indianasmith

Good video!

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!

There are SO MANY unread scrolls; if they manage to translate all of them our knowledge of the ancient world will expand exponentially!

Didn't Caesar dismiss his lictors a couple of days previously? Or is that just a detail from speculative fiction? If they were present, they would have been bound by law and tradition to defend him to the death.

One wonders what lies buried there . . .

Ave, my friends! I haven't visited here in a long time, but I wanted to tell you all about a new project I started this year. In 2019, I published a novel called PRESIDENT HAMILTON, an alternative history of Hamilton's life had he not died in the duel with Aaron Burr. In 2023, I wrote another novel, yet unpublished, called WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE, based on the premise of John Wilkes Booth failing to kill Abraham Lincoln, and what Lincoln's second term of office would have looked like. Since I seem to be in a groove now, I decided to take on (and reverse) the most tragic assassination of them all, the murder of Julius Caesar. I had originally wanted the focus to be Caesar's campaign against the Parthians, but I found another author has already written a whole series about that scenario - and the first book, at least, was quite good. So instead, I titled this book THE RETURN OF JULIUS CAESAR. It takes place five years after the Ides of March, with Caesar on his way back to Rome after vanquishing the Parthian Empire, and deals with his political struggle to restore and reform the Republic before stepping down as dictator. It's a monumental undertaking, and right now I am seven chapters in. In case you are wondering how I got Caesar past the Ides of March, I originally wrote that as a short story and have now incorporated it as the prologue of my novel. It is available to read on my blog, and I would love some feedback on it from the learned members of this forum. Here is the link: https://lewisliterarylair.blogspot.com/2025/01/here-is-prologue-for-my-latest-novel.html

Sorry I haven't been too active on this forum lately, but I did just post up a video on my YouTube channel featuring my modest collection of Roman artifacts. Feel free to check it out! (And I apologize for the obvious gaffe; I said 31 AD for 31 BC there at the end!)

Roman murals are so vibrant and beautiful after 2000 years, imagine what they looked like when they were in use!

Glad to see Dr. Hawass still in business! I hope this dig pans out!

Well, no point bickering. The fact is, no one alive today knows the truth of the matter.

Given Pilate's tenuous standing in Judea - there had been two near riots occasioned by his insensitivity towards local customs and traditions - it does make sense that he would want his version of events to reach Rome first. Essentially, your quote boils down to "one scholar postulates that Justin only assumed such a report existed." In the end, it's a quotation of an assumption presuming an assumption! But, unless the original report surfaces at some point - highly unlikely after 2000 years! - we can never know for sure.