JULIUS CAESAR AND THE ROMAN PEOPLE JuliusCaesarwasnoaspiringautocratseekingtorealizetheimperial futurebut an unusuallysuccessful republican leaderwho was meas- ured against the Republic’s traditions and its greatest heroes of the past. Catastrophe befell Rome not because Caesar (or anyone else) turnedagainsttheRepublicoritsnormsandinstitutions,butbecause Caesar’s extraordinary success mobilized a determined opposition that ultimately preferred to precipitate civil war rather than accept its political defeat. Based on painstaking reanalysis of the ancient sources in light of recent advances in our understanding of the participatory role of the People in the republican political system, astrongemphasisonagents’choicesratherthanstructuralcausation, anddeepskepticismtowardthefaciledeterminismthatoftensubsti- tutesforhistoricalexplanation,thisbookoffersaradicalreinterpret- ationofafigureofprofoundhistoricalimportancewhostandsatthe turningpointofRomanhistoryfromRepublictoEmpire. robertmorstein-marxisProfessorofClassicsattheUniversityof California,SantaBarbara.HeistheauthorofMassOratoryandPolitical PowerintheLateRomanRepublic(CambridgeUniversityPress, 2004), Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the East, 148–62 B.C. (1995), and coeditor of A Companion to the Roman Republic(2006). JULIUS CAESAR AND THE ROMAN PEOPLE ROBERT MORSTEIN-MARX UniversityofCalifornia,SantaBarbara UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,ny10006,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,vic3207,Australia 314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre, NewDelhi–110025,India 103PenangRoad,#05–06/07,VisioncrestCommercial,Singapore238467 CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108837842 doi:10.1017/9781108943260 ©RobertMorstein-Marx2021 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2021 PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyTJBooksLimited,PadstowCornwall AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData names:Morstein-Marx,Robert,author. title:JuliusCaesarandtheRomanpeople/RobertMorstein-Marx,UniversityofCalifornia, SantaBarbara. description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2021.|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. identifiers:lccn2021024626(print)|lccn2021024627(ebook)|isbn9781108837842 (hardback)|isbn9781108943260(ebook) subjects:lcsh:Caesar,Julius.|Caesar,Julius–Influence.|Rome–Politicsandgovernment –265-30B.C.|Politicalleadership–Rome–History.|Rome–Kingsandrulers.|Rome– History,Military–265-30B.C.|BISAC:HISTORY/Ancient/General|HISTORY/Ancient/ General classification:lccdg261.m672021(print)|lccdg261(ebook)|ddc937/.05–dc23 LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021024626 LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021024627 isbn978-1-108-83784-2Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. To Sara, Eric, and Matthew again Contents ListofFigures pageviii Acknowledgments ix ListofAbbreviations xii 1 Introduction 1 2 TheEarlyCaesar 33 3 Caesar’s“EntryintoHistory”:TheCatilinarianDebate andItsAftermath 83 4 Caesar’sFirstConsulship 117 5 CaesarinGaul:TheViewfromRome 192 6 NoReturn:Caesar’sDignitasandtheComingoftheCivil War 258 7 TakingSides 321 8 Caesar’sLeniency 413 9 EnRoutetotheParthianWar 488 10 Conclusion 580 Appendices(1–6) 616 WorksCited 647 SelectIndexofPassagesCited 675 GeneralIndex 682 vii Figures 7.1 “ThecrossingoftheRubicon”inthecollective imagination page323 7.2 ThethreeroutesbetweenRavennaandAriminum 325 7.3 Italy:Areaofoperations,January–March49 337 viii Acknowledgments My elder son was in middle school, I believe, when he asked me in all innocencewhethermybookonCaesarwasdoneyet.Heisnowenteringhis senior year of college. At last I can reassure him that it is done. But this momenthasbeenaverylongtimeincoming.FortheirpatienceIexpress my gratitude not only to my beloved family but to my colleagues in the Department of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and many others at this campus which has provided me with asupportiveacademichomefortwenty-eightyearsnow. I often marvel at what a friendly and congenial community of scholars inhabitsmycornerofancienthistory.Manyfriendsandcolleaguesatother institutions have assisted me with salutary advice or answered difficult queries, read and commented on whole chapters and in some cases quite abitmorethanone.ErichGruen,MartinJehne,ChristopherKrebs,Sears McGee, Kit Morrell, Chris Pelling, John Ramsey, Nate Rosenstein, and Rex Stem all read preliminary drafts of one or more chapters and offered extremely helpful comments. Nate Rosenstein was also kind enough to read through the entire final manuscript on a tight schedule. Lindsay Driediger-Murphy, Chris Pelling, and John Ramsey generously allowed me to see parts of their own recent work in advance of publication, and Francesca Martelli drew my attention to some points I had hitherto ignored. To all I am more grateful than these paltry words can convey, and of course they are not to blame for the errors and imperfections that remain. I also wish to record my sincere thanks to the two anonymous readers for the Press, whose comments and criticisms I was not always delightedtoreadbutultimatelyspurredmetoproduceafarbetterbook. During the library lockdown of 2020, while I was polishing my final draft,AndreaAngius,MartinJehne,andFranciscoPinaPolocametomy rescue with scans of articles or other bibliographical assistance. John Ramsey generously fielded a whole series of sticky questions from me and shared parts of his forthcoming commentary on Asconius. Kenneth ix x Acknowledgments Lapatin,JensDaehner,MaryBeard,ChristopherHallett,andHansGoette kindly shared with me their thoughts about the somewhat controversial portraitbustthatgracesthecoverofthisbook.ProfessorGoettegenerously providedthephotograph itselfand Professor AndreasScholl,thedirector of classical antiquities at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, graciously approveditsuse.ToallIgivemywarmestthanks. The ideas presented here in many cases received their first hearing in lectures or in seminars. I thank the alert audiences at UCSB, Stanford, Brigham Young University, and the UK Triennial Conference in Cambridge for their receptiveness to my arguments and their criticisms thathavemadethembetter.Ialsothankmyformerandcurrentstudents, whoinseminarshaveprovidedanidealtrialrunformanyofthearguments found in this book and through their dissertations or publications have clarifiedanddeepenedthem.Iamproudtobeabletoacknowledgesomeof theirworkexplicitlyinthechaptersthatfollow. Abookofthissizeandscopeonasubjectonwhichdozensofscholarly articles and books appear every year cannot but be somewhat out of date themomentitispublished.Mymanuscriptwasinitiallysubmittedtothe Press in November 2018 and final revisions were completed in July 2020 duringaglobalpandemic.IngeneralIhaveconsideredapublicationdate of2018tobethecutoffpointforfullconsiderationhere.WhileIwasstill abletomakesomelimiteduseofsomeespeciallypertinentpiecespublished in 2019, these could hardly reshape my entire treatment, as perhaps they mayhavedeservedtodo.Readersmayregardanyreferencetoascholarly workwithaveryrecentpublicationdateasasuggestiontoexplorefurther. Ihavegenerallyquotedforeign-languagescholarshipinmyownEnglish translation.Ibegtheauthors’forgivenessifinanycaseIhaveevererredor misledbymyrendering. Thisprojectwassupportedbyvariousgrants,themostessentialofwhich was an American Council of Learned Societies Senior Fellowship in 2011 which gave me afull year of relief fromteaching duties inwhich towrite the initial draft of this book. (Little did the ACLS or I know how many more drafts would be forthcoming.) The University of California, Santa Barbara generously supplemented my ACLS grant and also gave me a further sabbatical quarter, as well as two Academic Senate grants to fund research assistants. From the series of chairs of my department through the time of the book’s gestation I have received much kindly consideration in the timing of my teaching and departmental duties. My former student Noah Segal and my current student Chris Erdman both