indianasmith

True - but all of those choices were forced upon him to some degree - the invasion of Transalpine Gaul probably the least so, but the threats to prosecute him for acts which the Senate had already voted public thanksgiving feasts for were the main reason for his insisting on running again. Most of the things he asked for were not without precedent - goodness knows they had made so many exceptions to the rules for Pompeius Magnus already, including letting him serve as "Consul Without a Colleague." Caesar only asked the Senate extend the same exemptions to him that Pompey had already been given. By the time the extended dictatorship was voted on, the Republic was so shattered by civil war that all the old norms were thrown out. I think Caesar was a reformer, but I don't think his end goal was something like the principate that eventually emerged. Then again, my concept of him may well be inaccurate. I think we all, to some extent, see historical figures as we wish them to be as much as we see them as they were.

Much appreciated!

I grew up in church, and heard a lot about first century Rome from the pulpit, in the context of Jesus' trial and Paul's travels. But it was when I read the novel THE ROBE by Lloyd C. Douglas that I started seeing the emperors of Rome as main characters rather than bit players. Later, in college, I read the novel I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves, and then I was hooked. What fueled your interest in Rome?

I think Cassius Longinus was the abler of the two, to be sure. Who would the legions have sided with? I think that would be the deciding factor, in the end. Could Octavian have won their loyalty?

THANK YOU! I am about to write a description of a triumph in my current novel, and this will be very helpful.!

I wish they would do a similar video showing the route of a Roman triumphal procession.

I suppose that is possible - but who would he have lost to? Octavian was incredibly clever and a very deep thinker, even at a young age. I don't think there was a mind among the conspirators to equal his.

This is very cool! Thanks for sharing.

There is no evidence he ever asked for a permanent dictatorship. If you look at the reforms he instituted, they were dedicated to reforming, not destroying, Rome's political fabric. I think the "Dictator for Life" was foisted on him by the Senate in order to further the idea that he wanted to make himself a king. If you go back to the beginnings of the conflict with the Senate, all Caesar ever asked for was to run for consul in absentia, serve out his term, and then go east to conquer Parthia and regain the eagle standards lost by Crassus. We'll never know, really, barring the discovery of more detailed ancient records of the era.

That would have left Octavian, and Caesar's legions, untouched. The soldiers were loyal to Caesar and would have transferred their affections to Caesar's heir. Without Antony as a rival, Octavian would have leveraged Caesar's popularity with the great mass of the Roman plebs into absolute power even more quickly. The best hope for the future of the Republic would have been to let Caesar finish his conquest of Parthia, and then use the loot from that campaign to rebuild and reform Rome. I don't think he wanted a permanent dictatorship.

On this day in 44 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered. The dagger-wielding idiots who thought they were saving the Republic only hastened its demise.

It's a shame we don't have more contemporary records of Caesar's final years.

If I recall correctly, he completed his work on the Etruscans before he became Emperor in 41. And he also wrote a history of his own family while Augustus was still alive, so that was before 14 AD (I think Augustus ordered that one suppressed because is was not very flattering to the Julio-Claudians). It's a possibility, I suppose. These are Schrodinger's scrolls, in a way - as long as they are unopened we can let them be whatever we want them to be!

Wouldn't it be marvelous, though, if the Herculaneum library included a COMPLETE copy of Caesar's "Commentaries on the Gallic Wars?" Or perhaps his "AntiCato"? Or lost works by Horace or Virgil? Or Sulla's long-lost memoirs? Or some of the histories authored by the Emperor Claudius? The possibilities are truly mind-boggling!

Correct! Of course, Suetonius was writing over a century later . . . does anyone else mention Caesar having "Spanish bodyguards"? That seems such an odd term. Caesar was extraordinarily self-confident, from all I have read. He may have dismissed his lictors to show the people of Rome that he did not fear assassination. If so, not a wise move!