A number of contemporaries (G. Oppius, L. Calpurnius Bibulus, and M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus) wrote works on Caesar and his era, but these works are lost, as is their significance for the tradition on Caesar. Nevertheless, two contemporary judgments on Caesar after his assassination are extant, by an antagonist and by an ally.
Cicero was as vehement in his condemnation of Caesar as a tyrant when dead as he had been in absolving the Dictator of that same charge in a speech delivered in his presence just four months before his death (Deiot. 33-4). In personal correspondence with Atticus after the Ides, Cicero called Caesar a king (rex 14.11.1), a despot (dominus 15.4.3) and most frequently a tyrant (tyrannus 14.14.2, 4, 14.17.6, 16.14.1). In the more elevated context of Cicero’s philosophical dialogue De Officiis, Caesar was the archetype of a tyrant who destroyed the orderly working of a free state to satisfy his lust for power, roused the hatred of the people and rightly paid with his life for his injustice (De Off. 2.23, 3.83-5). In the dialogue Cicero subverts Caesar’s reputation for generosity and clemency towards his enemies (liberalitas and clemen-tia) by showing how the misuse of both virtues can undermine the community (Duxbury 1988, 243-83). In the passionate rhetoric of the Philippics, Cicero could admit that Caesar had had positive qualities, but only in order to demean Marcus Antonius by comparison. Antonius strove for the position and power of Caesar, although he lacked his character and intelligence. Antonius might fear his own followers even more than did Caesar, who had considerable intellect and political skill. Caesar had won over the people by his building program, banquets, and largesse, his supporters by rewards, and his adversaries by clemency. And he had done the city one last benefit by showing how beautiful was the act, how grateful was the benefit, and how glorious was the fame in slaying a tyrant (Phil. 2.116-17).
Cicero’s correspondence also affords some sense of how the Caesarians presented their case in the months after Caesar’s assassination. Caesar was of illustrious character, and his death only served to plunge the state into chaos. His famed clemency had been his undoing: but for that there would have been no conspiracy and assassination (Att. 14.22.1). Among these Caesarians might be counted the historian Sallust, for he owed his career and fortune to the Dictator. The climax of his account of the Catilinarian conspiracy ( Bellum Catilinae) presents a pair of speeches by Caesar and M. Porcius Cato arguing against and for the execution of the conspirators held in Rome. Sallust observed that Rome had been made great due to the virtus (manly spirit and excellence of character) of only a few men in her history, and that in his time only two men, Caesar and M. Porcius Cato, possessed virtus. Therefore the historian was moved to provide an account of their contrasting but complementary characters (Bell. Cat. 53.4-6; cf. Christ 1994: 88).
Sallust’s Caesar is a Republican senator engaged in traditional debate with his colleagues. In his speech, he anticipates his famed clemency by arguing against the execution of the Catilinarians, and it is his generosity (liberalitas) that is stressed (49.3, 54.2-4). Caesar is much concerned with dignitas (honor), but it is the dignitas of the senatorial class that he asserts to justify his argument against executing the conspirators (51.7-8). In Sallust’s judgment Caesar was great by virtue of his mildness and compassion ( mansuetudo et misericordia 54.2) and he gained glory for his generosity and forgiveness. Sallust praises his indulgence (facilitas) and notes that he was so intent on helping others in need (perfugium miseris) that he neglected his own affairs (54.3-4).
It is obvious that this characterization of a genial and generous Caesar serves as antithesis to the inflexible morality (severitas and constantia 54.2-3) of Cato. But there is evident in Sallust’s presentation of Caesar contrast of a different sort: Caesar the senator against Caesar the dictator and victor in civil war (Vogt 1938: 66). One loaded Caesarian term, dignitas, occurs in Caesar’s speech, but in a context and attitude that is utterly opposite to Caesar’s personal use of it to justify civil war. Another term closely (and sometimes infamously) associated with Caesar the Dictator, clementia (pardon for defeated opponents), is carefully avoided even as Sallust uses a series of synonyms to illustrate generosity and forgiveness as characteristic of Caesar’s nature. Caesar himself did not use the term, which may explain its absence in Sallust, but it could be simply for stylistic reasons. Clementia Caesaris was made notorious by Cicero, a rhetorical artist whose style and vocabulary Sallust studiously avoided (Griffin 2003: 159-63).
Sallust’s representation of Caesar has been the subject of much discussion and varied judgment. Because of his career with Caesar, partisan defense of his patron has been alleged to explain Sallust’s prominent role for Caesar in his account of Catiline. An old theory has Sallust motivated to write his monograph by the publication or circulation of Cicero’s ‘‘secret history’’ (De Consiliis Suis) in the months after the orator’s death in December of 43. That work is supposed to have presented a tendentious account of Catiline, one detrimental to the memory of Caesar, and so Sallust was moved to defend Caesar, especially against the charge that he might have been an ally of Catiline in those years (Besser 1880: 2; John 1876: 725; Last 1948; Schwartz 1897: 580-1). At the other extreme, Sallust’s portrait has been interpreted as ambiguous. His emphasis on Caesar’s generous and kind nature must have seemed ironic to an audience who knew a more arrogant and uncongenial Caesar after his proconsulship in Gaul. The fact that only Cato is credited with dignitas in Sallust, and the assertion that Cato preferred to be good rather than simply have the reputation (esse quam videri bonus malebat, 54.6), seem to imply criticism of Caesar’s character (contra Duxbury 1988: 315). Scholarly consensus has Sallust writing his account of Catiline between 42 and 40 BC, and his stress on Caesar’s munificence seems to highlight by contrast the murder and rapacity of the recent proscriptions instituted by those competing to inherit Caesar’s mantle.
It is a characterization of Caesar that is ‘‘pervaded by doubts and ambiguity’’ (Syme 1964: 117-18).
Positive or negative, Sallust’s depiction of Caesar is subtle and complex. Along with the characterization of Caesar found in the work of Nicolaus of Damascus, it is the fullest and best in the extant literature until the work of Velleius Paterculus. It may have been remarkable in its own time simply because of its complexity. To judge from the evidence of coins and limited literary evidence, any presentation of Caesar in the Triumviral era was likely to have been one-dimensional and biased in the extreme. By pairing Caesar with Cato, Sallust seems to be striving for a balanced assessment of both men (Duxbury 1988: 293-334). ‘‘Caesar and Cato were divergent in conduct, principles and allegiance. Their qualities could be regarded as complementary no less than antithetic. In alliance the two had what was needed to save the Republic. That may be what the historian is gently suggesting’’ (Syme 1964: 120).
The Greek Diodorus Siculus, writing his universal history in the last years of the Triumviral era, provides the only other significant assessment of Caesar in this period and he is effusive in his praise. In describing the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC, Diodorus (32.27.3) takes the opportunity to note that the city was rebuilt a century later by Caesar, ‘‘he who has been called a god for his deeds’’ and who deserves the highest praise for his kindness (e’pLeLKeia):
He exceeded all who came before him in the magnitude of his achievements and he justly earned his title [divus] for his virtue. In short, this man by his high birth and his talent as an orator, and by his generalship in war and freedom from avarice has earned the right to be held in high esteem and to be accorded praise in our history for his goodness (XPhST(SThv). In the magnitude of his accomplishments he exceeded all other Romans.
In light of his fulsome judgment on Caesar, it is notable that Diodorus ended his history with the year 60 BC (1.4.7), just before Caesar’s rise to power. This is even more notable because in the next chapter (1.5.1), Diodorus says his history will end with the 730th year after the first Olympiad, i. e. 46 BC, the year Caesar celebrated his victory in the civil war. If this is not simply an error on Diodorus’ part, it seems that he originally planned to give an account of Caesar’s career, a man whom he admired more than any other, but then changed his mind. It is possible that as the Triumviral era unfolded and Diodorus composed his history at Rome, the idea of providing an account of Caesar’s accomplishments and generosity became daunting for a Greek emigre who lacked the protection and prestige of a senatorial network and career (Sacks 1990: 169-91). It may have been that for Diodorus the Horatian embers of civil conflict were still flames (Carm. 2.1.6-8) and he was no Asinius Pollio.
Some allusions or references to Caesar in the poetry of the Triumviral era are more easily detected than explained. Contemporaneous with Sallust’s depiction of Caesar was Vergil’s description of the apotheosis of Daphnis in Eclogue 5.56-80. While it would be too crude to equate the figure of Daphnis with Caesar himself, the poet’s description must have reminded his audience of Caesar’s recent apotheosis, but to what purpose is unclear. In Satire 1.7.32-5, written in the mid-30s, Horace presents a quarrel between characters named Persius and Rupilius Rex before the praetor Brutus in Asia. The poem closes with Persius beseeching Brutus to live up to his family duty and slay the ‘‘king’’ (rex). Despite its jocular tone and the fact that the ‘‘voice’’ is that of a character in the poem rather than the poet’s own, the audacity of Horace, who had fought at Philippi in the army of the assassins, is evident here and is in contrast to his attitude toward Augustus in his later poetry. A quatrain of an elegy of Gallus published in 1979 raises another aspect of the problem of interpreting allusion or reference to Caesar in poetry. It contains an address to ‘‘Caesar’’ in which the poet celebrates his return from some campaign and the temples that will be decorated with the spoils won (Anderson, Parsons, & Nisbet 1979: 140). Since the heir of Caesar called himself Gaius Iulius Caesar from the time he accepted his inheritance, such references to ‘‘Caesar,’’ without a context that clarifies which Caesar is meant, remain ambiguous as to identity and significance. Occasionally this can lead to problems of real consequence, as in the case of the ‘‘Caesar’’ celebrated in the famous passage of Vergil’s Aeneid 1.286-96. On the other hand, it has also been maintained that such passages were deliberately ambiguous. It was for the ancient reader to choose his Caesar (Kenney 1968: 106; Zarrow2007: 34-7).
World History
