Barry Strauss on Julius Caesar

After more than 2000 years, what more can be said? Turns out plenty if the story the assassination of Julius Caesar. In “The Death of Caesar,” Barry Strauss, a history and classics professor from Cornell, recounts what has long been known but little understood by including up close assessments of those closest to Caesar, such as his young wife Calpurnia. More importantly, Strauss examines those, who while close to Caesar, are less well understood, like Decimus. There is no doubting that Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C. or that the assassination grew from collective frustration over Caesar’s aspirations to control more and more of the decision-making in ancient Rome. There is no doubt, either, about who participated in the assassination. Or about who used the chaos of the aftermath to advantage. What makes the story compelling then is the new angle from which to see what precipitated the famous murder. Brutus and Cassius, the two conspirators made famous in Shakespeare’s version, certainly planned the attempt. Mark Antony and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son, as certainly turned the confusion and commotion to advantage. This is all well documented. What Strauss gives in addition to the documented history is an analysis of the deep-seated animosities and anxieties each conspirator felt personally and collectively. For example, Caesar consorted with Servilia, Brutus’s mother, leading some to speculate that the bad blood between the two men might have started as filial blood. It’s unclear what Brutus thought on this account. There are divisions that are clear here, however. “Not easily cowed, Brutus was “not one of Caesar’s longtime supporters but a rehabilitated enemy.” Early in the Roman civil war, Brutus opposed Caesar’s objectives, but “Caesar showed his confidence” by making Brutus governor of Italian Gaul. What Caesar viewed as calculating, though, may have proved his undoing, as Brutus grew more and more disillusioned, leaning more and more toward those who would unseat his mother’s lover. Misrepresented by Shakespeare’s as Decius, Caesar’s ally Decimus was “(a) noble of impeccable pedigree,” who may have been the most important conspirator. He brought an allegiance that even the others did not have. “He had Caesar’s confidence and he had a band of gladiators,” both useful to the larger plot. In his letters, Decimus, “ambitious, competitive, proud, and violent,” reveals he may have desired some of Caesar’s power, but he feared Caesar’s adoptive son Octavian, caught then between allegiance and ambition. Once fixed on their objective, the group sought to bring aboard others of the right bent to carry out the plan. Before long, they were able to leverage enough of Caesar’s former allies and his current enemies to carry out the assassination. After more than 2,000 years, some stories grow stale. Not so with “The Death of Caesar.” Good Reading.