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The Aftermath of Caesar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

A Few decades afterwards Livy doubted whether Caesar's birth had been a blessing or a curse. That was an extreme doctrine: ‘Pompeianism’ like Livy's could be licensed under Augustus, but it was not orthodoxy; and to say that Caesar had been justly killed was a crime. Yet the one clear judgement on Caesar in the Aeneid is a rebuke, and in Horace there is virtual silence except in extolling Augustus the avenger. It was Ovid's clear language which was best fitted to sum up the Government's position:

neque enim de Caesaris actis ullum maius opus, nisi quod pater exstitit huius.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

page 76 note 1 Of the four references to Caesar in this work only one (relating to certain buildings in Rome) departs from the narrow context of Augustus' own inheritance and of his pietas in avenging the murder.

page 76 note 2 That one who had always been C. Caesar should be distinguished from his fellow gods by the appellation divus Iulius is almost paradoxical; but dictator Caesar was always an alternative for the use of historians.

page 77 note 1 On the origins of this term see the fascinating essay by Momigliano, A. in Cesare nel bimillenario della morte (Edizioni Radio Italiana, 1956).Google Scholar