Were Cassius and Brutus Right? An Alternate History Discussion.

[Alsark]

Obviously Cassius and Brutus are portrayed as being villains of sorts. For example, in Dante's Inferno they (along with Judas) are depicted in the ninth and final layer of Hell as being eaten eternally by Lucifer himself. I mean, obviously assassination isn't justifiable, but had they won the war to follow would Rome have ended up for the better, or was the very assassination of Caesar what caused the end of the Republic in the first place?

Rome, as a republic, was probably better than it was as an empire. As an empire, they did little to increase their territory (the height of territory prior to Caesar's assassination wasn't much smaller than the height of the Empire during Trajan's reign). Were Rome to remain a Republic, perhaps the East and West would have never split, and perhaps a single empire would have better dealt with attacks that eventually crumbled the entire empire. This isn't to say that Rome didn't have its fair share of good emperors, but whenever a bad emperor (such as Nero, Caligula, and Commodus) came along it really hurt.

So basically the question comes down to - if Cassius and Brutus had won the war against Marc Antony and Octavius, would Rome have been better off, or would Rome have been better off if they had simply not assassinated Caesar in the first place? Obviously we can't know the answer to this - it's just sort of a "alternate history" discussion.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Obviously better off, as he was assassinated by other wealthy elites to block his reforms. That's really par for the Roman course, though. Its a wonder Augustus wasn't assassinated as well.

But the republic was on life-support, before Julius or Octavian, since Sulla's march on Rome, so I think the Empire was coming in one way or another.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Who knows? I don't think that Rome was better in, say, 150 BC compared to during the Pax Romana.

EDIT: Crosspost, but not really a crosspost...

 

[Lone Wolf]

the very assassination of Caesar what caused the end of the Republic in the first place?

It wasn't the assassination that ended the Republic. There're reasons why few people dreamt about a republic during Augustus's reign. During its last years, the old republican system proved itself unable to rise to the challenges of time.

 

[MobBoss]

I think the republic was doomed no matter who won....just too much power at stake and up for grabs.

 

[luiz]

I think even people who may admire Brutus' position against despotism still despise him for his treachery. Furthermore it's bit more complicated than mere opposition to despotism, as the Roman Republic was hardly some democracy where everyone had a say. Not only that, I don't think it was any more stable than the Empire.

All in all, even people who know that Caesar was in many ways a tyrant and is at least in part responsible for the death of the Republic know that he was a great man. Brutus was not, and he also betrayed a man who forgave him even though he had every reason not to. So he gets universal condemnation for that.

 

[Miles Teg]

As previously stated, the Republic was unsupportable. Rome didn't have the republican institutions of a modern country that would allow it rule an empire without someone trying to seize power. If not Julius or Octavian, someone else would have come along, probably less skilled. Now, if Caesar hadn't died early, that would be interesting.

Also, this belongs in the history forum.

a man who forgave him even though he had every reason not to.

Well, he was banging Brutus's mother, so I'd say he had some reason.

 

[Dachs]

If Caesar hadn't died early, he would've lived long enough to turn Burebista's Dacian kingdom into Swiss cheese. Which he then would have eaten in a sandwich...thus eliminating one of the top ten annoying alternate history internet flamewars and doing all mankind a service.

I blame Brutus for that particular annoying bit of Romanian nationalism

 

[civ_king]

As previously stated, the Republic was unsupportable. Rome didn't have the republican institutions of a modern country that would allow it rule an empire without someone trying to seize power. If not Julius or Octavian, someone else would have come along, probably less skilled. Now, if Caesar hadn't died early, that would be interesting.

Also, this belongs in the history forum.



Well, he was banging Brutus's mother, so I'd say he had some reason.

if someone was banging my mother (other than my father) I'd stick a knife in them too

 

[Earthling]

Ah yes, one of my favorite responses to time-travel scenarios, at least those where I'm truly free to act and don't have to waste my chance to counter someone else's hypothetical hairbrained scheme (tanks in the US Civil War...pfft). A great chance for me to go back and be part of history and act out on base urges - to join in the shanking of Julius Caesar. After traveling back to the modern world I can proudly pick up my history book and read, "On March 15, 44 BC Caesar was stabbed by Casca, Brutus, amidst dozens of other unknown men," and inwardly smile.

Also, I share the early consensus here that the Roman Republic was on the decline anyway - I wouldn't be at all sure it wouldn't end up in civil war/somebody else proclaiming themselves emperor not far down the line.

 

[Plotinus]

...obviously assassination isn't justifiable...

"Obviously"? What, as a general principle? So you'd say that the July Plot against Hitler wasn't justifiable? Maybe it wasn't, but I hardly think that's obvious. If Caesar was a brutal tyrant, might it not have been justifiable to assassinate him, at least under some circumstances?

...he was a great man. Brutus was not, and he also betrayed a man who forgave him even though he had every reason not to. So he gets universal condemnation for that.

So you say there are two reasons Brutus is condemned:

(1) Caesar was a great man, and he was not.

That's not a reason. It's (a) wildly subjective (who is to say who is a great man? what is greatness?) and irrelevant, really. Is it OK for a great man to kill another great man, but not for a non-great man to kill a great man? Why?

(2) He betrayed someone who forgave him.

Why is this relevant? "Betray" is just a word. I don't see that it has any moral weight at all. Again, von Stauffenberg "betrayed" Hitler, but he was right to do so. If it was wrong to kill Caesar, then it was wrong whether the killer was previously an ally of Caesar or not - and conversely, if it was right to kill Caesar, then it was right whether the killer was previously his ally or not. The fact that Caesar had previously forgiven him seems equally irrelevant.

if someone was banging my mother (other than my father) I'd stick a knife in them too

Why? How can this possibly be an acceptable thing to say?

 

[Serutan]

Brutus and Cassius were right in that the only chance the Republic had to survive was Caesar's death. They were wrong in that the Republic was doomed anyway, and leaving Caesar alive might have spared Rome the ensuing civil war.

 

[aelf]

Rome, as a republic, was probably better than it was as an empire. As an empire, they did little to increase their territory (the height of territory prior to Caesar's assassination wasn't much smaller than the height of the Empire during Trajan's reign). Were Rome to remain a Republic, perhaps the East and West would have never split, and perhaps a single empire would have better dealt with attacks that eventually crumbled the entire empire. This isn't to say that Rome didn't have its fair share of good emperors, but whenever a bad emperor (such as Nero, Caligula, and Commodus) came along it really hurt.

What do you mean by "a single empire" and how was the tetrarchy or the two empires necessarily inferior to the Republic or less unified? You know that the Republic ended up as Italy, its dependencies and various provinces ruled by independent proconsuls (some of them even had the title of 'king' in the provinces they ruled), right? And you know that generals politicked and fought against each other with their own legions, right? What a picture of strong unity that was!

And whether the empire was single or not didn't have much to do with whether it could have withstood the troubles with barbarians and its own foederati. In fact, the splitting of the empire might have contributed to the Eastern Empire's survival for another millennium, as it was fully capable of acting as its own entity. Diocletian instincts weren't exactly wrong.

So basically the question comes down to - if Cassius and Brutus had won the war against Marc Antony and Octavius, would Rome have been better off, or would Rome have been better off if they had simply not assassinated Caesar in the first place? Obviously we can't know the answer to this - it's just sort of a "alternate history" discussion.

Caesar followed in the footsteps of Sulla. Not too long after that another such figure would probably appear. As some have suggested, the Republic was far from stable, not after Marius' reforms, which might have been necessary due to the increasing military demands of maintaining the empire anyway.

 

[Dragonlord]

As I see it, Caesar's assassination was unjustified. He was killed because of what he might have done (i.e. accepted a crown and become king), not for anything he actually did. Also, if the people of Rome had actually offered him a crown and he had accepted, that would have been the will of the people, no?´So where is the justification for some Senators to act in the name of the Republic? In effect, they were acting to preserve their Senatorial privileges, nothing else.

I agree with Plotinus that assassination can be justified against a tyrant, when there is no other recourse (Hitler is a good example), but I don't see that as applying here.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

So basically the question comes down to - if Cassius and Brutus had won the war against Marc Antony and Octavius, would Rome have been better off, or would Rome have been better off if they had simply not assassinated Caesar in the first place? Obviously we can't know the answer to this - it's just sort of a "alternate history" discussion.

Unless they intended to reform the Republic, and there is no indication that they did, all it would amount to is another series of civil wars, which would've made Rome weaker, not stronger. It may even be that they would've established a triumvirate of their own in the wake of their victory.

You make it seem as if Julius Caesar's dictatorship was just an isolated event, but Rome had been in a state of perpetual civil war for 60 years by then. There was little effectual reform because the Senatorial order wished to preserve its priviledges.

 

[innonimatu]

As I see it, Caesar's assassination was unjustified. He was killed because of what he might have done (i.e. accepted a crown and become king), not for anything he actually did.

But he did actually dismiss the senate's orders and crossed into Italy with his armies from Gaul. He did take his powers by force, outside the uses (the "constitution") of the Republic. That he won the civil wars did not meant that his actions had been forgotten.

Also, if the people of Rome had actually offered him a crown and he had accepted, that would have been the will of the people, no?´So where is the justification for some Senators to act in the name of the Republic? In effect, they were acting to preserve their Senatorial privileges, nothing else.

But those privileges were part of the Republic. Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate was as much a part of the government of the Roman Republic as the tribal assemblies. The modern notion of democracy had not yet developed in Rome (though it had, in interesting ways, in some contemporary greek cities).

I agree with Plotinus that assassination can be justified against a tyrant, when there is no other recourse (Hitler is a good example), but I don't see that as applying here.

Need I remind people of the methods which Caesar used in his wars in Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula? He was no stranger to genocide and mass enslavement, when it suited his political goals. If those actions are, by themselves, a definition of tyrant then Caesar was a tyrant. Hitler was, of course, an aberration on the 20th century, unlike Caesar in the I BC. Should tyrants then be evaluated according to their context, their historical environment? Certainly - but what if Hitler had won WW2? What would historians write about him 2000 years from now? More to the point, what would the people of his empire think about him while he lived, victorious? Political ideas, and the relative freedom we live in now, cannot be taken for granted, or be considered eternal.

I don't think that Caesar can be condemned for having been a tyrant in any abstract sense. In other words, I don't think that "tyrant" can have an abstract meaning at all. It means something only in a historical context. And in the 1st century BC Caesar had become a tyrant, possibly as much an aberration to Brutus and his class as Hitler for many people in the 20th century. Not for wholesale enslavement or genocide, as the later, but for violating the political uses and customs of his time (and that the later also did). That was why he was murdered. And that the republic did not turn into a monarchy (for that was what the empire became) immediately after means that his grab for power was not viewed with much sympathy in his time. Even Octavius, after winning militarily, did his best to keep the appearances of the Republic, and attacked the power of the plebs (effectively stripping the assemblies of any powers) more than the Senate.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

As I see it, Caesar's assassination was unjustified. He was killed because of what he might have done (i.e. accepted a crown and become king), not for anything he actually did.

No, he was definitely killed for being the leader of the populares. The wealthy folk hated his ideas about sumptuary laws and his programs for the poor. Like the Gracchii and numerous others, his passion for the plebs combined with his very real power to get things done was too much of a threat to the established order for the patricians to bear.

A few quotes from/about Parenti's book about the subject:

"Caesar was the first Roman ruler to grant the city's substantial Jewish population the right to practice Judaism ... That he has consorted with such a marginalized element as the Jewish proletariat must have been taken by the optimates as confirmations of their worst presentiments about his loathsome leveling tendencies."

"In 49 B.C., he attempted to enforce a law that limited private holdings at 15,000 drachmas in silver or gold, thereby leaving no one in possession of immeasurably large fortunes."

Parenti does list Caesar's measures to relieve poverty; some measures are outright grants to the poor but most are programs to put the plebs to productive work. Also, several measures are taken to curb corruption practices of the wealthy as well as to levy some luxury taxes. Then Parenti turns to debt relief and contrasts "two theories about why people fall deeply in debt."(p.151)

Parenti does list Caesar's measures to relieve poverty; some measures are outright grants to the poor but most are programs to put the plebs to productive work. Also, several measures are taken to curb corruption practices of the wealthy as well as to levy some luxury taxes. Then Parenti turns to debt relief and contrasts "two theories about why people fall deeply in debt."

The first says that persons burdened with high rents, extortionate taxes, and low income are often unable to earn enough or keep enough of what they earn. So they are forced to borrow on their future labor, hoping that things will take a favorable turn. But the interested parties who underpay, overchange, and overtax them today are just as relentless tomorrow. So debtors must borrow more, with an ever larger portion of their eanings going to interest payments ... eventually assumes ruinous proportions, forcing debtors to sell their small holdings and sometimes even themselvs or their children into servitude. Such has been the plight of destitude populations through history even to this day. The creditor class is more that just a dependent variable in all this. Its monopolization of capital and labor markets, its squeeze on prices and wages, its gouging of rents are the very things that create penury and debt.

In the second theory, debtors are lazy and free spenders. However, Parenti states this model doesn't apply to the poor but rather to the spoiled children of the upper class:

who live in a grand style, cultivate the magical art of borrowing forever while paying back never, as did Caesar himself during his early career. Such seemingly limitless credit is more apt to be extended to persons of venerable heritage, since their career prospects are considered good. ... They treat fiscal temperance as tantamount to miserliness, and parade their profligacy as a generosity of spirit.

Also, if the people of Rome had actually offered him a crown and he had accepted, that would have been the will of the people, no?´So where is the justification for some Senators to act in the name of the Republic? In effect, they were acting to preserve their Senatorial privileges, nothing else.

An interesting thing I found on wiki:

Also, at the festival of the Lupercalia, while he gave a speech from the Rostra, Mark Antony, who had been elected co-consul with Caesar, attempted to place a crown on [Ceasar's] head several times. Caesar put it aside to be used as a sacrifice to Jupiter Opitimus Maximus.

I agree with Plotinus that assassination can be justified against a tyrant, when there is no other recourse (Hitler is a good example), but I don't see that as applying here.

Well, define tyrant. Just because Cicero and Brutus say he was a tyrant doesn't make him one.

 

[aelf]

Well, Caesar was already dictator for life. I don't think he would have accepted the taboo title of King of the Romans, but they were probably afraid that he might have done what Octavian later did and institutionalise his 'office'.

 

[Traitorfish]

As I see it, Caesar's assassination was unjustified. He was killed because of what he might have done (i.e. accepted a crown and become king), not for anything he actually did.

I doubt that was ever the fear per se, as the Romans, high or low, would never have accepted another king. That's why it remained a nominal republic throughout it's history, and why it's rulers adopted the deliberately non-monarchial title of "Imperator", which was initially a military title, lacking the connotations which it later aquired. Perhaps they feared a tyrant, but I doubt they would have expected him to do something so absurd as to install himself as monarch.

 

[Agent327]

Well, Caesar was already dictator for life. I don't think he would have accepted the taboo title of King of the Romans, but they were probably afraid that he might have done what Octavian later did and institutionalise his 'office'.

If you are refering to Augustus' 'emperorship': that only got institutionalized very gradually over time (and would always be subject to challenge by emperors-to-be). Octavian ruled by a less conspicuous accumulation of functions than Caesar did, taking into account 'the will of the senate' - if not legally, than de facto (something which emperors who ignored the senate would always pay the price for by being labelled a 'bad emperor' for posterity).