Interpretation A JOURNAL loF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Spring 2002 Volume 29 Number 3 241 Quentin P. Taylor Public Deliberation and Popular Government in Aristotle's Politics 261 Susan D. Collins The Problem of Law in Aristotle's Politics: A Response to Quentin Taylor 265 Jules Gleicher On Plutarch's Life of Caesar "Mathematici" 281 Laurie M. Johnson Bagby v. "Dogmatici": Understanding the Realist Project Through Hobbes Book Reviews 299 Kalev Pehme L'atheisme, by Alexandre Kojeve 311 Mark Lewis and Prophets, Lawyers, Philosophers Harrison Sheppard and Civilians: Storm over the Constitution, by Harry V. Jaffa 331 Harry V. Jaffa Response to Lewis and Sheppard Interpretation Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. of Philosophy, Queens College Executive Editor Leonard Grey General Editors Seth G. Benardete (d. 2001) Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974) Consulting Editors Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. 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Please send four clear copies, which will not be returned, and double space the entire text and reference list. Composed and printed by The Sheridan Press, Hanover, PA 17331 U.S.A. Inquiries: (Mrs.) Mary Contos, Assistant to the Editor interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y 1 1367-1597, U.S.A. (718) 997-5542 Fax (7 1 8) 997-5565 E Mail: interpretation [email protected] On Plutarch's Life of Caesar Jules Gleicher Rockford College The subject of Plutarch's Life of Caesar is the career and character of a quintessentially political man, one whose every act is directed toward obtaining public office or exercising political authority, in a corrupt political community. (By contrast, Suetonius routinely takes note of what are arguably more personal, usually scandalous, details in the lives of his twelve Caesars [1928].) The text is therefore especially instructive as a case study for those students of politics who lack either the talent or the taste buds to pore over mounds of quantitative data or to navigate the intricacies of social science terminology. The Life of Caesar divides thematically into five unequal parts: The first fourteen sections deal with Caesar's early career. The next thirteen describe the Gallic Wars. Sections 28 through 56 are dominated by his rivalry with Pompey for sole rule. A brief account of his projects and accomplishments as ruler occupies sections 57 through 60. And the last ten are about the events leading up to, through, and after his assassination. The following remarks concentrate some what disproportionately on the earlier part of the text. The opening passages establish with narrative economy the political, moral, and psychological setting for the material that follows. Concerning the first eighteen years of Caesar's life we have no Plutarchian account. The simplest explanation for this is, as the editors of the Loeb edition suggest, that the "open of have ing paragraphs of this Life, describing the birth and boyhood Caesar, lost" been (1971, p. 442 nl). On the other hand, we recall that the author begins the parallel Life ofAlexander by admonishing the reader, in case I do not tell of all the famous actions of these men, nor even speak exhaus not to com tively at all in each particular case, but in epitome for the most part, . as plain. For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives. Accordingly, just expression of the painters get the likenesses in their portraits from the face and the of the American Political This article was previously presented at the 1999 annual meeting topic from Science Association. I am grateful for the helpful suggestions I received on this my Sarai. students Bonnie Anderson, Marilu Bechard, and Nilay interpretation, Spring 2002, Vol. 29, No. 3 266 Interpretation eyes, wherein the character shows itself, but make very little account of the other parts of the body, so I must be permitted to devote myself rather to the signs of the soul in men, and by means of these to portray the life of each. (Plutarch, Alex ander, 1.1-3, p. 225). It is perhaps noteworthy that most of the same material is missing from Sueto The Deified Julius. The effect of this gap is that Caesar's story begins when he is about the same age as Alexander was when he succeeded to the Macedonian throne. Another consequence is that Caesar's biography is not graced, or encum bered, by mythical accounts of his divine lineage. (Cf. Plutarch. Alexander. II-III.4, pp. 225-29; XXVII.5-7, p. 305; but cf. Plutarch, Pompcy, LXVIII.2, p. 293.) A later anecdote, in which Caesar, then thirty-nine years old, laments that "while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet success," achieved no brilliant suggests that conscious comparison with Alex ander was at least an occasional feature of Caesar's self-assessment (Caesar, XI.6, p. 469; cf. Pompey, II.2, p. 119; XLVI.l, p. 233). In fact, Alexander died at the age of thirty-three. Of course, he had the advantage of not having first had to struggle to become a king. Caesar's story also begins at a crucial point in the life of the Roman Republic, the year 82 B.C., when Lucius Cornelius Sulla "became master of that is, dictator for life (1.1, p. 443). In contrast to the consuls, the regular annually elected chief magistrates, whose authority coexisted with that of the Senate and the various assemblies, the dictator was an occasional officer, summoned into being to deal with some pressing emergency, such as a war or a rebellion, whose word, as the name implies, was law. Previously, dictatorships were limited in duration to the immediate crisis that provoked them, or at most to six months. In the actual event, Sulla held this position for less than three years, then abruptly resigned (Sulla, XXXIV.3, p. 435). But the willingness of the Romans to grant without temporal limit this office of extraordinary power, whose temporary character they had hitherto jealously guarded, may well be regarded as the effective beginning of the end of the Republic (Plutarch, Sulla, XXXIII, pp. 431-33). Plutarch does not, in the present text, use the word diktator with reference to Sulla, but instead treats Caesar's being proclaimed dictator for a year, in 47 B.C., as the innovation (Caesar, LI.l, p. 563; see also Cicero, III.3, p. 86; but cf. Sulla, XXXIII. 1, p. 430; Pompey, IX. 1, p. 134). His later appoint ment as dictator for life seems almost anticlimactic (Caesar, LVII.l, p. 575). Plutarch reports Sulla as seeing a constitutional, or at least a factional, danger in the young Caesar and contemplating his execution (Caesar, 1.3^4, p. 443). Caesar therefore went into hiding, first on the outskirts of Rome, then, after bribing one of Sulla's captains, into whose hands he had fallen, to set him free, our first glimpse of official corruption, at the court of King Nicomedes of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. (Plutarch does not mention because extraneous to his purpose?the rumor, reported by Suetonius, of a homosexual relationship be- On Plutarch 's Life of Caesar 267 tween Nicomedes and Caesar. Does he implicitly discountenance such talk by time," characterizing Caesar's stay there as only for "a short where Suetonius emphasizes its length? [Caesar, 1.8, p. 445; cf. Suetonius, II, p. 5; XLIX, pp. 65-69].) Then, on his way back to Rome, he was captured by pirates. (On the problem of piracy at this time, see Pompey, XXIV-XXV1II, pp. 173-87.) He remained in their custody for 38 days, while his followers raised a ransom, which he, as a mark of his importance, had voluntarily increased to 50 talents from the 20 that his captors originally demanded. During this time, "as if the men were not body-guard," his watchers, but his royal he joined in their gymnastic exercises, spoke condescendingly to them, and threatened them, seemingly in jest, with execution (Caesar, II.3, p, 445).