Julius Caesar: The Colossus of Rome

by Richard A. Billows

Julius Caesar offers a lively, engaging, and thoroughly up-to-date account of Caesar’s life and times. Richard Billows’ dynamic and fast paced narrative offers an imaginative recounting of actions and events, providing the ideal introduction to Julius Caesar for general readers and students of classics and ancient history. The book is not just a biography of Caesar, but an historical account and explanation of the decline and fall of the Roman Republican governing system, in which Caesar played a crucial part. To understand Caesar’s life and role, it is necessary to grasp the political, social and economic problems Rome was grappling with, and the deep divisions within Roman society that came from them. Caesar has been seen variously as a mere opportunist, a power-hungry autocrat, an arrogant aristocrat disdaining rivals, a traditional Roman noble politician who stumbled into civil war and autocracy thanks to being misunderstood by his rivals, and even as the ideal man and pattern of all virtues. Richard A. Billows argues that such portrayals fail to consider the universal testimony of our ancient sources that Roman political life was divided in Caesar’s time into two great political tendencies, called "optimates" and "populares" in the sources, of which Caesar came to be the leader of the "popularis" faction. Billows suggests that it is only when we see Caesar as the leader of a great political and social movement, that had been struggling with its rival movement for decades and had been several times violently repressed in the course of that struggle, that we can understand how and why Caesar came to fight and win a civil war, and bring the traditional governing system of Rome to an end.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2007

About the author

Richard Billows is a professor of history at Columbia University. His specialty is the Classical Mediterranean, especially the Hellenistic World post-Alexander. He holds an undergraduate degree in History from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Franco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Triste o afortunadamente ciertos acontecimientos significativos de la antigüedad pueden conocerse a través de tan solo un puñado de fuentes. Toda la vida de Cesar es uno de esos acontecimientos: con leer una docena de fuentes más o menos directas nos basta para conocer todo lo que es posible consultar sobre su vida.

Dada esa limitación la labor del historiador se limita a encajar de una manera distinta esas pocas piezas, a plasmar una nueva manera de leer; en suma: a cometer nuevos anacronismos –los que correspondan a su época. En este sentido, refiriéndose a un historiador que veía en Han Feizi a un precursor de Hitler, Borges escribió alguna vez: «es triste negar al Pasado el privilegio inapreciable de no contener a Adolf Hitler.» Tristemente, como Mary Beard y tantos otros, Billows no resiste la oportunidad de ver a Hitler o a Stalin en la antigüedad romana.

El siglo pasado –adicto o fóbico a los hombres fuertes, a los tiranos, etc.– se ocupó de brindar un buen número de biografías anti cesarianas. Nuestra época, tan amiga del revisionismo histórico nos puede otorgar el tipo de biografía que aquí nos ocupa –ver, también, la biografía "Caligula", de Winterling o la de Nerón escrita por Champlin–: prácticamente una hagiografía de Cesar, donde se nos lo presenta casi como si fuera un León Trotsky o un Salvador Allende.

Dos palabras acerca del estilo del autor. Al comienzo del libro Billows nos dice que busca realizar una biografía popular, al alcance de cualquier hombre de a pie; sin dudas, logra su cometido. Su prosa es extremadamente afable y simple, es casi imposible perderle el hilo.

[Nynniaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rather liked and very much enjoyed the style of this book, it was a superb introduction to learning not only about Julius Caesar, but about the time in which he lived.

As someone with no historian background I can hardly criticize any conclusions or such, but as far as the writing itself, the only thing that very marginally off-putting was the on-and-on repetition of certain words like demonic, when trying to describe the way Caesar's charm was perceived by some, tendentious, etc.

All in all something barely worth remarking against the greater enjoyability of the book and prose style.

[Bonnie_blu · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his excellent analysis of Caesar's life, Billows expertly eliminates the "noise" that often hides the pertinent facts about Caesar. He clearly shows that Caesar was a life-long "popularis," i.e., he supported the goals of Marius and Cinna to give the people of Rome more power and protection, and remove absolute power from a few ruling families, the "optimates.". Billows precisely states and lucidly supports his thesis that Caesar wanted political, social, economic, legal, and of course, calendrical reforms. Caesar was not alone in this. Many levels of society supported him: the soldiers, the provincials, the working class, and the poor. It was the "optimates'" desire to hang on to absolute power and to violently put down any challenge to their power that led to the fall of the Republic, not Caesar. Their treatment of Caesar was simply the final step in a hundred-year march to the destruction of the Republic. Their refusal to recognize that the empire needed to change in order to survive doomed them and the old Republic.

In case you're wondering: I have read hundreds of texts about ancient Rome and Caesar, including primary sources, and have a Masters Degree in History.

[Alberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand that all authors have some bias, but Billows has a severe anti-optimate bias that permeates and ultimately damages the credibility of this book. He does an admirable job giving both sides of Caesar’s actions, allowing us to understand that he wasn’t just a power-hungry dictator but a sincere reformer with a genuine interest in what was best for the Roman state. However, he doesn’t give the same consideration to anyone else. Every thought, word and action of the optimates is painted in the worst possible light. What’s worse is he doesn’t even allow this bias to remain implicit. His bias takes the form of editorializing - really ranting might be a better word - against the optímate position.