Caesar - personality

[ASCLEPIADES]

I've seen several historical psychanalisis done for other people like Hitler and Stalin, and I'm not convinced that this type of question it's fruitful. I say question because it can not deliever an answer.

 

1. No people could be considered perfectly normal. Behaviour it's changing constantly between some limits. Only what goes beyond this limit can be considered significant. If we believe psychology all great man have problems and with proper care they might became normal. That means not great at all. And also means that what we say about Caesar could be said about many other leaders. All had their weirdness and a lot of ego...

 

2. Certain types of man can get power in a type of society. For example Hitler, the most psychanalized character, got full power largely because of his peculiar capabilities and the way they fit in his society. Streissman was probably a lot smarter and balanced, but he did not left much impression. Also the dull and boring Stalin could achieve power only in a society where his ruthless birocratic skills made him important. Maybe the type of weirdness Caesar had was what romans need. What impression would have Byron made 50 years earlier?

 

Anyway, GO it's right, to know him we must look at his antourage. Let's see: Catallina, Clodius, Curion, M. Antonius, Dollabela, Caelius, his "cinedos" Otto & co. etc. Not very nice people.

Salve!

I agree. Precisely to avoid cultural artefacts, modern psychiatry (vg, the DSM-IV) generally requires for a disorder's diagnosis that symptoms cause

[M. Porcius Cato]

Precisely to avoid cultural artefacts, modern psychiatry (vg, the DSM-IV) generally requires for a disorder's diagnosis that symptoms cause

[ASCLEPIADES]

But this is true in the cases of pathological narcissism and psychopathy due to the assumption that these disorders will lead to criminal behavior and punishment. Obviously, this can't be the case for someone who makes himself dictator for life. Moreover, Caesar was reported to be profoundly depressed after he had killed all his old friends or turned them into servile monkeys (imagine that!), and so in his case, there was be grounds for diagnosis.

CJ Caesar might have been a scoundrel, but he was certainly not a depressed scoundrel, at least by any clinical acceptation of the term; any swing he may have had on his mood ("affective status") was clearly never disruptive to any significant degree for his social functioning and/or activities of daily living. We can reasonably infer so because making oneself dictator for life has never been an easy task and has always required considerable social abilities.

 

The same can be said about the possibility of additional psychopathology; vg, narcissism, even if it is enormous, is simply a personality trait and not pathological per se, unless you can attribute to it significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning.

You must be always very cautious to attribute any kind of criminal activity even to well-established psychopathology if you have evidence of alternative rational explanations; vg, economic or political ambition.

[Gaius Octavius]

Precisely to avoid cultural artefacts, modern psychiatry (vg, the DSM-IV) generally requires for a disorder's diagnosis that symptoms cause

[ASCLEPIADES]

Caesar made himself Dictator for Life?

 

But of course! Well... the "people of Rome" under his command.

 

Here comes Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Caesar, Ch. LVII, sec. I:

 

"However, the Romans gave way before the good fortune of the man and accepted the bit, and regarding the monarchy as a respite from the evils of the civil wars, they appointed him dictator for life. This was confessedly a tyranny, since the monarchy, besides the element of irresponsibility, now took on that of permanence."