Professor Catherine Steel
Appearances
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Or it might just have been that they're looking around for a flamen and there aren't that many patricians left. Because the problem with the hereditary status that descends through the mayor line is if you haven't got another way of making new patricians, and there wasn't a way of making new patricians join the Republic, they eventually all die out. So there aren't that many patricians left.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And maybe Sinner was thinking, well, we need to fill this office.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yeah. I mean, he may never in fact have held the office. For whatever reason, this appointment as flamen doesn't go through. It doesn't take. And the reason it doesn't take is partly that Cinna is killed. The politics of the 80s are dominated by Sulla, even though Sulla is in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Because Sulla, you know, there was a round of internal disturbance, which was a failed attempt to stop Sulla from taking control of the campaign against Mithridates.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Mithridates, exactly, is king of Pontus. He's been a problem for Rome for two, three decades by this point. Sulla is going to deal with Mithridates. And he goes off and he's engaged in campaigning against Mithridates throughout the mid-80s, during which period his political opponents in Rome take control once more. But everybody knows that Sulla will come back with a well-trained army.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And at that point, there will need to be some resolution to the gulf between him and the Marians. And that's unlikely to be resolved by peaceful negotiation. And that happens. And Sulla returns. And Sulla is victorious in his campaign to seize control of Roman Italy.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And it seems to be the case that he is unwilling to confirm the position of Caesar as flamen dialis, a small element in Sulla's much larger plans to reform the Roman state.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yes. After he has taken control militarily, he gets himself installed as dictator, which is an office within the Roman res publica, though it hasn't actually been used for about 120 years. The Romans come up with other crisis mechanisms in the course of the second century.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
But Sulla decides that the dictator will be a good position because the great thing about the dictatorship, unlike other offices at Rome, is you don't have a colleague. There's very little limit on what you can do. And it's an emergency office, so you have emergency powers. So Sulla makes himself dictator, and you're allowed to be dictator for a particular purpose.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
He says he's dictator to re-establish the res publica, which is a carte blanche for a major program of reform, and also the elimination of his enemies. Because one of the things that Sulla does, well, I mean, initially he starts by killing prisoners of war. He famously holds a meeting of the Senate within earshot of where prisoners of war are being massacred.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
so that the Senate is under no illusion as to what they are required to do. But then he moves to the bureaucratization of mass murder. So he comes up with prescription lists. So he publishes lists of names. And the point is, if somebody's name is on that list, there will be no legal penalties if they're killed, and there will be a reward, and their property is confiscated.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Now, there is an argument that Sulla kind of institutes prescriptions under pressure from people who said, you have to put some limits on the slaughter. So there is an argument that says this is better than what was happening immediately after his conquest of Rome. But it's hundreds of names. It's the elimination of his political enemies. Now, Caesar comes under suspicion.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
He's the son-in-law of Cinna. He has married Cornelia. And Sulla wants him to divorce Cornelia. which I think actually would have kind of put the kibosh on his being flamen anyway, because the flamen has to give up his office under certain circumstances, including death or divorce of spouse. And Caesar refuses to do that.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
What I think is less clear is how confident Caesar was about the penalty he's likely to face for this act of defiance. And in fact, his mother and his other female relatives, we are told, keep Caesar off the prescription list.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And I mean, I think at this point, the patrician status is quite interesting, because there's another good example of Sulla's apparent making an exception for people of patrician status. One of the consuls of the year 83 is a man called Scipio Asiagines, who's a patrician and is defeated by Sulla in battle.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
But whereas in general, those who fought against Sulla are prescribed and hunted down, he treats Scipio with Great deal of lenience and respect. And even when Scipio then kind of doesn't abide by the terms of agreement, the worst that he faces is exile. But he isn't hunted down. He isn't killed.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And that's often used as an example to say that Sulla had some sort of respect for the patrician status that he had.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
One of the interesting things about the politics at the very end of the Republic is after a period in which patricians don't seem to be disproportionately successful, if you look at who gets to the consulship in the 30 years between Sulla and the end of the Republic, there are a lot of men of patrician status.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So something about the way that the sullen res publica felt and operated seems to have favored this particular ancient status. Anyway, there we have Caesar no longer flamandialis, having had a row with Sulla, so we're told, but actually not basically alienated from it. Because what does he do now that he's free of the obligation of being flamand? He goes off and he does some military service.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And the commanders he's serving under are all sullens, because at this point, everybody is.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yes, military heroism. He gets a military decoration for rescuing a fellow citizen's life during the assault on Mytilene, which is part of the hangover of the campaigns against Mithridates. And it's at this point, isn't it, that he's captured by pirates. And so the story goes, he gets on terribly well with them and he's eventually ransomed.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And then he does what he says he was going to do, which is he comes back and he extirpates them. But as an act of charity, he has their throats slit before they are crucified. Now, this is a good story. It does various things about the Caesar myth, about the single-mindedness, the military ruthlessness, but also some strange sense that he's not actually a bloodthirsty man.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Because later on, when we get to the Civil War period between him and Pompey, one of the great aspects of Caesar's self-presentation is precisely his clementia, his mercy. Because when Civil War breaks out in 49, there is a real fear that the victory of either side will be accompanied by the kind of violence that accompanied Sulla's victory.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And in particular, there's real fear that if Pompey wins, he's the main military commander on the other side, he'll be a second Sulla. Because of course, Pompey really is a Sulla adherent through and through. And so Caesar definitely capitalizes on that in 49 by saying, well, I shall be merciful. My victory will not be accompanied by massive bloodshed.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And so we can see how that kind of aspect of Caesar can lead to the generation of stories about his mild non-bloodthirsty temper earlier on.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It is. I mean, so in 70, probably in 70, there's a little bit of debate about the dating. He stands for the Cresta ship. which is the most junior of the offices in the cursus honorum, that is the sequence of offices that you hold at Rome, which leads to membership of the Senate.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
There are other more junior elected offices, but the priestesship is the one that makes you automatically, by this point, after Sulla, a senator.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Oh, yeah. Sulu actually, he resigns and goes back to private life. Dies fairly soon afterwards, but of natural causes. Whereas, of course, when Caesar becomes dictator, he's never going to give it up, which itself becomes a problem. Yes, so Sulu is out of the way. And the res publica has re-established itself, at least to obvious sight. We are back with elected office.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
We have two councils every year. The last remaining bits of the civil wars are being dealt with.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It takes quite a long time, not within Italy itself, but one, I think I mentioned Sertorius, he's one of the men who held office in the mid-80s, one of Sulla's opponents, and he leaves Italy for Spain, well, Hispania, the Iberian Peninsula, where he sets up an alternative state, which lasts the best part of a decade. So he gathers to himself men who've been prescribed and have got out of Italy.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
I mean, his own army, he's taken over. So there are Roman citizens there. There are quite a lot of Roman citizens based in Hispania by now. And he basically establishes an alternative locus of power and negotiates with Mithridates, who, despite Sulla's claims to have won a great victory, is still surprisingly, yes, king of Pontus. And dealing with Sertorius actually takes quite a long time.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
He's a very effective military commander. He defeats various Romans who are sent to him. And this is one of the places where Pompey becomes such a great figure. So we do need to just talk about Pompey, if only to remind ourselves how conventional Caesar's career is. So Pompey is an adherent of Sulla. He's the son of a man who reaches the consulship in 89 BC.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And in fact, Pompey faces some legal challenges after that. But the important thing about Pompey is when Sulla returns to Rome, Pompey, although at that point in his early 20s, raises an army and takes it to Sulla. Okay, so complete illegality. But he turns up and Sulla is so grateful for the military forces that he kind of, with a bit of a fudge, he authorizes Pompey's power.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And he then uses Pompey as an important part of the team that he uses to seize control of the Roman world to the extent that Pompey triumphs, has his first triumph, even though he has never held elected office. And the basis of which he could have imperium is slightly dodgy, probably as early as 81. And then Pompey, what's Pompey going to do?
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
This man in his early 20s, too young really to hold any new serious elected office at Rome. Well, what the Senate eventually does is they send Pompey pro-consulate in the place of a consul, even though he's never held his office, to help deal with Sertorius.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So he spends much of the 70s campaigning, eventually successfully against Sertorius, though it doesn't harm his activity or that of Metellus Pius, the other Roman general, that one of Sertorius' followers actually stabs him at a banquet and then the mopping up is quite straightforward. And that's how Pompey
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
kind of is spending his 20s and then he gets back to Italy and there's something for him to do because there's the Spartacus revolt which the Romans have been making a total mess of in terms of suppressing so he turns up just in time to claim all the credit for wrapping it up Which is maybe one of the reasons why he and Crassus disliked each other so much.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And then, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, does agree to dismiss his army. But surprise, surprise, he's allowed to stand for the consulship, considerably ahead of the legal age and not having held any earlier offices. So that's what a really spectacular career looks like, okay?
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yeah. So Pompey and Crassus are consuls in 70. They are probably consuls at the time at which Caesar has to stand for the quaestorship.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And okay, he's elected, but there are 20 Quaestors every year, so it's hardly that big a deal.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So it emerges over the course of the res publica, but it's very clearly standardized. One of the things that Sulla does is he reaffirms what happens. So you can stand for the priestesship when you're 30, and that's kind of pretty much an essential office now because that's the office that also gets you into the Senate. At 39, you can stand for the priestesship.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And at 42, you can stand for the consulship. And you can't be preacher if you haven't been priest, and you can't be consul if you haven't been preacher. There's an additional office called the Aedileship, which you can hold in the mid-30s. And Caesar actually does hold that because one of the things that makes the Aedileship quite attractive is it's a magistrate that's based in Rome.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So it's not a military office. It's about kind of organization of the city of Rome. And it has some quite significant religious duties to organize festivals. And the details of those festivals are very much up to the aediles to decide the power of them. So if they decide to spend a lot of money, they can put on fantastic shows.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
displays, which are generally regarded as adding to their popularity, right? Because these are free public shows, which people love. So invest heavily in the theatrical shows or the gladiatorial games or the beast hunts or whatever. This is all great. So we've got letters in the 50s BC from Caelius, who's a protege of Cicero to Cicero in Cilicia saying, please send me some panthers.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
They make for a good show, right? And as I say, Caesar will subsequently be aedile in the mid-60s. He holds the office with a man called Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who will be Caesar's colleague as consul in 59. And one of the really interesting things, I think, about Roman political life is if you're a boy in a political family, you're going to know
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
very early on who your likely rivals are because of the way that eligibility for office is dependent on age and there's considerable cachet in holding the office as early as you possibly can. So you're kind of looking around the schoolroom and thinking... Who's going to be my rival?
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yeah, I'm going to be standing in the same area. Anyway, although they are ostensibly colleagues as Edile, and we're jumping ahead a bit, but it may be worth tossing in, and therefore collaborate on everything they do, nobody pays any attention to Publius. It's all about Caesar.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
To the extent that they... I think the story is that they're like the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which everybody just calls the Temple of Castor. So they're a pair, but Caesar just mops up all the credit and popularity.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yeah. We're not quite sure how Caesar manages to scoop up all the credit. I mean, I think it must partly be to do with charisma and his ability to present himself as a politician, to create that kind of appearance of rapport with the Roman people. But money is really important, and some of it will have been Bivulis'. Very little of it actually is likely to be Caesar's.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's going to be the men who were lending money to Caesar. Because one of the things that we are consistently told about Caesar is that he's heavily in debt. So he's borrowing money in order to finance his career. Now, we need to contextualize this, partly because people don't tend to go around lending money without security in Rome.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So we're probably talking about liquidity issues rather than actual impoverishment. But Cicero certainly owes a lot of money, which is borrowed against property that may not be very liquid. We just don't, I think, have good evidence about how the Iuli Caesare's family wealth matched up against other families.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
What we do, I think, know fairly confidently is from the second century BC onwards, senatorial wealth is not only increasing as a class, as a result of conquests of the Eastern Mediterranean, but also diverging within that class. And, you know, it is true that the Julii Causaris have not produced any of the great generals who have been conquering the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And so some of the more spectacular wealth may not have been part of that family. Equally, I'm ever so slightly hesitant about kind of taking all the stories on face value. I mean, the most famous one is about the election to the Pontifex Maximus in 63, where Caesar is supposed to have said to his mother Aurelia, I'll come back Pontifex Maximus or I won't come back.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
The point being that he had bribed so heavily to win that election. He was therefore so heavily in debt that if he didn't manage to secure election, you know, disaster. And again, these stories about Caesar as a man who is prepared to take enormous risks. You know, that kind of bold visionary.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Well, Caesar is clearly a very effective orator. You only have to read the Gallic Wars to see that this is somebody who is a genius with language. It's a different kind of genius from Cicero, but it's doing something equally extraordinary with Latin. But it's completely, completely novel, right? I mean, we tend to regard Caesar as a model of how you write Latin. He created that model, right?
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's all new. And it's bizarre. There's a lot about Caesar's litany that is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, totally wonderful. I remember just being bowled over by Caesar when I started to read a bit when I was at school. I mean, extraordinary stuff. But we shouldn't make too much of Caesar as an orator or at least as a lawyer.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
I mean, you're absolutely right that one of the things he does early on in his career is he brings some prosecutions, a couple of prosecutions. Which is interesting because actually, I mean, there's no Crown Prosecution Service or anything.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Every prosecution at Rome in the so-called Judicia Publica, the big jury courts, for charges which we would generally call criminal, though that, as you know, that criminal civil distinction in Roman law is a bit problematic. So being a prosecutor is one of the relatively few ways in which a young man in his 20s can make an opportunity for himself on the public stage.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
I mean, there can be competition about who can bring charges against somebody. But if you win out and are identified as a prosecutor, then you have an opportunity to speak in a legal context, but on matters of the various charges that are heard in front of these courts tend often to be of public significance. You have an opportunity to make your mark in that way.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And there's clearly a phenomenon of the early career prosecutor where young men choose this way of advertising their existence to the Roman people. I suspect that a lot of it is based on ghostwriters, but that may be a bit unfair on Caesar himself. And that's great. And he does actually publish the speeches that he delivered, but they're not successful. The men he prosecuted were both acquitted.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Which doesn't necessarily imply that he's incompetent, just that decisions around jury activity are quite complex in Rome, and that they're both very early on in the Sullen period, and that maybe he'd chosen figures rather too well embedded in the establishment to be successful. Interesting debate to be had about what's going on.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Okay, three reasons. First of all, he stands for and is elected praetor. Not probably hugely surprising that he's successful, but this is the next stage of his career. And we'll want to talk in a moment about what he does as praetor. Secondly, he's elected as Pontifex Maximus. right? And thirdly, he participates in the debate on the Catilinarian conspirators. So Pontifex Maximus, right.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So the fact that he had been kind of abortively Flamandialis doesn't seem to have stood in his way. Though interestingly, the position of Flamandialis is not itself filled until Augustus. I suspect that the problem is nobody quite knew what to do. If Caesar had kind of been Flamand, can you replace it while he's still alive? Maybe just too difficult to go there.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Well, thank you for having me again. Always reassuring to get a second invitation.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So he's co-opted as a pontiff quite young. So that is a mark, right? That is a mark of distinction relatively early in his career. Probably his major achievement, actually, up until that point. And that will be a reflection of family and background and the fact that, you know, whatever his originally rocky start was. He does have connections within the Roman governing class.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Remember, I talked about those relatives of his mother. The Aureliai Cottae produced three consuls in the course of the 70s BC, which is pretty good going, three brothers. And he gets into the College of Pontiffs, which is fine because Roman aristocrats, particularly patricians, do often get co-opted quite young into these positions.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
What is much more surprising is his decision to stand for the position of Pontifex Maximus, because he's standing against two other much more senior men, much more eminent. He's still relatively junior. He hasn't held the consulship. I mean, we do have examples of earlier Pontifices Maximi, who haven't yet got to the consulship.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
They were elected a bit young, so it's not unprecedented, but it's a bold move to stand for election. It is an elected position, so you have to be a pontiff in order to stand, but it's then election. And he is accused of heavy bribery to secure the position. And he's successful. So there he is, head of the state religion.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And he clearly, over the coming decades, makes use of that in his public profile. But probably not a huge amount yet. Because, of course, between 62 and 45, he spends almost all of his time outside Rome. He's in Rome for his consulship, but that aside, he's mostly away. And unlike the Flamandialis, which has to be in Rome, it seems actually relatively easy for the Pontifex Maximus to be absent.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's only unusual in the sense that the Pontifex Maximus, more normally, at least in recent years, has been somebody who has already held a consulship and therefore is not going to be holding office. But the juxtaposition of offices isn't, I think, in itself a problem. But what is striking is that he's successful in that election.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And then the third thing in 63 is his involvement or not with the Catalinarian conspiracy. So to recap, Lucius Sergius Catalina, another patrician in fact, From a family even more decayed and unsuccessful in recent decades than the Iuli Caesares, another sullen protégé tries and fails for, I think, the third time to be elected to the consulship in the summer of 63.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And he's been making various inflammatory statements up to this point, but this seems to be the moment at which Catiline tips over into more direct action in order to secure his position. The whole thing is quite murky. There is an armed uprising.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
what exactly Catiline was planning in the city of Rome and at what point he chooses to join forces with the armed uprising in Etruria is less clear, but certainly he ends the year in a position of open revolt against Rome. Now, some people thought that Caesar was part of this conspiracy.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Some people didn't think Caesar was part of the conspiracy, but tried to make it seem as though he was in order to blacken his name. There are plans to name him as a Catilinarian adherent in the great debates in December, which fail. And actually, Cicero does not leave open the door for that. But the really striking thing is the debate on December the 5th. 63 BC.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's not. It's not. We mustn't forget that brilliant anecdote that Plutarch tells us about Caesar weeping because at the age of 33, I think, when he's comparing himself with Alexander and basically saying, I've accomplished nothing.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Because what has happened at that point? Catiline has left the city of Rome and is at the head of the armed forces in Etruria. There is considerable alarm about that in Rome at the time, though in practice, the military mopping up in January will be relatively straightforward.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's just north of Rome, yeah. Tuscany. What is more alarming is that there were envoys ambassadors in Rome for one of the tribes in Gaul, the Allobroges, who were based in southern Gaul and who had come to Rome to complain about rapacious behavior by Roman administrators and traders and so on.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
The Catilinarian conspirators in the city of Rome attempted to suborn these men to join with them and therefore to instigate an uprising in southern Gaul to be simultaneous with the military activity in Etruria and it is alleged elsewhere in Italy. And the Allobroges decide this isn't actually a particularly good offer and they tell Cicero about it. And Cicero says, okay.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
What I think you should do is get some letters from the men you're talking to in which they set out and guarantee their support. And then I think you ought to set off back for Gaul. And I will arrange for you to be captured as you're leaving Rome and your possessions searched. And we will find those letters.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And Cicero sets this up, and it happens, and therefore he is in a position, Cicero is in a position to bring to the Senate, which he does on December the 3rd, five letters in which various Romans reveal their treacherous plotting. And what is particularly horrifying about this is some of these Romans are quite senior.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So there's an ex-consul who was holding the praetorship that year, and I think a couple of other senators. So this is kind of the heart of the establishment are apparently in league with foreign enemies. So this is a big deal. The men involved are arrested. And then there's a big debate on December the 5th as to what to do with them.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And from Cicero's point of view, this is where his public career starts to collapse. It doesn't look like at the time, but it does because the result of that debate is a vote for execution, which Cicero oversees on the evening of December the 5th. And that's very, very problematic legally. He has no legal authority whatsoever to execute citizens without trial.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And part of the context for that, I'm sure, is he was looking at Pompey the Great, his slightly older contemporary who had achieved massive, completely unprecedented things by the time that Pompey was that age.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Now, we know a lot about this debate because Sallust, who wrote a monograph on the Catilinarian conspiracy, includes towards the end of it an enormous account of the debate in the Senate. We also have Cicero's speech, which he publishes himself as the fourth Catilinarian. Interestingly, Sallust gives Cicero virtually no part in the debate.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
He concentrates instead on the argument against capital punishment and the restatement of the argument for capital punishment. And the argument for capital punishment, which wins the day, is restated by Cato, who will become known as Cato Uticensis, the Cato who fights against Caesar during the Civil War and dies by suicide after he's defeated Utica, that great Stoic sage of the late Republic.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And the case against capital punishment is put by Caesar. And this is really interesting in terms of the dynamics of senatorial debate, because what seems to have happened is that Cicero kind of opened the debate, and then one of the consuls-elect, who was going to take office in a few weeks' time, Silenus, puts the motion of death.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And everybody agrees with him, because you're called to express your opinion in a senatorial debate in order of seniority. And it is not until we get to the praetors-elect...
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And Caesar, who's called among the praetors elect, that Caesar, rather than just saying, I agree with so-and-so, if you're a senator and you're called into debate, you have to say something, but it doesn't need to be anything more than I agree with X. You don't have to make a speech.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
But Caesar stands up and he gives what Sallust, at least, records as a very long speech in which he argues against capital punishment. On grounds partly of illegality, but partly on efficacy and partly on humanity. And it's incredibly influential. Everybody afterwards sort of says, oh, no, I didn't really mean death. No, no, I didn't think we should do that.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And Silenus stands up and changes his mind and it's all a total mess. Until the younger Cato stands up and says, no, come on, guys, this is a crisis, decisive action. And Cato's measure is the one that's actually put to the vote and it's passed. And then Cicero takes the senatorial decree and he goes off and he executes it within a bad hour.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
I think so. I think so. I mean, it's quite a high-risk strategy for Caesar, given that there have been rumours that he's involved with Catiline, because he's apparently defending them. So it takes a risk, but it allows himself to locate himself on the side of popular rights. And interestingly...
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So Caesar's career, his early career, arguably there's nothing particularly remarkable about it, or at least nothing particularly remarkable given that it was a pretty turbulent time at Rome. And I think I probably want to suggest that the first time that Caesar really begins to look as if he might be something a bit different, is the year 63, right?
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Earlier in 63, there's a legal case that Caesar, I don't think himself talks to, but somebody who's very much known as one of his allies is heavily involved, a man called Labienus, who, if you've read the Gallic Wars, you will see that Labienus is there as second in command constantly.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And early in 63, there's a really interesting case, and we know quite a lot about it because Cicero offers the defense. And it relates to events from 37 years earlier in 100 BCE. When there had been civil disturbance in Rome, there had been an attempt to stand illegally for office, there had been the assassination of a candidate, much of it led by the Tribune of the Plebs, Saturninus.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And Saturninus and his followers, things get completely out of hand. Marius is consul, and Saturninus and his followers take refuge in the Senate House. prior they must have assumed to some sort of negotiation, or they must have hoped prior to some sort of negotiation to resolve the crisis. What actually happens
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
is that a band of citizens race up and climb on through the Senate House and stone them to death using the roof tiles. And it's kind of all hushed up. Marius kind of loses a lot of reputational kind of oomph from this whole fracas and catastrophe, and it's a disaster. But the whole thing is basically hushed up. But 37 years later, it's revived by the prosecution of a man who's accused of
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
having been involved, who I think is chosen just because there aren't that many people who were thought to have been part of the mob who are still alive. It's a show trial in the sense that it is an opportunity to talk through issues of senatorial authority and the right to trial and popular rights. It's pretty clear where Caesar is placing himself in that trial of Rabirius earlier in 63.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's very prescient in some ways because of what happens later in 63, but it kind of is developing a consistent story for Caesar as somebody who, despite his patrician background and despite the fact that because he's a patrician, he hasn't been tribune of the plebs, he's not eligible to hold that office, nonetheless does seem to be alert to the will of the people.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
That's where his emphasis on his links with Marius become relevant, which he does do. So he talks about Marius when he gives funeral speeches for some of his female relatives, where he talks about Marius. And one of the things we're told he does as edile is restore some of Marius' statues and other memorials, which of course Sulla had very much tried to eliminate from Rome.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So he's developing a complex public profile as he moves up the cursors on the wall.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yes. I mean, his praetorship gets off to a bit of a stuttering start because there's some immediate anti-Cicero feeling that is stirred up by one of the tribunes of 62. And initially, Caesar seems to be quite sympathetic to that. He backs off very quickly, though, when the Senate make it clear that there is no sympathy for this. And the rest of his praetorship passes off smoothly.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And he then does what praetors normally do at this period, which is he takes military command. So he goes back to Hispania, where he holds military command. Reasonably successfully, in fact, quite successfully, because when he returns to Rome in order to stand for the consulship, there is an attempt to prevent him from doing that by holding up the debate on his triumph.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Because one of the kind of weird technicalities of Roman religious and political practice is that the man who holds the triumph must hold imperium. He must hold the right to command that he has held during the campaign that has led to the triumph. And you surrender imperium at the moment at which you cross the city walls.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And you can only stand for election if you make your profession of candidacy in person. So there's an attempt to prevent Caesar from standing for the consulship in 59 by delaying his triumph. And what Caesar does, and again, it becomes part of the Caesar myth because it's this kind of ruthlessness and dynamism and decisive action, is he says, fine, forget my triumph.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
When he's elected Pontifex Maximus and when he contributes so remarkably to the debate on the Catanarian conspirators.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And he crosses the city walls and he makes his professio and he stands for election and he's elected. So he doesn't get a triumph out of Hispania. And arguably, he makes up for that much later on. But that's another story.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And remember, too, that the survival of the biographies means that we do have more anecdotes about Caesar than we do about other people. I mean, most Roman politicians, you know, we notice they exist when they hold the consulship.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that up until that point, you can tell a story that fits in much more happily within a pretty conventional narrative about building a career as a politician at Rome. Not without some oddities, sure, but a much more conventional story.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Of course, who in the historiography of Caesar becomes an important point of comparison. It's Caesar with whom Alexander is paired in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, for example. That becomes a fairly standard comparison, yes.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It is, compared with the rest of antiquity, which doesn't, of course, mean that it's rich by the standards that a historian of the modern world would recognize as such. And it's worth saying that kind of at the outset, although we know a lot about Caesar in comparison with other figures from antiquity, we know virtually nothing about his childhood.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Because ancient biographies aren't really interested in childhood as a period, they might record some anecdotes if those are predictive in some way. But as it happens, not for Caesar. So how do we know about Caesar? Well, we have two ancient biographies of him because he's included both in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, but also he's the first of the 12 biographies in Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So we've got two biographies, both of which do what ancient biography has done, which is that they combine narrative with an interest in the smaller details of an individual, which may be morally revealing. So we do have quite a lot of anecdotal material about Caesar. The end of the Republic is itself pretty well documented. We've got all of Cicero's surviving material, speeches, letters.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
We've got the historian Cassius Dio, who's obviously writing in Greek rather later, but has access to a lot of good source material. We've got Appian. And of course, we've got Caesar's own writings, his campaigns in Gaul that he wrote, and then his account of the Civil War.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Neither of which is going to be of particular interest for us, though, of course, because both of those were written after his consulship, as was his work on the Latin language, De Analogia. which survives only in the most modest fragments. But it's an important reminder. We think of Caesar as a great military leader, a great political leader, or at least a transformative political leader.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
But he was also one of the leading intellectuals in the late Republic.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
We can talk in general terms in some detail about that. And we do know a bit, in fact, about Caesar's family, which is also not irrelevant, I think, to what we're thinking about. So he is born into a patrician family. Now, patrician has a very distinct technical meaning when we're talking about Republican Rome.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
It's a status that adheres to a small number of families who were the families who were politically important before the end of the monarchy and the foundation of the Republic. And therefore, at the start of the Republic formed the membership of the Senate. and therefore produced the annual consuls. So the patrician class had a monopoly on political power at the start of the Republic.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
That's the stories Romans tell us about themselves. And in terms of the internal history of the Roman Republic in its first couple of centuries, one of the most important stories is the so-called struggle of the orders, which is the fight by everybody who's not a patrician. And if you're not a patrician, you're a plebeian, and that's everybody else.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
the fight by the plebeians for political equality, which is successful. Okay, so the patrician monopoly on political power has ended over the course of the fourth century. And by the third century, it seems to be largely forgotten, or at least that's the story. And so what emerges in place of the patricians is the nobilitas, a mixed patrician plebeian group of families who dominate politically.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Wealthy, interconnected, despite the distinction between patrician and plebeian, and who accept new members gradually and reluctantly. So men from outside the nobility do join the political class, and sometimes they get to the consulship in a single generation, more often it takes a bit longer. Right. But the standard view, I guess, of the end of the Republic is this distinction no longer matters.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
But I don't think that can quite work. There is still a cachet in being a patrician, in belonging to one of these very ancient families. And the point is, of course, that Caesar, the Julii Caesares were one of these ancient families. And it seems to get a bit more prominent with Sulla, who we'll come onto in a moment, who is a patrician himself and seems to value that status.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So Caesar's born into a family that can trace its origins back to before the establishment of the Republic, but one that has not been hugely successful over the last century or so. It's had members who have reached the consulship. I mean, one can overestimate the decay of the Iulii Caesares. A cousin is consul in 91, for example.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
But Caesar's own immediate family are not politically active, politically successful, and his father dies relatively young when Caesar is a teenager. So he doesn't have quite the heft of some of the really big political families in terms of immediate access. On the other hand, his mother Aurelia...
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
who comes from a plebeian gens, but one that has been politically successful, is looking quite promising. And in fact, three men who may be his uncles, or they may be cousins of his mother, hold a consulship in the 70s BC. So it's not a negligible force. He's born within the political aristocracy. He's born from an ancient family.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And at the time at which he's born, of course, the dominant figure on the political landscape is Gaius Marius, who so happens to be married to Julius Caesar's aunt.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
One of the interesting things is the existence of that marriage because Marius himself is a new man. And it's an interesting indication that Caesar's grandfather clearly spotted talent and ability in this new man and decided he would be a good match for his daughter. And that connection with Marius is quite important to Caesar.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And Caesar makes quite a lot of this as he begins to develop his political career.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Probably not. Early mortality is such a ubiquitous feature of the ancient world that Roman law was pretty well able to deal with these kinds of things. In legal terms, it meant that Caesar was not under his paternal authority, but mechanisms would be in place to manage his property. And law of property and inheritance is pretty keen on agnatic relationships, relationships in the male line.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And I suspect that insofar as Caesar as a 14-year-old, 15-year-old was beginning to think about his political career, the death of his father was a blow because it removed a supporter, somebody who could advocate for him, who might himself hold high office that could promote him. But the wider network of friends and relations and property was still intact.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And any decisions that Caesar might have taken himself were rather taken out of his hands by a strange episode, really the first kind of, as it were, official moment we see Caesar, when he's nominated for the position of flamen dialis. Now, the flamen is a word for priest.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And there are three particularly important priesthoods, one of which is the Flamen of Jupiter, Dialis, an old form, so Flamen Dialis. And the weird thing about this office is it's regarded as very important, but it was surrounded by a whole set of taboos and restrictions that we know about from the later writer Aulus Gellius, who has a chapter on the Flamenach.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Which meant that it was practically impossible to combine being Flamandialis with a political career. Because you couldn't ride a horse, for example. So military activity is kind of out of it. And there are various other restrictions about travel and activity and so on.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
So unlike most priesthoods in the Roman Republic, including being a Pontifex, which Caesar does become, or Pontifex Maximus, the Flamandialis really was a religious office that kept you occupied with being a religious figure. So Caesar's nominated for this when the previous holder dies by suicide as part of the disturbances of the early 80s.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
And when the time comes to fill the office, Marius is now dead. Marius takes power again in Rome in 87 and then enters his seventh consulship and shortly afterwards dies. Cinna, who is Marius' ally and is in effective control of Rome in the mid-80s, while Sulla is absent, will no doubt maybe unpack those kind of complex situation in a moment. Cinna
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
nominates the young Caesar, Thor, and also, because the flamen has to be married and he has to be married to another patrician, marries Caesar to his own daughter, Cornelia. And it's not entirely clear whether he was actually inaugurated or whether he was just proposed and the inauguration didn't happen because Sulla got back and Cinna is killed in an uprising and various stuff happens.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Tatum, who discusses this in his biography of Caesar, suggests that actually maybe Caesar's mother, who is likely to be quite important in these discussions and thinking about it, thought that maybe that was the best thing. He makes the point, which hadn't occurred to me and I think is quite interesting. We know Caesar was epileptic
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Or at least we know quite good evidence that he suffered from epilepsy in some form. We know also that epilepsy was regarded as a very unfortunate portent as well as a kind of medical condition in antiquity. And it might have been the kind of thing that his mother thought is this boy is never going to have a serious political career.
The Ancients
Rise of Julius Caesar
Make him flamen dialis, that is an entirely appropriate position for one of his family and status. Maybe that's the best outcome. I think that's much more plausible than the retrojected arguments that say, oh, people could see Caesar was a threat already. Let's put him in the flamenate to keep him under control. I mean, that's nonsense.