OUP (2025) h/b 400pp £22.99 (ISBN 9780190867188)
A political system at breaking point. A governing class gripped by inertia. A populist leader promising to turn around the lives of the poor and disenfranchised. To modern readers, first century BC Rome can seem dangerously familiar, and in this important account P. does not shy away from inviting parallels with our own age. ‘The fundamental questions which Caesar’s career raises are’, he writes, ‘connected with the nature of democratic institutions’, adding (a few sentences later), ‘When democratic institutions falter, will the citizens of a democracy turn inevitably to a strongman who promises he will deliver what others have failed to?’ It is, however, to his credit that, despite occasional barbs (delicious phrases such as ‘the polished hypocrisy of experienced politicians’) and observations seeming to invite reflections about modern personalities (‘For Caesar the protection of the Roman people depended upon efficient leadership. By implication, that was not the leadership provided through the annual electoral process’), he resists the lure of false parallels and succeeds in producing both a nuanced biography and a compelling assessment of one of the most complex and controversial characters of late Republican Rome.
At the heart of the study are Caesar’s own writings. These P. skilfully contextualises in the light of other sources (not least Cicero’s speeches and correspondence) and meticulously analyses (including an excellent discussion of how The Gallic War was composed and honed, as well as Caesar’s intentions in writing it, in part as a critique of the political structures at Rome). At the same time, he drills down behind the silences in our evidence (when did Caesar meet Crassus?) and tackles well-known anecdotes which, while factually dubious (if it happened at all, Caesar’s capture by pirates was probably not in Cilicia but off Cape Malea in Greece), contain more than a seed of larger truth.
Much of the ground is well trodden, but two things emerge most vividly. The first is a sense of jeopardy, that Caesar’s rise to power and how he achieved it were far from inevitable, and in fact could have been thwarted on multiple occasions. The second is Caesar’s character: clever, energetic, charismatic, capable of exciting great loyalty, flexible, dismissive of fools, impatient with the infighting and bureaucratic inertia of the Senate, he emerges as a master of public relations with a great eye for detail, who, after ten years of military command expecting to be obeyed, eventually and fatally lost his touch for politics.
Equally valuable are many of the social details that P. explores for the sake of context. Slavery, education, gladiators, the Gauls and their society are all covered well, though the intricacies of Egypt are curiously glossed over. Indeed, Caesar’s relationship with that kingdom and its rulers is perhaps P.’s one blind spot: he boldly states of Caesar and Cleopatra that ‘they were in love’ and that their relationship was Caesar’s first that was ‘a stupid thing to do’. Other interpretations are available.
The book is not without flaws. Copyediting is at times sloppy. Not a few sentences contain extraneous words; at least one makes no grammatical sense; and, while this is generally not an insurmountable problem, one glaring error really should have been corrected: at the end of Chapter 2, we read of the tribune Glaucia’s murder: ‘This was on December 9, 101 BCE. Caesar was less than six months old.’ In fact, Caesar was not born in 101, nor was Glaucia murdered then, but in 100 – as we read at the start of Chapter 1: ‘We’ll begin in Rome. It is July. It is hot. Trash piles up. It smells. It is 100 BCE.’ This paragraph’s breathless style might suggest that what will follow will be a rollercoaster narrative, but general readers should be aware that, while for the most part the book is written in an engaging style, those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the period may find the volume of names and density of detail (especially when it comes to the Gallic War) hard to navigate. Equally hard to navigate are the maps of Caesar’s campaigns (there are four maps in all), which is a pity, since it is clear from the text that P. has trodden the ground whereof he writes, and his use of topography as well as of archaeological evidence is good.
Despite these minor cavils this biography (‘a life of Julius Caesar’ as P. modestly subtitles it) is an essential read—perhaps not for school pupils or those with a passing interest, but for teachers and students wishing to understand more fully the man and his times. With 16 colour plates, black-and-white images of coins fronting each chapter (sadly too badly reproduced to be of any great value), a catalogue of who’s who (‘The Cast’), a timeline, a glossary of terms, useful end notes, a bibliography and index, it will make a valuable addition to any serious library. It might also excite readers to wonder how long, given his ill health (a series of mini-strokes) and growing detachment from reality, Caesar would have lasted on the Parthian campaign on which he was intending to embark in 44 BC just three days after the Ides of March.
David Stuttard