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I did thrice offer him a kingly crown that he did thrice refuse, is this naracism? Ceasar was a ruler for the people. He increased the citizens grain allotment

I did thrice offer him a kingly crown that he did thrice refuse, is this naracism? Ceasar was a ruler for the people. He increased the citizens grain allotment (doubled it?), took many captives for Rome and put the ransom towards the general fund and left most of what he owned to the people in his will. The people that killed him got to write history so they made him into a bad guy.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
>did thrice offer him a kingly crown that he did thrice refuse, is this naracism It's politicking. He already had the power of a king, and knew the title would only harm him. It's why August called himself the "first citizen of Rome" rather than king or emperor. They weren't forgoing the power, just the title. >The people that killed him got to write history so they made him into a bad guy. Augustus got to write history on him, and that provided an overly rosy view that wasn't heavily questioned for centuries, likely still providing a rosy view of him two millennia later.
- throwaway2048 3y ago
  Imperator (in English Emperor) was a title specifically invented by Augustus to avoid the title king. It might be roughly translated as "Commander", in a military sense.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    You're right, he did go by imperator, my memory is poor, but his primary titles provided by the senate were "augustus" and "princeps."
  - scott_w 3y ago
    That's definitely not correct. The first sentences in Wikipedia date its use to the Roman Kingdom and Republic, long before Augustus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperator
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      Soldiers hailing their commanders Imperator on the battlefield was a requirement for a triumph under the Republic. Octavian did not invent the title.
user3939382 3y ago
The biographer had very sound methods for sourcing so I don’t think we can just dismiss what we now know about him. As an example he slept with the wives of the senators as a sport. He may have been effective in governing but he comes across as a despicable human being.
gumby 3y ago
He, Octavian, and Marc Antony overthrew the republic. He made himself into a bad guy. Coming from a patrician family (the Julii, through his father; his mother was of more significant birth), he was hardly a man of the people. He took a traditional Patrician path to power (priest, war, tribune, governor, imperator, author, senator ...)
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Almost all of his conservative opponents like Pompey, Cicero or Cato were not patricians on the other hand.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gumby 3y ago
    The fact that Pompey and Cicero were patricians is irrelevant. None of them really had the interest of the masses at heart. Increasing the grain allotment made Caesar no more a man of the people than becoming a tribune had. Augustus did much more in that regard (he personally paid off the public debt!) and he was no man of the people either.
a_shovel 3y ago
Historia Civilis's summary of the crown incident is convincing to me. > It's highly dramatic, and it seems to have played out a little too perfectly. In my opinion it's pretty clear that Antony and Caesar coordinated the whole thing ahead of time. Cicero reached the same conclusion. ... > Some say that this Lupercalia incident was Caesar testing the water. If the crowd had been into it, he would have accepted the diadem. Others say that this was a performative rejection of the crown, staged so that he could continue to wield his other king-like powers as he wished. > I'm kinda in the first camp. Caesar was vain. He liked being flagrant and wearing his Triumphator outfit during festivals. He liked his special little golden chair that was definitely not a throne. He liked all of the pomp and circumstance. My feeling is that in his heart, he wanted a crown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj2UksH_nSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj2UksH_nSI [20:27 - 21:30]
flohofwoe 3y ago
> Ceasar was a ruler for the people. ...or as we'd say today, a typical "populist". I don't think there were any genuinely "good guys" among the Roman political elite just by process of natural selection. Politics in Rome was a cut-throat business, and much closer to an oligarchy or mafia state than what we understand today as a "republican democracy". I have no doubt that Caesar only had his own political advancement in mind with the ultimate goal to become an autocratic ruler when he pretended to care about the "people". PS: all my own opinions of course, formed by reading the usual sources :)
- toyg 3y ago
  > Caesar only had his own political advancement in mind with the ultimate goal to become an autocratic ruler when he pretended to care about the "people". Oh, exactly like 90% of modern politicians then...
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > exactly like 90% of modern politicians Roman politics, one could even say culture, had a fundamental flaw in equating military competence with political savvy. (Our modern analog is commercial and governance.) Sulla and Marius and Pompey and Caesar personally raised armies, legitimately and then otherwise. This gave every Roman commander a practical veto unthinkable in modern politics.
    - joycian 3y ago
      Actually, I think it could be said that Pompey did it illegitimately before he did it legitimately (legitimately meaning: with the support of the sitting government in Rome), raising troops in support of Sulla's invasion force. Of course, legitimacy is a bit strange in the Sulla-Marius years.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  To start ask what is populism? From Google: > a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. I find the more educated you are (read: elite) the less you like populism. Funny that.
hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago
Stalin submitted his resignation from the role of secretary general I believe 6 or 7 times, and all times the resignation was refused. What's your point? Also, wasn't the guy who wrote history on him his nephew and protwge?
jasmer 3y ago
[dead]
matthewowen 3y ago
My degree is in Classics and this was something I found frustrating. It's clear that Imperial Rome under Augustus was a more egalitarian and meritocratic society than the oligarchical one which preceded it. But I honestly came away from tutorials being surprised at the extent that my tutors seemed genuinely convinced by the arguments made by that deposed oligarchy that Rome had become "less free".
goodbyesf 3y ago
> The people that killed him got to write history so they made him into a bad guy. The people who killed him lost. Caesar Augustus, caesar's adopted son, ultimately prevailed. The history we get from that era is mostly the one that julius caesar himself wrote and what his allies wrote. As churchill said, history will be kind to me because I intend to write it. That's why millenia after caesar's death, everywhere from Russia (czar) to germany ( kaiser ) exalt him. Dante didn't put caesar in the mouth of satan in the center of hell. Dante put Brutus and Cassius in the mout of satan for eternity. You yourself quoted a shakespearean play that praises caesar and denigrates his killers. Brutus is reviled like Judas or Benedict Arnold. It's a name that lives in infamy.
nindalf 3y ago
> The people that killed him got to write history No they didn’t. The primary sources for Julius Caesar’s life are Julius Caesar writing about his own campaigns, Plutarch, Suetonius and Appian. None of the conspirators wrote any history that has survived. They literally turned this man into a God after he died! By 42BC the Senate considered him a God. His successor adopted his name and called himself Gaius Julius Caesar because he wanted to be associated with the name. Many Roman emperors adopted the name Caesar. And German kaiser, Russian tsar and Turkish kaiser-i-Rum all refer to this one man.

boomboomsubban 3y ago

>did thrice offer him a kingly crown that he did thrice refuse, is this naracism It's politicking. He already had the power of a king, and knew the title would only harm him. It's why August called himself the "first citizen of Rome" rather than king or emperor. They weren't forgoing the power, just the title. >The people that killed him got to write history so they made him into a bad guy. Augustus got to write history on him, and that provided an overly rosy view that wasn't heavily questioned for centuries, likely still providing a rosy view of him two millennia later.

throwaway2048 3y ago
Imperator (in English Emperor) was a title specifically invented by Augustus to avoid the title king. It might be roughly translated as "Commander", in a military sense.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  You're right, he did go by imperator, my memory is poor, but his primary titles provided by the senate were "augustus" and "princeps."
- scott_w 3y ago
  That's definitely not correct. The first sentences in Wikipedia date its use to the Roman Kingdom and Republic, long before Augustus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperator
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    Soldiers hailing their commanders Imperator on the battlefield was a requirement for a triumph under the Republic. Octavian did not invent the title.

user3939382 3y ago

The biographer had very sound methods for sourcing so I don’t think we can just dismiss what we now know about him. As an example he slept with the wives of the senators as a sport. He may have been effective in governing but he comes across as a despicable human being.

gumby 3y ago

He, Octavian, and Marc Antony overthrew the republic. He made himself into a bad guy. Coming from a patrician family (the Julii, through his father; his mother was of more significant birth), he was hardly a man of the people. He took a traditional Patrician path to power (priest, war, tribune, governor, imperator, author, senator ...)

ffgjgf1 3y ago
Almost all of his conservative opponents like Pompey, Cicero or Cato were not patricians on the other hand.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gumby 3y ago
  The fact that Pompey and Cicero were patricians is irrelevant. None of them really had the interest of the masses at heart. Increasing the grain allotment made Caesar no more a man of the people than becoming a tribune had. Augustus did much more in that regard (he personally paid off the public debt!) and he was no man of the people either.

a_shovel 3y ago

Historia Civilis's summary of the crown incident is convincing to me. > It's highly dramatic, and it seems to have played out a little too perfectly. In my opinion it's pretty clear that Antony and Caesar coordinated the whole thing ahead of time. Cicero reached the same conclusion. ... > Some say that this Lupercalia incident was Caesar testing the water. If the crowd had been into it, he would have accepted the diadem. Others say that this was a performative rejection of the crown, staged so that he could continue to wield his other king-like powers as he wished. > I'm kinda in the first camp. Caesar was vain. He liked being flagrant and wearing his Triumphator outfit during festivals. He liked his special little golden chair that was definitely not a throne. He liked all of the pomp and circumstance. My feeling is that in his heart, he wanted a crown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj2UksH_nSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj2UksH_nSI [20:27 - 21:30]

flohofwoe 3y ago

> Ceasar was a ruler for the people. ...or as we'd say today, a typical "populist". I don't think there were any genuinely "good guys" among the Roman political elite just by process of natural selection. Politics in Rome was a cut-throat business, and much closer to an oligarchy or mafia state than what we understand today as a "republican democracy". I have no doubt that Caesar only had his own political advancement in mind with the ultimate goal to become an autocratic ruler when he pretended to care about the "people". PS: all my own opinions of course, formed by reading the usual sources :)

toyg 3y ago
> Caesar only had his own political advancement in mind with the ultimate goal to become an autocratic ruler when he pretended to care about the "people". Oh, exactly like 90% of modern politicians then...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > exactly like 90% of modern politicians Roman politics, one could even say culture, had a fundamental flaw in equating military competence with political savvy. (Our modern analog is commercial and governance.) Sulla and Marius and Pompey and Caesar personally raised armies, legitimately and then otherwise. This gave every Roman commander a practical veto unthinkable in modern politics.
  - joycian 3y ago
    Actually, I think it could be said that Pompey did it illegitimately before he did it legitimately (legitimately meaning: with the support of the sitting government in Rome), raising troops in support of Sulla's invasion force. Of course, legitimacy is a bit strange in the Sulla-Marius years.
willcipriano 3y ago
To start ask what is populism? From Google: > a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. I find the more educated you are (read: elite) the less you like populism. Funny that.

hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago

Stalin submitted his resignation from the role of secretary general I believe 6 or 7 times, and all times the resignation was refused. What's your point? Also, wasn't the guy who wrote history on him his nephew and protwge?

jasmer 3y ago

[dead]

matthewowen 3y ago

My degree is in Classics and this was something I found frustrating. It's clear that Imperial Rome under Augustus was a more egalitarian and meritocratic society than the oligarchical one which preceded it. But I honestly came away from tutorials being surprised at the extent that my tutors seemed genuinely convinced by the arguments made by that deposed oligarchy that Rome had become "less free".

goodbyesf 3y ago

> The people that killed him got to write history so they made him into a bad guy. The people who killed him lost. Caesar Augustus, caesar's adopted son, ultimately prevailed. The history we get from that era is mostly the one that julius caesar himself wrote and what his allies wrote. As churchill said, history will be kind to me because I intend to write it. That's why millenia after caesar's death, everywhere from Russia (czar) to germany ( kaiser ) exalt him. Dante didn't put caesar in the mouth of satan in the center of hell. Dante put Brutus and Cassius in the mout of satan for eternity. You yourself quoted a shakespearean play that praises caesar and denigrates his killers. Brutus is reviled like Judas or Benedict Arnold. It's a name that lives in infamy.

nindalf 3y ago

> The people that killed him got to write history No they didn’t. The primary sources for Julius Caesar’s life are Julius Caesar writing about his own campaigns, Plutarch, Suetonius and Appian. None of the conspirators wrote any history that has survived. They literally turned this man into a God after he died! By 42BC the Senate considered him a God. His successor adopted his name and called himself Gaius Julius Caesar because he wanted to be associated with the name. Many Roman emperors adopted the name Caesar. And German kaiser, Russian tsar and Turkish kaiser-i-Rum all refer to this one man.