what a story! Caesar came from an old but poor family in the Roman suburbs, and by dint of hard work, determination, and money, allied with political, military and rhetorical skill, not untouched by genius, made himself into the greatest figure of his age. The wonder is not that his enemies killed him, but that he was able to live so long in such a dangerous time.

Caesar was also one of the most literary men of the era, leaving behind a sizable collection of writing. Much of it was done as a means of gaining publicity and popular acclaim which he required, but this does not diminish his achievement. We remember him as the soldier, the politician, a lover, and also a writer; a renaissance man some 1500 years too early. He was intelligent, loyal, cunning, daring, vain, merciful and implacable.

War, Otto von Bismarck once said, is politics by other means. The Romans made this quite explicit, in their activities and in their law. Caesar and the other soldier politicians such as Pompey and Crassus, were always very conscious of how their military activity would affect their political careers back in Rome. I was also struck by how important rhetoric was to them – a good speech in the Senate could make or break a career.

Many people, including George Washington and Orson Welles, saw Caesar as the tyrant destroying a Republic. But we may have this wrong way around. The Roman Republic served the interests of a few of Rome’s oldest and wealthiest families, and kept Roman Citizenship and its privileges from the many. Caesar and his supporters wanted to extend citizenship to many people and decentralise power over the far-flung parts of Roman rule. (Caesar played no small part in increasing this area.) While like Ancient Greek democracy, we would nowadays not recognise his system as our kind of democracy, he was the progressive, representing the common man, giving more freedom to more people, while the Republicans were the conservatives, keeping power and freedom for the few. Call it an error from nomenclature.

Because Casear and Rome were such influences on world history, many of the people in this book I first encountered via popular culture. I have already mentioned Shakespeare’s play and the Asterix comics. A major figure in the story is Crassus, memorably played by Laurence Olivier in Spartacus (John Gavin, Marion Crane’s boyfriend in Psycho, played Caesar - that's him on the left). So when I read the names of Caesar, Crassus, Antony, Cassius, like as not the image that came to mind would be Olivier, Gielgud or Brando – or even a cartoon character.

Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. The creators of Asterix did their research and their picture of Caesar both visually and as a character is pretty good. Likewise their information on Gaulish life, the Roman conquest and occupation of Gaul is surprisingly accurate. Gaulish warriors were probably in better shape physically though; see The Dying Gaul. (Scroll down that page for the pictures.)

I’m trying to remember what books I have read on Ancient Rome. There was my picture book as a child called ‘The Roman Empire’ but I tended to lose interest after Caesar was killed ie before the Empire was established. Good pictures though. I saw the series ‘I, Claudius’ and subsequently read the Robert Graves novels. And I did spend a weekend housesitting for a friend reading his copy of Seutonius’ "The Twelve Caesars".  Now I think on it, I stopped reading after Claudius. So my knowledge of Roman history can be called spotty at best. At least now it's a little better.