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Caesar and the Monarchy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. A. G. Carson
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Extract

The victories of Pharsalus, Thapsus, and Munda had left Caesar in a position of undisputed authority and, as the year 44 opened, the question in Roman minds must have been how Caesar intended to consolidate and perpetuate his position. His assassination on the Ides of March left his contemporaries with little indication of what political solution Caesar had devised, and left to subsequent historians of the period the intriguing problem of deducing from such evidence as the last few months of Caesar's life provide what his political intentions had been. The initial difficulty of this problem is to free one's mind from the simplifications and, indeed, distortions with which subsequent political thought has reported the critical events of Caesar's last months; for in most of western civilization, particularly the English-speaking portion, the popular impression of Caesar as a tyrant and the conspirators as democrats is almost ineradicable, thanks to the dramatic story of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 1957 , pp. 46 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

page 46 note 1 Dio Cassius xliii. 45. 1; cf. Suet. Div. Iul. 76. 1.

page 46 note 2 Phil. ii. 34. 87.

page 46 note 3 Dio Cassius xliii. 45. 2.

page 46 note 4 Id. xliv. 6. 1; Appian, B.C. ii. 106.

page 47 note 1 For the most recent discussion of this question see Alföldi, Andreas, ‘Studien über Caesars Monarchie’, K. Humanistika Vetenskapssamfundets i Lund Arsberättelse (1952–1953), 1.Google Scholar

page 47 note 2 xliv. 6. 2.

page 47 note 3 xliii. 45. 3.

page 47 note 4 B.C. ii. 106.

page 48 note 1 For other interpretations of the chronology see Alfoldi, op. cit., and Kraay, C. M. in Num. Chron., Sen 6, xiv (1954), pp. 18 ff.Google Scholar

page 48 note 2 For a full description see Sydenham, E. A., Coinage of the Roman Republic (London, 1952), nos. 1055–79.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 Alföldi, op. cit., p. 3.

page 49 note 2 Ibid. and Pl. II, 5 and enlargement, p. 83.

page 50 note 1 Dio xliii. 45. 2.

page 50 note 2 Dio xliv. 11. 2; Appian, B.C. ii. 109; Plut. Caes. 61. 3.

page 51 note 1 Phil. ii. 34. 85.

page 51 note 2 Kraft, Konrad, ‘Der goldene Kranz Caesars und der Kampf um die Entlarvung des “Tyrannen”’, Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte, iv (1952/1953), pp. 7 ff.Google Scholar For the argument here see especially pp. 55 f.

page 51 note 3 Suet. Div. Iul. 79. 1.

page 51 note 4 Dio xliv. 15. 4; Appian B.C. ii. 110; cf. Suet. Div. Iul. 79. 4.

page 51 note 5 Kraft, op. cit.

page 52 note 1 Cicero, , De Div. i. 52. 119Google Scholar, cum purpurea veste; Pliny, , H.N. xi. 37. 186Google Scholar, veste purpurea.

page 52 note 2 Phil. ii. 34. 85.

page 52 note 3 Dio xliv. 11. 2.