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Caesar by Meier, Christian New edition
Paperback
About the author
Christian Meier
80 books16 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Christian Meier is a German historian and professor emeritus of ancient history at the University of Munich.
Christian Meier is a German historian and professor emeritus of ancient history at the University of Munich.
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December 10, 2025
**A very personal account of Caesar**
Christian Meier accomplishes something remarkable in his book : he distills erudition and extensive research into a very personal, almost intimate (although still solidly intellectual) portrait of Julius Caesar. Meier goes beyond the mere description of facts and events that marked the life of this controversial figure. He carefully reconstructs the historic context so as to avoid reading Caesar's actions with a modern eye and to understand how the complex circumstances of the Roman Republic interacted with Caesar's own personal goals. Meier intentionally fills in the gaps left by the primary sources where they are silent, in many cases providing his own personal view of Caesar's reasoning, beliefs and emotions and in others proposing various hypotheses in the form of questions. In a way, the story he describes requires this approach : not only the political environment in the Rome of Caesar was extremely fluid--with rivals making oportunitistic alliances, only to break them the next minute--it was also inconsistent and full of contradictions.
In the Afterword, Meier wraps up the book by returning to the central idea that he repeats several times to explain how one man, no matter how unmatched was his superiority, could have gathered so much power in a society based on aristocratic equality : no new force could be created to place the obsolete and largely ineffectual senatorial order on a new footing; the late republic was not only unable to cope with its internal social problems at home but also couldn't manage the military and administrative troubles abroad. As a palliative, it relied on increasingly powerful men who, while temporarily soothing its pains, expanded its contradictions and inconsistencies, leading eventually to its own collapse. The very same men who were trying to save it were the ones who contributed to its downfall. Among them, Caesar managed to climb higher and higher, eventually becoming **dictator perpetuo**, not only because of his military genius but also due to his political actions that transgressed traditions and norms. His contempt for the old order allowed him to play the political game in Rome with little modesty and a lot of freedom. He deployed an army of deputies, tribunes and senators who represented him at home as effectively as he counted on his war veterans to win on the battlefield abroad, in both cases even when confronting enemies with larger resources.
There are neither heroes nor villains in this book, but Meier does place the key historical figures on the chessboard of Rome as he would with the main characters of a novel : **Sulla** is violent and ruthless and the bloody civil war he waged to restore the ability of the Senate to rule (while ironically misappropriating the Senate's power in the process) helped mold Caesar's contempt for the senatorial regime, which then made him the **outsider** that would impose himself over the old order. **Crassus**, whose almost offensive wealth allowed him to exert widespread influence over senators and tribunes, was one of Caesar's main political bridges into the Roman aristocracy, especially during the years of the triumvirate. It is ironic that Crassus' major campaign abroad against the Parthians ended up with his death and that Caesar himself was also murdered just before starting a Parthian campaign. **Pompey** is Caesar's strong military rival, but a reluctant and undecided one. He did stretch the boundaries of his relationship with the Senate but was at the very end not bold enough to completely break with the old institutions. **Cato** is in many ways Caesar's nemesis--he didn't have the military power that Caesar and Pompey could rely on, he didn't even rank the highest in the Senate, yet he was the fiercest defender of Roman traditional values, to the point that even his suicide at Utica made him a very uncomfortable symbol of resistance to Caesar's rise. **Cicero** moves across all of this, dodging political pitfalls with his elegant rhetoric that was respected by senators and Caesar alike. But he was also caught in the crossfire, constantly regretting his pendular alliances to one side or the other, and lamenting the lack of an alternative to bring order and stability to the commonwealth, even if that meant giving up some of the Senate's traditional power along the way.
The last chapters of the book are as dramatic as a suspense novel, and I couldn't really stop reading up to the last page, overtaken by the inevitability of the ides of March : it is like waiting for the train station scene in **Carlito's Way** (and I think now, Carlito has his own Brutus in Pachanga!) We all know how Caesar dies and the way Meier builds the tension that leads to the conspiracy plot is so compelling that, for me, it was impossible not to feel a thrill when the dictator falls at last--dramatically, covering himself with his toga in a last gesture of dignity.
The tragedy of these last pages is remarkable : as Caesar got stronger and stronger with his victories in the civil war and the campaigns that pacified Spain, Gaul and Africa, all that was left for the senators to do was flattering Caesar with increasingly extravagant honors and powers, out of either fear or awe. Kingship was a capital crime in Rome and Caesar resisted to be named **king** because not even he felt comfortable crossing that very last line. But the more the senators adorned Caesar with honors and power, the more he looked like a criminal that should be wiped out. Caesar was not able to see that all the glory and glamour of his triumphal garment, the laurel wreath, the golden chair he was allowed to sit on and the statues that aligned him with gods and mythical heroes, all that made him look, to the eyes of many citizens, as a sacrificial animal. That is probably the strongest, if not cruelest, image of Caesar depicted in the book.
Caesar dismissed his bodyguard even after being warned that there had been failed attempts to kill him. To Meier, that showed how Caesar faced death as the soldier he was proud to be. But Meier also wonders if Caesar was not at the end also taken by fatalism, or worse, by a melancholic sense of futility for all he had won and achieved. In the end, was all that worth it? Only someone who studied and reflected so deeply could feel comfortable to go as far as to probe into the most silent recesses of this man's mind and ask this question.
Christian Meier accomplishes something remarkable in his book : he distills erudition and extensive research into a very personal, almost intimate (although still solidly intellectual) portrait of Julius Caesar. Meier goes beyond the mere description of facts and events that marked the life of this controversial figure. He carefully reconstructs the historic context so as to avoid reading Caesar's actions with a modern eye and to understand how the complex circumstances of the Roman Republic interacted with Caesar's own personal goals. Meier intentionally fills in the gaps left by the primary sources where they are silent, in many cases providing his own personal view of Caesar's reasoning, beliefs and emotions and in others proposing various hypotheses in the form of questions. In a way, the story he describes requires this approach : not only the political environment in the Rome of Caesar was extremely fluid--with rivals making oportunitistic alliances, only to break them the next minute--it was also inconsistent and full of contradictions.
In the Afterword, Meier wraps up the book by returning to the central idea that he repeats several times to explain how one man, no matter how unmatched was his superiority, could have gathered so much power in a society based on aristocratic equality : no new force could be created to place the obsolete and largely ineffectual senatorial order on a new footing; the late republic was not only unable to cope with its internal social problems at home but also couldn't manage the military and administrative troubles abroad. As a palliative, it relied on increasingly powerful men who, while temporarily soothing its pains, expanded its contradictions and inconsistencies, leading eventually to its own collapse. The very same men who were trying to save it were the ones who contributed to its downfall. Among them, Caesar managed to climb higher and higher, eventually becoming **dictator perpetuo**, not only because of his military genius but also due to his political actions that transgressed traditions and norms. His contempt for the old order allowed him to play the political game in Rome with little modesty and a lot of freedom. He deployed an army of deputies, tribunes and senators who represented him at home as effectively as he counted on his war veterans to win on the battlefield abroad, in both cases even when confronting enemies with larger resources.
There are neither heroes nor villains in this book, but Meier does place the key historical figures on the chessboard of Rome as he would with the main characters of a novel : **Sulla** is violent and ruthless and the bloody civil war he waged to restore the ability of the Senate to rule (while ironically misappropriating the Senate's power in the process) helped mold Caesar's contempt for the senatorial regime, which then made him the **outsider** that would impose himself over the old order. **Crassus**, whose almost offensive wealth allowed him to exert widespread influence over senators and tribunes, was one of Caesar's main political bridges into the Roman aristocracy, especially during the years of the triumvirate. It is ironic that Crassus' major campaign abroad against the Parthians ended up with his death and that Caesar himself was also murdered just before starting a Parthian campaign. **Pompey** is Caesar's strong military rival, but a reluctant and undecided one. He did stretch the boundaries of his relationship with the Senate but was at the very end not bold enough to completely break with the old institutions. **Cato** is in many ways Caesar's nemesis--he didn't have the military power that Caesar and Pompey could rely on, he didn't even rank the highest in the Senate, yet he was the fiercest defender of Roman traditional values, to the point that even his suicide at Utica made him a very uncomfortable symbol of resistance to Caesar's rise. **Cicero** moves across all of this, dodging political pitfalls with his elegant rhetoric that was respected by senators and Caesar alike. But he was also caught in the crossfire, constantly regretting his pendular alliances to one side or the other, and lamenting the lack of an alternative to bring order and stability to the commonwealth, even if that meant giving up some of the Senate's traditional power along the way.
The last chapters of the book are as dramatic as a suspense novel, and I couldn't really stop reading up to the last page, overtaken by the inevitability of the ides of March : it is like waiting for the train station scene in **Carlito's Way** (and I think now, Carlito has his own Brutus in Pachanga!) We all know how Caesar dies and the way Meier builds the tension that leads to the conspiracy plot is so compelling that, for me, it was impossible not to feel a thrill when the dictator falls at last--dramatically, covering himself with his toga in a last gesture of dignity.
The tragedy of these last pages is remarkable : as Caesar got stronger and stronger with his victories in the civil war and the campaigns that pacified Spain, Gaul and Africa, all that was left for the senators to do was flattering Caesar with increasingly extravagant honors and powers, out of either fear or awe. Kingship was a capital crime in Rome and Caesar resisted to be named **king** because not even he felt comfortable crossing that very last line. But the more the senators adorned Caesar with honors and power, the more he looked like a criminal that should be wiped out. Caesar was not able to see that all the glory and glamour of his triumphal garment, the laurel wreath, the golden chair he was allowed to sit on and the statues that aligned him with gods and mythical heroes, all that made him look, to the eyes of many citizens, as a sacrificial animal. That is probably the strongest, if not cruelest, image of Caesar depicted in the book.
Caesar dismissed his bodyguard even after being warned that there had been failed attempts to kill him. To Meier, that showed how Caesar faced death as the soldier he was proud to be. But Meier also wonders if Caesar was not at the end also taken by fatalism, or worse, by a melancholic sense of futility for all he had won and achieved. In the end, was all that worth it? Only someone who studied and reflected so deeply could feel comfortable to go as far as to probe into the most silent recesses of this man's mind and ask this question.
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