Julius Caesar Murdered

This series has seven easy 5 minute installments.

Introduction
Caesar’s assassination forms the groundwork of one of Shakespeare’s most notable tragedies. The “itching palm” of Cassius, Brutus’ rectitude and honesty of purpose and Mark Antony’s oration will ever live while the English language endures. When the great Caesar was struck down, the civil war was over and he was master of the world. The month of the year B.C. 100 in which he was born, Quinctilis, was afterward called in his honor, July.

Caius Julius Caesar was one of the greatest figures in history and early took a prominent part in the affairs of Rome. He was a rival of Cicero in forensic eloquence and highly esteemed as a writer, his Commentaries being universally admired. Ransomed from pirates who had captured him on his way to study philosophy at Rhodes, he attacked them in turn, took them to Pergamus and crucified them.

After various successful engagements Caesar marched against Pharnaces, now established in the kingdom of the Bosphorus, gaining at Zela, in Pontus, the decisive victory which he announced in the famous dispatch, Veni, vidi, vici [“I came, I saw, I conquered”].

His unbounded affability, his liveliness and cordiality, his unaffected kindness to his friends had made him popular with the high as well as the low. His ambition began to show itself. During the wrangles over the election of Afranius as consul, Caesar returned from his brilliant successes in Spain. The troops saluted him as imperator and the senate voted a thanksgiving in his honor. He was now strong enough to take his place as the leader of the popular party. He was elected consul in spite of the hostility of the senate.

A coalition was formed between Caesar and Pompey. Caesar’s agrarian law added to his popularity with the people and he gained the influence of the equites by relief of one-third of the farmed taxes of Asia. He now became proconsul of Illyricum and Gaul for five years. This suited his ambition. At this time Pompey was the absolute master of Rome. And now arose his duel for power with Caesar. For a time he opposed the latter’s election as consul but later yielded.

Caesar had achieved his brilliant success beyond the Alps. He had won victories in Gaul and Britain; but in the meantime his enemies had been active at Rome. Still believing that the senate would permit his quiet election to the consulship, he refused to strike any blow at their authority. But the senate had determined to humble Caesar. Both Pompey and Caesar were removed from leadership but the Consul Marcellus refused to execute the decree. Caesar was directed by the senate to disband his army by a fixed day, on pain of being considered a public enemy. Pompey sided with the senate. This meant civil war. Antony and Cassius fled to the camp of Caesar, who was enthusiastically supported by his soldiers and “crossed the Rubicon.”

Having become master of all Italy in three months without a battle, Caesar reëntered Rome. Pompey had fled and at the battle of Pharsalia was utterly routed and took refuge in Egypt, where he was murdered a few days before the arrival of Caesar.

Upon receipt of the news of Pompey’s death Caesar was named dictator for one year. The government was now placed without disguise in his hands. He was invested with the tribunician power for life. He was also again elected consul and named dictator.

Caesar had now become a demi-god and was named dictator for ten years, being awarded a fourfold triumph and a thanksgiving being decreed for forty days. He was also made censor. This was in B.C. 46. After defeating the remnant of the Pompeians, he returned to Rome in September, B.C. 45 and was named imperator and appointed consul for ten years and dictator for life, being hailed as Parens Patriae.

All these triumphs had caused jealousies. It was thought that he aspired to become king and this led to his fall.

The selections are by Barthold Georg Niebuhr. and Plutarch. We begin with Barthold Georg Niebuhr.

Time: 44 BC
Place: Rome

It is one of the inestimable advantages of a hereditary government commonly called the legitimate, whatever its form may be, that it may be formally inactive in regard to the state and the population — that it may reserve its interference until it is absolutely necessary and apparently leave things to take their own course. If we look around us and observe the various constitutions, we shall scarcely perceive the interference of the government; the greater part of the time passes away without those who have the reins in their hands being obliged to pay any particular attention to what they are doing and a very large amount of individual liberty may be enjoyed. But if the government is what we call a usurpation, the ruler has not only to take care to maintain his power but in all that he undertakes he has to consider by what means and in what ways he can establish his right to govern and his own personal qualifications for it. Men who are in such a position are urged on to act by a very sad necessity, from which they cannot escape and such was the position of Caesar at Rome.

In our European States, men have wide and extensive spheres in which they can act and move. The much-decried system of centralization has indeed many disadvantages; but it has this advantage for the ruler, that he can exert an activity which shows its influence far and wide. But what could Caesar do, in the center of nearly the whole of the known world? He could not hope to effect any material improvements either in Italy or in the provinces. He had been accustomed from his youth and more especially during the last fifteen years, to an enormous activity and idleness was intolerable to him. At the close of the civil war he would have had little or nothing to do unless he had turned his attention to some foreign enterprise. He was obliged to venture upon something that would occupy his whole soul, for he could not rest. His thoughts were therefore again directed to war and that in a quarter where the most brilliant triumphs awaited him, where the bones of the legions of Crassus lay unavenged — to a war against the Parthians. About this time the Getae also had spread in Thrace and he intended to check their progress likewise. But his main problem was to destroy the Parthian empire and to extend the Roman dominion as far as India, a plan in which he would certainly have been successful; and he himself felt so sure of this that he was already thinking of what he should undertake afterward.

It is by no means incredible that, as we are told, he intended on his return to march through the passes of the Caucasus and through ancient Scythia into the country of the Getae and thence through Germany and Gaul into Italy. Besides this expedition, he entertained other plans of no less gigantic dimensions. The port of Ostia was bad and in reality little better than a mere roadstead, so that great ships could not come up the river. Accordingly it is said that Caesar intended to dig a canal for sea-ships, from the Tiber, above or below Rome, through the Pomptine marshes as far as Terracina. He further contemplated to cut through the Isthmus of Corinth. It is not easy to see in what manner he would have accomplished this, considering the state of hydraulic architecture in those times. The Roman canals were mere fossae and canals with sluices, though not unknown to the Romans, were not constructed by them.

[The first canals with sluices were executed by the Dutch in the fifteenth century.]

The fact of Caesar forming such enormous plans is not very surprising; but we can scarcely comprehend how it was possible for him to accomplish so much of what he undertook in the short time of five months preceding his death. Following the unfortunate system of Sulla, Caesar founded throughout Italy a number of colonies of veterans. The old Sullanian colonists were treated with great severity and many of them and their children were expelled from their lands and were thus punished for the cruelty which they or their fathers had committed against the inhabitants of the municipia. In like manner colonies were established in Southern Gaul, Italy, Africa and other parts; I may mention in particular the colonies founded at Carthage and Corinth. The latter, however, was a colonia libertinorum and never rose to any importance. We do not know the details of its foundation but one would imagine that Caesar would have preferred restoring the place as a purely Greek town. This, however, he did not do. Its population was and remained a mixed one and Corinth never rose to a state of real prosperity.

Caesar made various new arrangements in the State and among others he restored the full franchise or the jus honorum, to the sons of those who had been proscribed in the time of Sulla. He had obtained for himself the title of imperator and the dictatorship for life and the consulship for ten years. Half of the offices of the republic to which persons had before been elected by the centuries were in his gift and for the other half he usually recommended candidates; so that the elections were merely nominal.

Continued.

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