Julius Caesar and the Roman People

by Robert Morstein-Marx

Overview

Julius Caesar was no aspiring autocrat seeking to realize the imperial future but an unusually successful republican leader who was measured against the Republic's traditions and its greatest heroes of the past. Catastrophe befell Rome not because Caesar (or anyone else) turned against the Republic, its norms and institutions, but because Caesar's extraordinary success mobilized a determined opposition which ultimately preferred to precipitate civil war rather than accept its political defeat. Based on painstaking re-analysis of the ancient sources in the light of recent advances in our understanding of the participatory role of the People in the republican political system, a strong emphasis on agents' choices rather than structural causation, and profound scepticism toward the facile determinism that often substitutes for historical explanation, this book offers a radical reinterpretation of a figure of profound historical importance who stands at the turning point of Roman history from Republic to Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108932080
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/21/2023
Pages:	702
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.65(d)

About the Author

Robert Morstein-Marx is a Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2004), Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the East, 148-62 B.C. (1995), and co-editor of A Companion to the Roman Republic (2006).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. The Early Caesar; 3. Caesar's 'Entry into History': The Catilinarian Debate and Its Aftermath; 4. Caesar's First Consulship; 5. Caesar in Gaul: The View from Rome; 6. No Return: Caesar's Dignitas and the Coming of the Civil War; 7. Taking Sides; 8. Caesar's Leniency; 9. En route to the Parthian War; 10. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

‘Highly recommended.’ R. T. Ingoglia, Choice Magazine

‘What Morstein-Marx attempts here is nothing less than a reset of earlier thinking about the end of the Republic and Caesar’s role in its downfall.’ Michael Fallon, Classics For All

'Morstein-Marx is a splitter, and an excellent one. His command of the details is marvelous. The book offers many powerful reinterpretations of oft-told tales, such as Caesar’s march across the river that served as a boundary between Rome and its northern territories, the Rubicon.' Barry Straus, Claremont Review of Books

‘You have to look elsewhere for a quick overview, because Morstein-Marx takes you into the depths of the rabbit hole. However, he conducts this discussion so comprehensively that it must be the starting point for further research. Instead of reading many works, the first address for a serious discussion of the late Roman Republic can now be found here.’ Bastian Schenk, H-Soz-Kult

From the Publisher