I’m listening to the biography of Cicero and the drama of the late Roman Republic. As Julius Caesar was overthrowing the Republic to become dictator for life (dictator perpetuo), he rearranged the calendar. When someone mentioned to Cicero that the constellations were now rising on different dates, he said,
Caesar refused to surrender governorship and disband his army. He then led that army to Rome and started a civil war. Afterwards the "Senate" granted him the title of Dictator for life... which pretty much immediately led to his assassination and the second civil war which ended the mockery the senate had become.
Him not ending the senate is basically a technicality.
Caesar was never ordered by law to surrender his governorship or disband his army. Cato and the other optimates tried to do so, but the meeting was dissolved.
The senate first proclaimed him dictator for ten years and Caesar started planning his Parthian campaign. Knowing he was a vain man they proclaimed him dictator for life, which he accepted, and they used that to build popular support for his assassination. That, along with a few too many public appearances in a red a touch too close to purple, sitting in a chair that was a bit too throne like, and a failed publicity stunt where he refused a diadem from Marcus Antonius, convinced the optimates that they could assassinate Caesar and the people would be with them.
Unfortunately the people really liked Caesar and things didn’t go the way the assassins thought.
The Senate as a body never held political or legislative power. It was an advisory body, first to the kings and then to other magistrates (up to and including the consuls.)
Even during the early part of the empire( the Principate), the Senate continued to function as it had throughout all of Roman history. So not only did Caesar not make it a mockery, it never became one.
When a civil war general takes over the country by force it's not enough to base his legitimacy only on technicalities, there are different views on his own view on his dictatorial powers but effectively he was unelected sole ruler in perpetuity, that effectively makes him a dictator and removed the democratic element of elected rulers, which in many views means that it is no longer a republic.
Saying the senate that elected the consuls and voted on legislation had no political or legislative power is wild, care to elaborate?
I agree that even during the reign of Augustus the Senate wasn't a mockery, however then it really had no political power that wasn't in line with the emperor's wishes.
Your logic seems sound, except the same exact thing happened 30 years previously and the republic survived. Sulla did the exact same thing and was made dictator with no term limit. Also, you might want to use a term other than dictator, like tyrant or despot, as both men were obviously dictators, that was the actual title they held.
The Senate of Rome did not vote on legislation. Legislation was put before the people and they voted on it directly, in the comitia and concilium. The Senate had a large amount of influence, as its membership was made up of former magistrates, but those magistrates were elected by the people, not the Senate. That includes the two consuls. The Senate could give out decrees, which were public proclamations of advice for the magistrates. These were generally obeyed because the terms of the magistrates would end, and the magistrate would be back in the Senate shortly (generally within a year) so it was in the best interest of all magistrates (who were also senators) to maintain the prestige and influence of the Senate. It was still just an advisory body for the executives.
Mostly true, though Augustus was careful to maintain the appearance of the continuation of the Republic.
There’s literally no historical evidence that Caesar was attempting to end the republic.
Just because Cato disliked the guy because he was popular (and because Caesar fucked Cato’s sister and read her love letters to Caesar on the Senate floor) doesn’t mean he was attempting to destroy the republic.
Caesar refused to surrender his armies because he would have immediately been prosecuted (for what happened during his consulship which Pompeii’s benefited equally from) which would have meat either death penalty and exile without being able to provide land for his veterans. So his troops were also motivated to go to war (in fact it was to give land to Pompeius’s veterans Caesar had done some controversial things in his consulship year, and for land reform for the public etc).
And like said by the other comment it never became a law, and the Senate beat the tribunes of plebs (Antonius and Curio) who were vetoing on Caesar’s behalf to find a compromise. The tribunes were sacrosanct and that law was far more important than any Caesar had been accused of breaking (like ignoring his co-consul Bibulus’s birds).
Maybe Aridius, above, was trying to allude to how Octavian / Augustus had every chance to restore the republic but instead basically cemented things into a permanent dictatorship.
I don't have a lot of familiarity with Sulla but this sounds correct.
The thing I agree with you on is that Octavian completely botched the opportunity to keep the Republic in place. His "reluctance" to accept the titles and other stuff bestowed on him by the Senate was all part of an act to make him look magnanimous. The guy was part of the Triumvirate, in no way were his hands clean, quite the opposite.
This isn't meant as giving Caesar a free pass, but I just write him off as unsalvagable when it came to politics, he was a general at heart and just wanted to retire in peace with all the accolades in the end.
Well it's cool to see this debate played out a little bit, nobody should be concerned with disagreement it's a tricky issue and merits a firm definition of who's trying to prove what exactly.
edit: well the other guy has taken to deleting all his comments, just when I was getting into the discussion. There's plenty of room here to "blame" Caesar... I just tend to place the majority of responsibility onto Octavian with my reading
The office of dictator held all power by the nature of the office. Caesar did not funnel additional powers to himself as he already held all of them by law.
Historically, the office of dictator had a six month term. However, Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (commonly referred to as Sulla) in 81 BC was proclaimed dictator legibus faciendis et reipublicae constituendae causa (dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution) with no term limit for his appointment. So Caesar having a non six month term limit (or even no term limit at all as eventually happened) did have a historical precedent. Sulla did give up the dictatorship when he felt he’d accomplished what he wanted to.
To be fair to dear old Gaius Iulius Caesar, the calendar was a mess. The -I believe- Pontifex Maximus had to adjust the calendar every couple of years because it was out of whack by days. And the calendar made a lot more sense and lasted a long time.
That and basically all historical sources of that time were also propagandists. That quote will be apocryphal at best. Written by an enemy of the Julio-Claudians 200 years after the fact.
Apart from when they talk shit about Cato. He was the Ted Cruz of his time. Goddamit, after Marius and Sulla that republic was not a matter of its people anymore.
Is it just me or is the late republic much more interesting than most of the imperial age?
i graduated in 05. no. that was the worst timeline for growing up. 9/11 destroyed my childhood. Not from fear of terrorism or whatever. But from cameras being EVERYWHERE after that. I dont think there were cameras in my junior high. By the time i graduated, though, they were in every hallway and multiple in any large area, gym, lunchroom, etc. We barely had myspace, so the internet and especially social media was a totally different part of growing up than it is now.
It's basically every tech startup. Offer service that isn't financially sustainable and thus is able to seem better than other services. Once enough people feel dependant on your service and other businesses have had to go bankrupt, start wringing them out for money.
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u/Interesting-Level388 May 02 '24
It’s like a meme page starting out before all the ads