|
|
|
Reviews
| Always I Am Caesar, by W. Jeffrey Tatum. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 216 pages. $69.95 cloth, $24.95, paper.
|
| Modern biographers of Caesar, following the lead of Theodor Mommsen in his great epic History of Rome, have tended to fall in love with their subject. For them, Caesar is the most talented Roman of his generation or of all time, a great politician, general, writer, even lover, who understood the problems of the Republic and made real headway in solving them. Meanwhile, historians often have tried to cut him down to size: Caesar, they say, was typical of his time, a plainly ordinary Roman noble, with no real political vision to the end; his assassination only brought worse civil war, put to rest by Augustus' establishment of monarchy. For other critics still, Caesar himself was not so much blind to Rome's problems; rather, he himself was the problem. In his excellent new book, Tatum recognizes this debate, shares with readers the problems of a biographical approach to history, and provides his own original views, based on a profound but lightly worn learning. Not a replacement for a fully documented biography or history—nor intended as such—Always I Am Caesar rather suggests to student and specialist alike ways of putting central aspects of Caesar's life into context: a biographical approach ultimately is vindicated, but with important qualifications. |
1
|
|
Three themes emerge. First, Tatum shows that episodes in Caesar's life which seem extraordinary when isolated in a biography are better understood in the light of Roman culture. The religious controversies of Caesar's first consulship, while novel in some details, reflect less a new and cynical manipulation of the state cult than scrupulosity to the gods and ongoing debate about how that was best achieved (Chapter 3). Caesar's conquest of Gaul in its early phases was traditional enough, though in the end, Tatum argues, Caesar did change the dynamics of Roman imperialism (Chapter 2). But in the construction of public buildings for the city of Rome, an activity allotted by tradition to leading Senators, Augustus proved more the innovator than Caesar (Chapter 4). |
2
|
|
Second, Tatum rightly insists that knowledge of what was to come has often colored the treatment of earlier episodes in Caesar's life. Chapter 1 underscores the many near-misses of the future dictator's early political career, while, more originally, Chapter 5 scales back the claims made for Caesar's association with Cleopatra: only after her much longer affair with Antony was this "one-night stand" converted into so grand an amour (p. 120). |
3
|
|
Third, and most controversially, Tatum suggests in his final chapters that it was largely a series of contingent events that brought monarchy to Rome. The civil war with Pompey was not the result of any "impersonal groundswells" in first-century B.C. Italy, but the characters of its two chief protagonists (Chapter 6); the tragedy of the Ides owed much to the philosophy as well as political impulses of the individual assassins (Chapter 7); the civil war that followed to the "recklessness" of Cicero and the "destabilizing influence" of Caesar's heir, the young Augustus (Chapter 8). |
4
|
|
Tatum's book is throughout bracingly opinionated. Many a student will take delight to see the pearl breastplate Caesar dedicated to Venus classified as "kitsch" (p. 92) or be told that "for the typical Greek, philosophy was rubbish" (p. 157). Students will find intriguing the popular image of decadent emperors replaced by one of administrators "crushed by their workload" (p. 180). The parade of witticisms with contemporary references will further stir interest and provoke thought: "Jocks (at least American jocks) don't blame Jesus when they lose" (p. 63). Older Romans were aghast when their children took to philosophy: it "was hard to understand" and so seemed dangerous, "like hip-hop" (p. 157). |
5
|
|
Yet there is deep learning here too, with helpful explanation of matters that even trip up experts, such as the vital distinction between the mandatory application for election to political office in Rome and the election itself. My chief reservation with the book is that, if it was intended for students, more attention should have been paid to alternative interpretations of the failure of the Republic: Eric Hobsbawm and Thucydides are not enough (pp. 122–124). Also, the absence of documentation for ancient sources and modern scholarship sets a bad example. Still, I would happily assign Tatum in an introductory or advanced college-level class as a supplementary textbook to the standard biography by Matthias Gelzer. Tatum's work will also pair well with another innovative (and accessible) approach to Caesarian biography, Maria Wyke's excellent new Caesar: a Life in Western Culture (London, 2007). |
6
|
| | |
| Georgetown University |
Josiah Osgood |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|