The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination, by Barry Strauss

This week I'm talking about The Death of Caesar, by Barry Strauss, which seeks to explore the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar by a group of senators on 15 March 44 BCE. As Strauss himself says, thanks to William Shakespeare Caesar's assassination is one of the most famous in history, perhaps only more recently eclipsed by the sheer amount of morbid curiosity surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. In an event with so much drama surrounding it, it can be extremely difficult getting towards the truth of the matter. Strauss's attempt is to sift through the various sources, which are honestly fairly limited, and also attempts to put the assassination of Caesar within the proper context of the times. However, I feel like Strauss's efforts are rather disorganized and fall somewhat short as a result.

The biggest challenge for any modern historian is figuring out what exactly happened. The very absolute basics are not disputed. Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators within Pompey's senate house, and the leaders of this plot included Brutus, Cassius, and Decimus who were all connected by various family ties. These senators then were involved in a war with Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony) and Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), which they lost and Marcus Antonius and Octavian divided the empire between them. Beyond these very basic details it becomes increasingly hazy and difficult to understand.

The precise motivations of Brutus, Cassius, and Decimus, what they hoped to accomplish, how exactly Caesar died, and many other details are lost in the fog of classical history. Historians during the era were often not terribly concerned with what was accurate so much as what made a good story and their bias, whether pro- or anti-Caesar is usually very explicit. (In fact the idea of unbiased historiography is a fairly new one, and still a thorny issue.) And of course, many of the surviving reports we have are second hand sources. Cicero, who was present in the senate chamber on that fateful day, wrote only a very brief description. Most of the other writers, such as Plutarch, were writing well after the event and drawing on sources which have since been lost to us. So ultimately any historical interpretation has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Despite this difficulty, Strauss goes to great lengths working to incorporate numerous sources to provide necessary context to explain the associated context but at the same time I feel it is incomplete. Caesar's career (which I'm ashamed to admit I only know the most general details about) is mentioned very briefly and how it may have fueled Caesar's ambitions. But the description is extremely brief and I feel like to provide a better understanding the book may have been better served by a more in-depth exploration of Caesar's life and how he eventually became dictator for life, rather than starting with him already declared dictator. Certainly considering the sheer number of people involved it would be unrealistic to go into detail about everyone's life, but Caesar is the focus of the narrative. Strauss also incorporates some details for further context, but I thought there were still major gaps which only I was able to fill in because of my own knowledge of Roman history. (As rusty as I'll admit it is. Thanks, Sister Georgia!) Obviously there were probably constraints on overall length of the book and including more detail would have made the book go even longer, but I feel like it would have helped make the book feel more cohesive.

I do also find myself disagreeing with the final conclusion of Strauss, that Caesar's assassination ended up being a warning to would-be dictators everywhere and in a way it helped save the Roman Republic for a little bit longer. On the first hand, the most famous assassination which referenced Julius Caesar was John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, shouting sic semper tyrannus as he fled the theater. Lincoln, however, was a democratically elected leader and although taking several wartime measures to crush the rebellion could hardly be called a tyrant.

Claiming that Augustus's adoption of the title princeps or ''first citizen'' and willingness to work through the senate was a continuation of the Republic with a limited monarchy is hardly a strong example as well. The Republic had already been dominated by strong men such as Marius, Sulla, and Pompey before Caesar with control of military power being the true determinator. Although Strauss doesn't claim it overtly, there's definitely the suggestion that the assassination of Caesar helped keep the spark of government by consent alive in Europe. I find this also rather weak because while the American Founding Fathers may have been inspired by Greek and Roman ideals, being avid readers of the classics, there was also a separate strong tradition of government by consent in England, independent of any Roman tradition and which heavily inspired American systems of government.

Overall I think this book is okay, but a little inadequate. Strauss provides some context, but just simply not enough to my liking to give a full understanding of the assassination of Caesar and why it's such a tipping point in Roman history.

- Kalpar

Raiding the Stacks: The Aeneid, by Virgil

Aeneas flees the sack of Troy

Once again I decided to go super old-school for this month's Raiding the Stacks, going with the Roman epic poem, The Aeneid, written by the great Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro between 29 and 19 BCE. The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan prince who flees his city at the end of the Trojan war and sails across the Mediterranean to found a people who would eventually become the mighty Romans who would dominate the world for several centuries. Even after the fall of Rome in 476 CE, The Aeneid remained an important example of Latin writing and remained an important text for students of Latin grammar and style. Although today only us crazy saps who decide to study Latin encounter it in its original form, The Aeneid remains an important cornerstone of Western literature two thousand years later.

The Aeneid was written at a very critical time in Roman history and had a very important purpose for the Roman people. It was at this time that Augustus Caesar had defeated all of his rivals and transformed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, although the Roman Republic had been an empire in all but name as John Green has pointed out elsewhere. With the dramatic addition of an imperial court and the chaos of the preceding civil wars, many Romans had begun to wonder about their identity as Romans and had lost faith in the might of Rome. In addition, many Romans, well the Romans who were in charge, were concerned  with the decay of morals and increased sexual licentiousness and Rome's traditional founding myths, filled with the rape of the Sabine women, the fratricide of Romulus, and the general bad behavior of Rome's first kings, were no fit examples for the Roman people. So Virgil sought to create a new origin myth for the Roman people with an emphasis on the traditional Roman value of pietas, or devotion to duty to one's country or family, which Aeneas exhibits throughout the epic.

In creating an origin myth for the Romans, Virgil drew on the great epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey for content and if you aren't familiar with those then I'd suggest you go read them first. (Although at least with the Iliad many chapters can be omitted because of their repetitive nature.) Just as the Iliad in many ways defined Greek virtues and what it meant to be Greek, regardless of your city-state, the Aeneid extols the virtues of duty to country and skill at warfare which were seen as vital for the continued survival of the Roman state. At many points Aeneas is tempted to cease his quest to found a city in Italy that shall be the wellspring of the Roman people, especially with Dido of Carthage, but he continues on his divinely-appointed fate regardless. (Although with a few swift prods in the buttocks by the gods.) Furthermore Aeneas and his entourage do a lot of fighting. A lot. To the point where much like the Iliad it's people I have never met before getting killed by other people I have never met before and as a result have no reason to care about the conflict. I am aware I am judging a two thousand year old poem by the standards of today, but I still find it difficult to get invested into the battle scenes when it consists of one scene characters. Much like the very combat-heavy chapters of the Iliad, such scenes could probably be omitted by most readers.

Another interesting element that I noticed in the Aeneid was frequent mention of the importance to observe the proper burial rites, lest the souls of the dead be left wandering the shores of the river Styx for a hundred years. I don't think Rome had a particular problem with safe burial practices at this time, with laws prohibiting burial within city limits for sanitation purposes, but it's odd how frequently proper due to the dead is mentioned within the story and people go to great lengths to retrieve the corpses of their comrades and provide them proper tombs. I suppose it is possible that observance of such rites was another virtue that Virgil was attempting to emphasize, but I have seen no such statements in the extensive interpretations of the Aeneid since its creation.

While the Aeneid is firmly cemented as a "classic", I think it's really only interesting to people who have an interest in classical history or mythology and doesn't have as much to offer to modern audiences. While duty to one's family and country are admirable traits to an extent, taking them to selfless levels can have dire consequences. If you're interested in Rome then I'd recommend looking at it, but for the most part it can safely be ignored.

- Kalpar