The démarche which led to the surprise capture of the office of pontifex maximus (high priest) in 63 bc was one of Caesar's most successful. Thanks to his efforts, the pontificate had again become an elected office – another blow against Sulla's constitutional reforms. This sacred office carried with it immense importance in Roman politics. Caesar, a sceptic ever close to the Epicureans in his beliefs, clearly did not hesitate for an instant to compete for the role of supreme guardian of the religion of the state, a post which by its nature stood above everyday political squabbles. Being an Epicurean in his intellectual sympathies, Caesar understood the power of this instrumentum regni. He realised full well that false notions concerning the gods had generated fear, and that this fear had produced a false religion, a cult which rested on an almost commercial relationship with the gods. Caesar had much respect for the Epicureans – both militant and moderate – who propagated the ‘dangerous’ doctrine, as Benjamin Farrington aptly put it, ‘that God does not dwell in a temple made with hands – even if the authority responsible for its erection be the State’. He also knew that Greek political writers were deeply involved in Roman reality, to the point of being champions of ‘realpolitik’.