If Julius Caesar was a solid man, Goldsworthy’s book is a solid biography. And this death has inspired the palette of many visionaries of which my favorite is Jean-Léon Gérôme's: ![]() This death even becomes the first chapter in Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician, as if the orator’s life could only be understood in reference to the figure of Julius Caesar. His death features as the main plot in Shakespeare’s tragedy which coined the essence of treason in the: “Et tu, Brute?”. And last but not least, he was the brave and resolute prey of one of the most famous assassinations in history. As a dictator he changed the concept of his position from the Roman elected nomination for a maximum of five years, to the fuller, more modern and more odious powers. He synchronized it anew with the sun, in an almost perfect convention that lasted for about sixteen centuries. His reforms also extended to the calendar. As a reformist politician, Caesar realized that if the Roman society had to change, the core revision had to involve land laws because everything else was grounded there. His clemency was also notorious, and he seemed to have relished his power most, not in punishing but in forgiving. ![]() His writing became the textbook of generals in posterity providing a tool for success for figures who further changed history, and we can think of Napoleon. He had to know what was right for her as she did fall deeply in love with Pompey, her magnificent husband. He was a loving father to his dear Julia even if he married her with political aims to someone twice her age. Married or not, he was also a gallant philanderer who chose well, as his penchant for the women of other senators or his picking of a legendary beauty indicates. He was a worthy husband but also expected a worthy wife, becoming a determined divorcee as his wife had to be above suspicion. As a resourceful engineer he built bridges across the Rhine that held the footsteps of his soldiers but shook the minds of the Germanic tribes. He was a devoted son, a courageous soldier and astute commander. Gaius Julius Caesar was a solid personality. And that is of course without counting the image that emerges from his own Memoirs, the Comentarii, and possibly from a collection of poems by him. From Plutarch, to Suetonius, to Shakespeare, to Gérôme, to the Hollywood or TV studios, to the Asterix cartoons…, we have a whole array of possible accounts to choose the version that better suits our imagination. The man who died at the hands of many but whose life has been revived repeatedly by numerous pens and brushes. This is not an easy book to write, the biography of Caesar. ![]() as well as husband, father, lover and adulterer.” In this landmark biography, Goldsworthy examines Caesar as military leader, all of these roles and places his subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C. In the introduction to his biography of the great Roman emperor, Adrian Goldsworthy writes, “Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar’s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later. Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of the great Roman emperor’s life, Goldsworthy covers not only the great Roman emperor’s accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country.
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