Meditation on the Ides of March
classicalfuturist.substack.com
classicalfuturist.substack.com
The core premise of this counterfactual seems highly dubious. Caesar spent his entire adult life under incredible amounts of toil and stress. He likely suffered from various serious ailments. He was a hard mid 50s. We know what happens to all humans at this age and under these conditions.
I've read a lot about this period and always come away with the impression Caesar seemed very burned out and done with it all. He had achieved everything he had set out to achieve and more. There was nothing much left for him to do, even if he was a "workaholic" that would've surely kept going by default.
It's not unreasonable to accept the theory that he might've even dismissed his bodyguard, and ignored the assassination plot rumors, in hopes of the glorious suicide-by-assassination exit he received. He was clever enough to do something exactly like this and clever enough not to tell anyone about his plan.
The man rolled deep with bodyguards for decades, was highly paranoid about his own safety, and then dropped it all while surrounded by people that we know that that he knew wanted to kill him, and had even tried.
Even the distant German king Ariovistus received messages from Caesar's peers in Rome offering rewards if he was killed. Caesar reported this in his commentaries, and this was years before he had defeated and humiliated huge numbers of powerful people.
Even if the plot had failed, and even if a burned out Caesar is impressive compared to any of his contemporaries, and even if it's unlikely anyone could've beaten him. It still seems very unlikely he could've kept up the pace for another decade, which is what any serious expansion would've required.
The article only mentions it in passing, but multiple contemporary sources attest to the fact that Caesar was planning on a military campaign into Dacia and Parthia within the next year and that he intended to lead the army himself. That doesn't sound like the way a man who intended to commit suicide by assassination would chose to spend his final months.
My read on Caesar is that he's the kind of person that would absolutely never commit suicide directly, because it would be too undignified, but might expose himself to danger with the hope of dying gloriously as he did.
Napoleon was deliberately modeling his life after Caesar and seemed to have made multiple attempts at letting himself be killed, using similar logic. He was just too damn "unlucky" to ever take a fatal shot.
It's safe to assume Caesar would've gone on his expeditions if he hadn't been assassinated. But it seems very plausible he hoped something like the Ides of March would take place.
That, to my mind, is the best explanation for why he exposed himself to such obvious danger.
It makes a lot more sense than the idea that he became lazy, stupid, arrogant, or incompetent about his own personal security. Something he had previously been incredibly meticulous about. Of course it's true that we'll never know for certain.
a). Was bored with everything.
b). Wanted his death to reflect well on his legacy.
c). Was afraid that he will embarrass himself in his old age, tainting his legacy.
It's an interesting perspective and one that I never considered before, though I don't exactly spend time thinking about Roman history. Do you think c has to be true? It seems to be the only way that all of this comes together. Otherwise he could just disappear somewhere.
Caesar had by this time been at the very top of the social hierarchy in Rome for years. He had achieved his lifelong ambition of being considered one of the greatest Romans of all time. He had nothing left to prove to anyone. He was simply too smart not to have not considered the fact that that he had very little to gain and a lot to lose.
My feeling is that his own health, a lack of strong motivation, and a concern about tainting his reputation would've added up to a desire for a glorious and early death by assassination.
> I think it’s plausible that Julius Caesar, who was on the verge of setting out for Parthia, would have either conquered the Parthians or dealt a serious blow that would have allowed the Romans to negotiate a much more favorable and stable Eastern border.
What is interesting in the East, is that Rome's troubles in the East were worsened in a sense by their successes.
Mesopotamia and Persia were initially ruled by the Seleucid Empire.
Rome beat them up, and weakened them. Parthia was able to break away, and conquer much of the East.
Rome tried to beat Parthia but was unable for a long time, until Trajan was able to actually attack and destroy the Parthian capitals.
This ended up wearing the Parthians, which led to their downfall at the hands of Sassanids.
This turned out to be really bad for Rome for two reasons. First, the Sassanids considered themselves the heirs of the orginal Achmenid Persian Empire and demanded that their former possessions be returned to them. Of course since this included the richest Roman provinces like Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt it was a non-starter.
Second, the Sassanid Capital was much further east than the Parthian Capital had been so was much harder for Rome to get to.
So began centuries of Roman-Persian warfare, as mentioned which lasted into the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) time period.
It came to a culmination when the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, did a brilliant attack against the rear of the Persian Army which was besieging Constantinople and brought the Persian Empire to its knees.
This so weakened the Persian Empire, that just a short time later, they were conquered by the Muslim Arab armies of the Caliphate.
The Caliphate would eventually take much of the remaining Roman(Byzantine) possessions in the East.
It is only a shame that the Republic was not restored after Caesar, but that instead another tyrant arose.