DOESN'T YOUR VIEW OF CAESAR DEPEND ON THE HEALTH OF YOUR OWN REGIME?:

The Apotheosis of Individual Achievement: a review of Julius Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy (ADAM KIRSCH, September 6, 2006, NY Sun)

If Caius Julius Caesar remains, after 2,000 years, one of the most famous men who ever lived, it is not simply because he was a hero, but because his life and career seem designed to demonstrate the essential ambiguity of heroism. Caesar was a brilliant general, a clement victor, and the savior of Rome; change your angle of regard by just a hair's breadth, and Caesar was a ruthless self-seeker, a brutal imperialist, and the man who dealt the coup de grace to Rome's ancient republican institutions. Both views were current during his lifetime, which is why he could be simultaneously the most popular man in Rome and the man whom the most patriotic Romans felt it necessary to assassinate. And the contradictions have persisted down the centuries, making Caesar a litmus test for every era's feelings about glory, loyalty, and power.

For Dante, Caesar's assassin Brutus was an arch-traitor, who belonged with Judas in the lowest circle of Hell. For Shakespeare, on the other hand, he was "the noblest Roman of them all, "forced to preserve his ideals by murdering a man he loved. As both of those poets knew, how we judge Caesar is of more than merely historical interest. For he represents the apotheosis of one of Western culture's most cherished values — individual achievement, the imposition of one's self on the world by sheer exercise of will. Indeed, no one has ever made his name in a more literal sense than Julius Caesar. When he was born, "Caesar" was the name of an old but minor Roman family; 2,000 years later, the emperor of Germany was called "Kaiser" and the Emperor of Russia "Tsar," both versions of a word that had become a synonym for sovereignty.

Adrian Goldsworthy's new biography, "Caesar: Life of a Colossus", succeeds in capturing all the drama and complexity of this best-known of lives. Mr. Goldsworthy, a prolific young British classicist, has real narrative gifts, as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of late republican Rome.Together, these strengths make "Caesar" one of the most fascinating biographies you will come across this year.This is a considerable feat when writing about a man who is known to us almost entirely through a handful of ancient texts, which have been endlessly interpreted through the centuries.

Mr. Goldsworthy's Punic Wars was terrific and as much of this one as we've read is likewise marvelous. he has a real knack for rendering ancient history readable for the layman.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2006 9:01 AM