In his second Philippic, he wrote that Caesar “brought a free city, partly by fear, partly by patience, into a habit of slavery” (2.116), which, to Romans, was a fate worse than death ( Philippic 10.19).Įven Augustus’ treatment of Caesar’s memory has been subject to debate for decades.
#Caesar lend me your ears full#
Much of Cicero’s later writings are full of invective language expressing a strong dislike of Caesar. The memory of Caesar was rather divided even during the reign of Augustus. The Death of Julius Caesar (1806) by Vincenzo Camuccini Therefore, on this historic date, I feel we should question how we remember historic figures. However, if there were a man such as Caesar today, a man who overturned the legitimate government through force and installed himself as a dictator, he would be reviled. William Shakespeare brought him to the stage in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, he appears alongside Cyrus and Alexander as rulers who used their funds liberally in Machiavelli’s The Prince (16), and he has featured in dozens, if not hundreds of novels, films, and television shows about ancient Rome. Indeed, he has been remembered throughout history. Thanks to the monumentality of his achievements, and the subsequent longevity of the Roman Empire, Caesar has been immortalized, even admired, in modern historical memory. As Cicero says, Caesar “had performed exploits in war which, though calamitous for the republic, were nevertheless mighty deeds” ( Philippic 2.116). There is no doubt that Caesar’s accomplishments were impressive. The Ides of March, however, was truly the death knell of the Republic, ushering in a destructive period of civil strife and discord, which ended only with the one thing the assassins of Caesar had tried to prevent – a monarchy in all but name. His assumption of the title dictator in perpetuum (‘perpetual dictator’), becoming the de facto monarch of the Roman world, was the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. Gaius Julius Caesar’s assassination on the Ides of March in 44 BC is truly one of the most momentous events in history. The good is oft interred with their bones įrom William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears
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