Evaluate the legacy of Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was undoubtedly a man of great achievement. Although assassinated before he could complete his life’s work, what he had achieved during the course of his life crowned him as one of the few individuals who have changed the course of history.
His name has been taken by rulers as Kaiser and Tsar in more recent times and although the emperors that followed his control of Rome did the same, Julius Caesar never himself was an emperor. Instead he was a man driven by ambition, so much so that he was ‘vexed…that at an age when Alexander [the Great] had already conquered the whole world, he himself had done nothing’[1]. His ambition made him a general of remarkable talent, an accomplished and revered orator and scholar as well as a statesman who had held enormous insight that eventuated in him greatly expanding and strengthening the Roman Empire.
As a general, Caesar was perhaps the greatest that Rome had ever seen. Plutarch stated in regards to Caesar that ‘if one [were to] compare him with such men as Fabius and Scipio and Metellus, and with the men of his own time or a little before him, like Sulla, Marius, the two Luculli, or even Pompey himself, whose fame for every sort of military excellence was at this time flowering out and reaching to the skies, Caesar will be found to surpass them all in his achievements’[2]. Dr Adrian Goldsworthy agrees with Plutarch, claiming that Caesar ‘became the most famous commander of the Roman republic and empire’[3]. Caesar brought vast amounts of new territory under the control of Rome. At the Battle of Alesia in 52BC, Julius Caesar won an imperative battle and a turning point in the Gallic Wars. He is estimated to have had sixty five thousand men against eighty thousand Gauls, whilst then, according to sources, fighting off another quarter of a million in an innovative siege complex. His conquests of Gaul gained him control of ‘above eight hundred towns [and he] subdued three hundred states’[4]. In addition to Gaul, Caesar also had shown interest in Britain, whilst his main focus was the subjugation of Gaul, this interest was the first shown by a Roman and is a precursor to the later conquest of Britain.
Caesar’s many conquests increased his military prowess, with additional successful campaigns in Spain and following the crossing of the Rubicon Caesar seized power in Rome and declared himself dictator. Civil War broke out, and in 48BC Caesar defeated Pompey’s forces at Pharsalus. Caesar then went on to Asia Minor and conquered Pontus in the east with ease. It was this ease that moved Caesar to send his famous message to the senate: Veni, Vidi, Vici; I came, I saw, I conquered. In 46BC, following the death of Pompey in Egypt, he ventured to Thaspus, Africa as soon as he heard that his opponents were raising forces against him. He destroyed them. He then returned to Spain once more, to defeat the remaining Pompeian forces at the Battle of Munda, which were under the command of Pompey’s sons. And then became the ‘master of the Greco-Roman world’[5].
To deny that Caesar was a remarkable General would be foolish of me. His achievements were driven by his ambition and speak for themselves. His military expertise had garnered him the respect of the populares and the loyalty of his armies.
‘Caesar was a man of great creativity’[6]. According to Plutarch, ‘Caesar had the greatest natural talent for political oratory, and cultivated his talent most ambitiously’. This talent became a powerful factor in Caesar’s eventual control of Rome. In 77 to 76BC, he practiced law however, according to Goldsworthy, ‘the outcome of the trial didn’t matter half as much as Caesar’s fame’[7]. In regards to his days as a lawyer, Plutarch claimed that ‘Caesar won a great and brilliant popularity by his eloquence as an advocate, and much good will from the common people for the friendliness of his manners’[8].
Caesar then went to Rhodes to further his abilities in oratory and rhetoric. Plutarch also claimed that when Caesar was a prisoner of the pirates of the Aegean Sea, ‘he…wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all[9]’. As we well know, Caesar upheld his threat.
But Caesar’s skills also extended to his writings. His Commentaries on the Gallic War and Commentaries on the Civil War are commonly regarded as some of the most concise and best works in Latin. Even Cicero, who had a turbulent relationship with Caesar, admitted this. Other literary works are questioned in regards to true authorship, and all but one of Caesar’s poems have been lost.
Such a legacy of skill in public speaking and writing did well to contribute to Caesar’s legacy as a whole. No doubt, his ambition and his persuasive powers furthered his achievements as a statesman and a general, even though his talents as a writer and speaker were formidable in themselves.
As a statesman, he was, in my personal opinion, the most remembered and pivotal member of Rome’s history. Although he did to a certain extent honour the traditional paths to power such as the cursus honorum, he believed more in the populares than the optimates. Sulla even claimed that he saw much of Marius in Caesar. Given Marius’ military strength and his many reforms to the system, I would support Sulla’s statement. Professor Barry Strauss of Cornell University believes that ‘Caesar makes it very clear that he has contempt for the old order, that he’s not willing to play by the rules, that he’s willing to impose his own rules and that he has a genius and talent, an ability to speak to the people and manipulate the system’[10]. Professor Maria Wyke of the University College London believes in a similar way that ‘one thing that’s very clear about Caesar is that he wanted to be grander than his moment, bigger than mortal, that he was doing what he did for posterity’[11].
In both cases I agree. His ambition drove his actions as a statesman, but this doesn’t detract from the benefits that he did deliver to the Roman people. The money from the new provinces brought greater wealth, as did the slaves. Caesar increased the amount of people eligible for Roman citizenship and even arranged debt reliefs, reducing debts by a quarter. So ingenious was Caesar that this percentage was immensely helpful for the people yet small enough for creditors to begrudgingly accept. Under his control, the Republic found prosperity and for that, they supported him and the changes he slowly made to transform the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
What remains of Caesar to this day is still considerable. To some extent, we can thank Caesar for making public the Acta Diurna, and effectively creating the first newspaper. He also instigated the creation of the Julian calendar, but it’s been rather obsolete since the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. He has been forever captured in literature by Shakespeare, getting his own eponymous play by the world’s most venerated playwright. He too has left behind buildings in Rome, for ‘at [a] great cost to himself, Caesar… [built] the Forum Julium, an extension of the Roman Forum, and the Temple to Venus Genetrix’ [12].
Beyond buildings, calendars and the use of his scholarly works as an educational tool in Latin classes, Julius Caesar has contributed something far greater to modern society. Although both his son and daughter died before they had children, his name still lived on. As historian Tom Holland explains: ‘Caesar, the name has a potency that will endure long after Rome itself has fallen. Indeed even into the 20th century, there were rulers who were proud to wear it as their own personal title. That is quite some legacy’[13]. And with that, I must concur. His name and glory has become synonymous with strength and achievement, that we cannot help but think of his qualities when we hear his cognomen, over two thousand years after his death.
In conclusion, I believe that Julius Caesar was a man of great ambition. And whilst this ambition drove his successes, it lead him to become far too arrogant and inflated his ego to the extent that he placed himself at risk. This does not discount however the triumphs of his legacy. He was a remarkable general, a revered scholar and writer and perhaps most famously, one of the most illustrious statesman in Roman and World history. Although he never became a monarch, his actions paved the way for his heir, Octavian to become Rome’s first emperor in a new system that lasted four centuries and advanced a civilisation that continued to grow in size and technology. The Roman Empire went on the control sixty million people, or a third of the world’s population and played a decisive role in transforming the world into how it is now. I believe that to be Julius Caesar’s greatest achievement and with that, I consider Gaius Julius Caesar’s legacy to be legendary.
Bibliography
- Caesar, Julius, and Francis W. Kelsey. Caesar’s Commentaries: The Gallic War, Books I-iv, with Selections from Books V-vii and from the Civil War. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1918. Print.
- Canfora, Luciano. Julius Caesar: The People’s Dictator. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Print.
- Compton’s by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 4. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2005. Print.
- Hennessy, Dianne. “Caesar.” Personalities from the past. South Melbourne: Nelson, 1997. 214-38. Print.
- Hennessy, Dianne. “Caesar: Ultimate Power.” Studies in Ancient Rome. South Melbourne: Nelson, 1990. 73-101. Print.
- Lendering, Jona. “Gaius Julius Caesar.” C. Julius Caesar. Jona Lendering, 2008. Web. 23 May 2012. <http://www.livius.org/caa-can/caesar/caesar10.html>.
- Meier, Christian. Caesar. London: Fontana, 1996. Print.
- Plutarch. “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch.” Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch. The Adelaide University, 12 Jan. 2011. Web. 10 June 2012. <http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/lives/chapter48.html>.
- Plutarch. “The Life of Julius Caesar.” The Parallel Lives. University of Chicago – Bill Thayer, n.d. Web. 6 June 2012. <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/caesar*.html>.
- Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1957. Print.
- When Rome Ruled: Killing Caesar. Dir. David Lee and Francesca Maudslay. Perf. Bray Poor. IMDb. IMDb.com, 13 Nov. 2010. Web. 2 June 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1797328/>.
[1] Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1957. Print. pp 12.
[2] Plutarch. “The Life of Julius Caesar.” The Parallel Lives. University of Chicago. pp.479
[3] When Rome Ruled: Killing Caesar (documentary). Adrian Goldsworthy. 26:20m
[4] Plutarch. “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch.” Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch. The Adelaide University, 12 Jan. 2011. Web.
[5] Compton’s by Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 4. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2005. Print. pp 15.
[6] Meier, Christian. Caesar. London: Fontana, 1996. Print. pp 17.
[7] When Rome Ruled: Killing Caesar (documentary). Dr Adrian Goldsworthy. 11:15m
[8] Plutarch. “The Life of Julius Caesar.” The Parallel Lives. University of Chicago. pp.449
[9] Plutarch. “The Life of Julius Caesar.” The Parallel Lives. University of Chicago – Bill Thayer, n.d. Web. pp 447
[10] When Rome Ruled: Killing Caesar (documentary). Barry Strauss. 17:00m
[11] When Rome Ruled: Killing Caesar (documentary). Maria Pyke. 12:10m
[12] Hennessy, Dianne. “Caesar.” Personalities from the past. South Melbourne: Nelson, 1997. pp. 238.
[13] When Rome Ruled: Killing Caesar (documentary). Tom Holland. 44:55m