Gaius Julius Caesar

[pompeius magnus]

Oh i hope you are not blaming caesar for begining a nasty trend. The reformation of the roman army was one of many reforms that led to the fall of the roman republic, but also a necessary one. the old system of troop recruitment could no longer be used due to the way that some Roman councils and procouncils recklessly used Roman and Allied lives so that the soldier availability was not there, so the head count was the only option.

[Iulius]

i believe the republic could have been saved. Who knows what Caesar would have done if he had been able to conquer the parthinans then come bakc to rome. He let alot of his enemies live and perhaps that is so when the time came to let the republic be it's own again under new guidlines, there would be competition like in the good old days... of civil wars...

[P.Clodius]

The republic was dead as a Dodo before Caesar was even born

[Segestan]

Caesar is credited with having placed one-time slaves, the Freed men of rome in positions of Power. These Freed men upheld what was Roman Ideas from those lofty positions.

The republic rewarded slavery.

So What Republic did Caesar replace. Instead of Tyranny he was establishing Democracy.

Alexander the Great , of Macedon; also went to war to advance Democracy. Greece was a system of land barons and city-state tyrants. The Senators of Rome, they murdered political foes in cold blood, in the streets and even in the temples of the Gods of Rome.

Caesar was a necessary political element of Roman social order if the Ideas of Roman Law and Order were to survive and even advance.

 

regards,

[pompeius magnus]

Actually Alexander ruled the kingdom of Macedon and democracy was dead or near to death in Athens only because after the Spartan victory in the Peloponesian war one of the agreed terms was that Athens would no longer be a democracy. Alexander advaced into Persia because his father had planned on doing so and the death of his father made Alexander the king and he went into Persia after he had quelled a couple of Rebellious Greek city-states. He was not furthering democracy as much as he was freeing people from tyranny, or so he thought.

[Segestan]

No ; He was , at least in those times helping to establish Democracy. His Army , though he did inherit it from his father, was comprised of 15,000 Macedonian volunteers and 7,000 Greeks whom were enlisted due to the Alliance of Corinth that his father had established. He latter disbanded the Greek forces. They were not to be apart of power in the east. Greek history is colored with what was 'Macedon' a soveriegn nation established at Odessa around 750 BC by the Perdikkas family.

Philip II regained his rightful throne from other contenders after he captured the Gold Mine of his enemies. He used those new funds to purchase 10,000 merceneries. The Army of Philip then went on campiagns, grew from there.

 

regards,

[P.Clodius]

Democracy was not in Alexanders best interests, he was an absolute monarch.

[pompeius magnus]

Like P. Clodius said he was an absolute monarch, there was no senate, no sharing of power. You can dick around the term all you want but what Macedon had was not a democracy it was a kingdom, monarchy applies better to midieval kingdoms. Phillip was the king of Macedon so was Alexander. Alexander was not on a diplomatic mission for democracy any more than the United States is on now, sorry to bring in political views but it helps to prove a point. Alexander went over there for little more than revenge as he thought of himself as a Greek, and he then strove to spread Greek culture throughout Persia and India.

[Valentinian]

Amen to that

[Segestan]

The founding of a state where it

[Primus Pilus]

Isn't this thread about Caesar?

[pompeius magnus]

Listen Segestan, I do not get angry very easily but you are getting very close to getting that. A democracy is not and I repeat NOT CONTROLLED BY A KING. There is no way around that, no matter how nice, or great the king was, he still ruled a kingdom. Alexander was a KING of Macedon, a great one at that. Rome was not a KINGDOM, IT WAS RULED BY KINGS AT FIRST, BUT FOR THE MOST PART WAS RULED BY THE SENATE AND LATER AN EMPEROR. Now that is not dicking around the word at all, it is simple knowledge. You can try to modify the concept of a democracy all day to fit your argument if you want, but Macedon was still a kingdom, Alexander a king who went on a conquering expedition with aspirations of brigning Greek culture to far reached of Persian empire and of bringing himself on an equal level with his ancestor Achilles. Here is a definition of a democracy in case you missed your history classes in schol it is from the Oxford Dictionary:

[P.Clodius]

Segestan, that is a very intelligent post. Well worded, and a good argument. However, I have to agree with the others in saying this is about Caesar. I sense you have a good future with this community and urge everyone to take a deep breath.

 

PS. Alexander was an irrumator....

[Segestan]

No problem. I have my view others have theirs. No one wins or loses on a discussion board. It's all for fun ..killing spare.

 

My inclusion of Alexander on a thread about Julius Caesar was that both men as rulers held the ideas of free speech as the political fulcrum of their given places of social order.

 

I think Caesar was motivated by a sense of honor as a Roman to bring the Roman way of Life to those who suffered in slavery. Though Rome as did most all cultures of those times have many slaves. Slavery was Big business. Rome was a wealthy power in part because of the inclusion of a vast number of slaves through conquests.

Same is true of Macedonia in that Nations history.

 

regards,

[Skarr]

I think Caesar was motivated by a sense of honor as a Roman to bring the Roman way of Life to those who suffered in slavery. Though Rome as did most all cultures of those times have many slaves. Slavery was Big business. Rome was a wealthy power in part because of the inclusion of a vast number of slaves through conquests.

I think the concept of slavery was a little different in Caesar's time than the more modern, exploitative version. Slaves did have a greater degree of freedom (although subject to their master's will, of course) than a slave in the American South, who was no more than a beast of burden.

 

There were also many classes of slaves and some of the slaves (especially the learned Greek slaves) enjoyed a degree of respect that would be hard to understand by today's standards. In most rich households, the children were brought up by pedagogues, many of whom were learned men from Greece. Some of the slaves were also wealthy and even had their own businesses, which enabled them to buy their freedom more quickly. I think they could not, of course, aspire to political office and do many other things but they definitely had some choices. There were, of course, many cruel masters and many Roman men actually frowned upon or condemned the ill treatment of slaves.

 

The great changes to Rome primarily came about after their conquest of Carthage, Greece / Macedonia, which resulted in sudden, large influx of slave labor. There were also exploitative farms, the latifundium where slaves were used like cattle on these giant farms, as Rome kept expanding its armies and recruited hundreds of farmers into their legions while their plots of land were aggregated into latifundium. The Gracchi brothers tried to introduce land reforms and also revise the restrictive citizenship laws. However, patricians and senators (Caesar did belong primarily to this class) were opposed to such reforms and while Caesar was certainly motivated by his own personal dignitas or sense of honor, I don't think he wanted to end slavery or anything like that, as that would have upset the balance too much.

 

The slaves had their one chance with Spartacus and he almost succeeded, as he managed to destroy one army after the next that Rome threw at him, before Crassus finally ended the threat after an infamous 'decimation' [ curious practice, rarely used ]. Crassus was an interesting figure and because of his wealth, was courted by Caesar as well as others like Pompey. I think there's a lesson here. As the Republic expanded, it grew in power, wealth and status and men like Caesar and Pompey saw themselves as 'rulers' because of the armies and legions they commanded. It's human nature and a proper end to Caesar would have been his exile or banishment. Maybe the Republic would have survived, but civil wars would have continued. Who knows ? Maybe nothing would have changed. I had speculated that maybe the Republic would have endured in some form. However, the greed and ego of men for power is hard to overcome and maybe Empire was inevitable.

 

It is remarkable, however, that the Republic did endure for many years until the conquest of Carthage, Greece and other territories and the expansion of the armies. Don't grant too much power to any one man is the moral of the story.