#Suetonius gaius julius caesar summary full#

On Caesar's behavior in 63, our most important source is The Catiline Conspiracy by Caesar's partisan Sallust, or -to use his full name- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 BCE). Cicero's speeches are very informative, especially On the provinces for the consuls, For Marcellus, For Ligarius and the Philippic speeches against Mark Antony. The same selection was made in the collections of Cicero's Letters to Friends and Letters to Brutus. As these letters were rediscovered during the reign of Caesar's descendant Nero (who was emperor 54-68 CE), several unbecoming letters about Caesar were not published. To a large extent, his Letters to Atticus are private correspondence and they give us first-rate information about the political life in Rome in Caesar's days. The correspondence of Cicero cannot be dismissed. It should be given flesh with other information, for which Caesar's own writings are very important. These two biographies give us the outline of Caesar's life, a mere skeleton. His biography is meant as a counterpart to a Life of Alexander the Great: consequently, the moral is totally different, namely that Greeks and Romans have much more in common than they want to admit. Of course, this makes him one of the most interesting authors of antiquity, but sometimes he seems to portray his emperors a nuance too black.Īnother moralist is the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (45-120 CE), who was a few years younger than Suetonius and covered more or less the same ground.

To show this, he is fond of stories about cruelty and sexual deviations. Suetonius' moral is clear: if a man has the total freedom and the absolute power of a Roman emperor, he must be strong indeed if he wants to remain honest. He uses it critically: for example, about Caesar's death circulated a story that he had expected the assault, but was shocked to discover that Brutus was one of the conspirators, and that his last words were ''You too, my son?' Suetonius makes clear that he has some doubts about this anecdote.ĭescribing someone's life is a meaningless thing to do, unless there is some moral to be learned. The biographer was in charge of the imperial archives under the emperor Hadrian (who ruled 117-138): in this capacity, Suetonius had access to some of the best possible information. The reign of Augustus marked the end of the Roman Republic and the start of the Roman Empire.Most entertaining is the biography by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, which is the first of the Lives of the twelve Caesars. In the end, Caesar’s grandnephew and adoptive son Octavian emerged as Rome’s leader.

#Suetonius gaius julius caesar summary series#

Much of the Roman public hated the senators for the assassination, and a series of civil wars ensued. The death of Julius Caesar ultimately had the opposite impact of what his assassins hoped. Collectively, the group stabbed Caesar a reported 23 times, killing the Roman leader.

A group of as many as 60 conspirators decided to assassinate Caesar at the meeting of the Senate on March 15, the ides of March. After Caesar attained the status of dictator for life in 44 B.C.E., these officials decided to strike the ultimate blow against his power. Many members of the Senate, a group of appointed (not elected) political leaders, resented Caesar’s popularity and arrogance. Caesar was also a popular author who wrote about his travels, theories, and political views. He was a successful military leader who expanded the re public to include parts of what are now Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. Julius Caesar was immensely popular with the people of Rome. Caesar was the dictator of the Roman Republic, and his assassins were Roman senators, fellow politicians who helped shape Roman policy and government. On March 15, 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in Rome, Italy.