I find it funny how Julius Caesar is often remembered as a power-hungry egotist who “destroyed the Republic”, especially within the context of his assassination being somewhat of a national holiday here on Tumblr. So few people seem to judge him by the standards of the world he actually lived in…
After his assassination, the Roman state officially deified Caesar as divinity. A literal God. He was, in fact, the first Roman to achieve this legal status, and it certainly set a precedent for things to come. Despite this, Caesar did not seem to outright declare himself to be a god in the way later rulers were reported to.
Augustus, his adopted son, built an entire political and religious system around his divine status, now the heir to apparent divinity. Many of the statues and idealized depictions people associate with Caesar were created after his death, under the rule of Augustus. The almost superhuman image of Caesar was often the result of this political campaign, rather than Caesar’s own arrogance displayed during his lifetime.
People also often seem to overlook that Caesar pushed major reforms such as debt relief measures, expansion of citizenship, the restructuring of provincial administration, calendar reform, and settlement programs for veterans and the poor. Ancient sources suggest that he considered limits on aspects of slavery and dependence on slave labor, particularly regarding labor distribution in Italy. It’s not abolition in the modern sense, but still notable in a society unfortunately fundamentally built on slavery.
None of this makes Caesar morally upstanding. He was ruthless, authoritarian, and responsible for immense bloodshed. Military conquest, political intimidation, self-promotion, emergency powers, and violent suppression of rivals were the norm in that society, and Caesar himself was often not an exception.
All in all, it seems that Caesar did not corrupt a peaceful Republic. Instead, he emerged from a Republic already tearing itself apart, and portraying him as uniquely monstrous compared to other Roman rulers ignores the reality of Ancient Rome itself.
