Julius Caesar. the Colossus of Rome

JULIUS CAESAR: THE COLOSSUS OF ROME Julius Caesar offers a lively, engaging, and thoroughly up-to-date account of Caesar’s life and times. Richard Billows’ dynamic and fast-paced narrative offers an imaginative recounting of actions and events, providing the ideal introduction to Julius Caesar for general readers and students of classics and ancient history. The book is not just a biography of Caesar, but a historical account and explanation of the decline and fall of the Roman Republican governing system, in which Caesar played a crucial part. To understand Caesar’s life and role, it is necessary to grasp the political, social, and economic problems Rome was grap- pling with, and the deep divisions within Roman society that came from them. Caesar has been seen variously as a mere opportunist, a power-hungry autocrat, an arrogant aristocrat disdaining rivals, a traditional Roman noble politician who stumbled into civil war and autocracy thanks to being misunderstood by his rivals, and even as the ideal man and pattern of all virtues. Billows argues that such portrayals fail to consider adequately the universal testimony of our ancient sources that Roman political life was divided in Caesar’s time into two great political tendencies, called ‘optimates’ and ‘populares’ in the sources, of which Caesar came to be the leader of one: the ‘popularis’ faction. Billows suggests that it is only when we see Caesar as the leader of a great political and social movement, that had been struggling with its rival movement for decades and had been several times violently repressed in the course of that struggle, that we can understand how and why Caesar came to fight and win a civil war, and bring the traditional governing system of Rome to an end. Richard A. Billows is Professor of Greek and Roman History at Columbia University in New York. His publications include Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State. Recent research interests include the origins of the Greek city-state, the collapse of the Roman Republic, and the origins of Christianity. ROMAN IMPERIAL BIOGRAPHIES Also available from Routledge: Augustus, Pat Southern Tiberius the Politician, Barbara Levick Caligula, Anthony A. Barrett Claudius, Barbara Levick Agrippina, Anthony A. Barrett Nero, Miriam T. Griffin Year of the Four Emperors, Kenneth Wellesley Vespasian, Barbara Levick Domitian, Pat Southern Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD9 6–99, John D. Grainger Trajan, Julian Bennett Hadrian, Anthony R. Birley Marcus Aurelius, Anthony R. Birley Septimius Severus, Anthony R. Birley Aurelian and the Third Century, Alaric Watson Diocletian and the Roman Recovery, Stephen Williams Constantine and the Christian Empire, Charles M. Odahl Theodosius, Gerard Friell & Stephen Williams The Age of Justinian, J.A.S. Evans JULIUS CAESAR: THE COLOSSUS OF ROME Richard A. Billows First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Richard A. Billows All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Billows, Richard A. Julius Caesar: the colossus of Rome / Richard A. Billows. p. cm. 1. Caesar, Julius. 2. Heads of state–Rome–Biography. 3. Generals–Rome–Biography. 4. Rome–History–Republic, 265-30 B.C. 5. Rome–Social conditions–510-30 B.C. 6. Rome–History–Republic, 265-30 B.C.–Historiography. I. Title. DG261.B55 2008 9379.05092–dc22 [B] 2008026698 ISBN 0-203-41276-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0–415–33314–8 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–41276–1 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–33314–6 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–41276–3 (ebk) Brutus I do believe that these applauses are For some new honours that are heaped on Caesar. Cassius Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 1 scene 2, 134–39 DEDICATION During my career as a professional historian, I have been fortunate to be closely associated with two of the greatest Roman historians of their generation: Erich S. Gruen and William V. Harris. To them I dedicate this book, in the full knowledge that they will both, in different ways, find much to disagree with here, but in the hope that they will find their time reading it well spent all the same. CONTENTS Preface ix Illustrations and maps xvii 1. Family tree – The Julii xvii 2. Family tree – Caesar’s Family xviii 3. The Roman Forum xix 4. The City of Rome during the Republic xx 5. The Roman Empire xxi 6. Gaul in Caesar’s day xxii Prologue 1 I Rome and Italy in the Second Century BCE 3 II Caesar’s Childhood: the Social War and the Sullan Civil War 27 III Caesar’s Early Manhood: the Rise of Pompeius 56 IV Roman Politics in the 60s 78 V The Long Year 59 BCE 111 VI The Conquest of Gaul 130 VII Roman Politics in the 50s 166 VIII Caesar’s Place in Roman Literature and Culture 192 IX The Civil Wars against Pompeius and the Optimates 205 X Caesar the Dictator 236 Epilogue 259 Notes 263 Appendix: Roman Magistracies after Sulla 286 List of Cicero’s writings 289 Select bibliography 291 Index 299 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people besides the author contribute to the production of a book, and it is my pleasant duty here to thank some of the key people who have contributed to making this book the best it can be. In the first place, Richard Stoneman, not only the former Classics Editor at Routledge but also a scholar in his own right, believed in this project at the start and signed me up to write this book. His successor Lalle Pursglove has been extraordinarily patient and always encouraging in the face of my frequent distraction by other matters; and Stacey Carter and the rest of the team at Taylor and Francis Publishing have also been very helpful. Rob Brown and his production team at Saxon Graphics have done a terrific job preparing the text and the front matter (maps and illustrations) for publication, showing enormous patience in dealing with a finicky and at times distracted author. My thanks too to the copy editor Susan Curran and the indexer Jackie Brind for both doing a first rate job. The ideas presented here have been long in gestation. My interest in late Republican Rome was first piqued, and my ideas about it began to deve- lope, some 30 years ago now during Oxford tutorials with the late George Forrest, a remarkable teacher and scholar. I could wish he were still alive to read this book. Finally, my wife Clare and daughters Madeline and Colette deserve recognition for having had to live with this project for too many years. Thank you all! PREFACE Caesar is a historical figure who has never failed to fascinate, and the ending of the Roman Republican governing system is likewise a topic that has never failed to fascinate. Many, many historians, both academic professionals and enthusiastic amateurs, have written about one or both of these topics, creat- ing a huge bibliography on the subject. Since it has been my aim to write for a wider audience than just fellow scholars of ancient Rome, I have not in this book followed the scholar’s habit of carrying on a running debate with earlier scholars in notes. Instead, I use the notes as a guide to the ancient source material on which our knowledge of Caesar and the later Roman Republic is based. At the end of this book is a bibliography which lists the more interesting and/or important books and articles (in my opinion) rele- vant to these two related subjects, and anyone sufficiently interested can pursue any of the subjects raised in the course of this book via the works listed there. The works in the bibliography (or most of them) have had some influence on the development of my ideas on these topics. Here, in this Preface, I offer to the reader a brief discussion of the most important ancient writers and texts that form the basis for our knowledge, and of the modern historical works that have to my mind been the most important contribu- tions to our understanding of and ideas about Caesar and the collapse of Rome’s traditional governing system: these are certainly the ones that have contributed most to my understanding and ideas. By far the most important of our sources are those contemporary, or near contemporary, with the events of the period under discussion – primarily 100 to 44 BCE. Of these contemporary sources, the most important by far is Cicero. Marcus Tullius Cicero was the dominant writer and intellectual of his time, perhaps in all of Roman history, as well as being one of the most influ- ential political leaders of his day.

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