Julius Caesar

Articles: Julius Caesar

The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti Book Description: The story of popular resistance to wealth and power in ancient Rome.  Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility. They regard Roman commoners as a parasitic mob, a rabble interested only in bread and circuses. They cast Caesar, who took up the popular cause, as a despot and demagogue, and treat his murder as the outcome of a personal feud or constitutional struggle, devoid of social content. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the distinguished author Michael Parenti subjects these assertions of "gentlemen historians" to a bracing critique, and presents us with a compelling story of popular resistance against entrenched power and wealth. Parenti shows that Caesar was only the last in a line of reformers, dating back across the better part of a century, who were murdered by opulent conservatives. Caesar's assassination set in motion a protracted civil war, the demise of a five-hundred-year republic, and the emergence of an absolutist rule that would prevail over Western Europe for centuries to come.  Parenti reconstructs the social and political context of Caesar's murder, offering fascinating details about Roman society. In these pages we encounter money-driven elections, the struggle for economic democracy, the use of religious augury as an instrument of social control, the sexual abuse of slaves, and the political use of homophobic attacks. Here is a story of empire and corruption, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, slumlords and urban rioters, death squads and political witch-hunts.  The Assassination of Julius Caesar offers a compelling new perspective on an ancient era, one that contains many intriguing parallels to our own times.  Hardcover from New Press

Caesar
by Christian Meier, translated by David McLintock.
Book Description For centuries, Julius Caesar has endured in our collective imagination as a favorite among historians and scholars, playwrights and poets. In legend he lives as the great conqueror of Rome's immense empire, a remarkable diplomat and writer, an unrivaled heartbreaker, and a man of relentless determination who met a seemingly tragic end. 

Caesar examines the riveting story of a complex man within the context of the crisis of the Roman republic. Meier vividly reconstructs the distinctive features of this age by emphasizing the prevalent educational practices that imposed limitations on individual development. Meier clearly shows that Caesar early on established himself as a man whose unique drive, self-confidence, and detachment would bring him into continual conflict with established institutions. 

What were the political and social forces that shaped and challenged this extraordinary individual? And how did this larger-than-life leader truly affect the fate of the Roman republic and the course of history? Internationally renowned historian Christian Meier explores these questions in the most authoritative and accessible account ot Julius Caesar's life, career, and legacy.
Paperback: 528 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.41 x 9.20 x 6.13
Publisher: Basic Books; ;
ISBN: 046500895X

Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome
by Stephen Dando-Collins
Listed under Roman Wars

Caesar: Politician and Statesman
by Matthias Gelzer, Peter Needham (Translator)
Paperback: ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.85 x 9.01 x 6.06
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr; ; Reprint edition (October 1985)
ISBN: 0674090012

Caesar Against Rome: The Great Roman Civil War
by Ramon L. Jimenez
Book Description Caesar Against Rome is an absorbing narrative of the four-year Roman Civil War that began with Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BCE. Focusing always on Caesar, the book sketches a panorama of Roman society--the first society to display the ambition, greed, and intrigue of modern politics--in the last century before Christ. Caesar was a complex and contradictory figure, extraordinarily talented and extremely ambitious, but at the same time vain, careless, and inclined to be forgiving. While Caesar's unusual clementia was a major factor in winning popular support, soldiers, and towns to his side, it allowed virtually all enemy leaders to return to the battlefield against him.
Publisher: Praeger Publishers; (February 28, )

Caesar Against the Celts
by Ramon L. Jimenez
Publisher: DaCapo Press; Reprint edition

Caesar: A History of the Art of War Among the Romans Down to the End of the Roman Empire, With a Detailed Account of the Campaigns of Caius Julius Caesar
by Theodore Ayrault Dodge
Publisher: DaCapo Press; Reprint edition

The Civil War
by Julius Caesar
Book Description THE CIVIL WAR is Caesar's masterly account of the celebrated war between himself and his great rival Pompey, from the crossing of the Rubicon in January 49 B.C. to Pompey's death and the start of the Alexandrian War in the autumn of the following year. This generously annotated edition places the war in context and enables the reader to grasp it both in detail and as a whole.
Paperback: 360 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.75 x 7.78 x 5.12
Publisher: Viking Press; ; Reprint edition (November 1976)
ISBN: 0140441875

The Education of Julius Caesar: A Biography, a Reconstruction
by Arthur D. Kahn
Book Description In The Education of Julius Caesar, a meticulously researched and absorbing biography, Arthur Kahn brings Caesar alive and explores the spirit of his age with intensity, illuminating the politics, the technological and scientific developments, military struggles, and the artistic and philosophical ferment.
Publisher: iUniverse.com; (April )

Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier, and Tyrant
by J. F. C. Fuller
Publisher: DaCapo Press; Reprint edition (May 1991)

Julius Caesar: A Beginner's Guide
by Antony Kamm
Book Description This handy series from Headway offers brief yet lucid introductions to the world's cultural icons. Each book examines the life, the work, and the legends surrounding its subject, and key terms and concepts are highlighted and clearly explained. Additionally, each chapter ends with a review section for easy reference and to help consolidate the reader's understanding of the text.
Paperback: 96 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.50 x 7.75 x 5.25
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton; ;
ISBN: 0340844566

Seven Commentaries on the Gallic War
by Julius Caesar
Book Description The Gallic War, published on the eve of the civil war which led to the end of the Roman Republic, is an autobiographical account written by one of the most famous figures of European history. This new translation reflects the purity of Caesar's Latin while preserving the pace and flow of his momentous narrative of the conquest of Gaul and the first Roman invasions of Britain and Germany. Detailed notes, maps, a table of dates, and glossary make this the most useful edition available.
Publisher: Oxford University Press;
ISBN: 0192835823

Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives
by Plutarch, Rex Warner (Translator), Robin Seager (Designer)
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper); Reprint edition (February 1954)

Plutarch: Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans (Modern Library Series)
by A. H. Clough (Editor), John Dryden (Translator)
Book Description: Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory. Richly anecdotal and full of detail, Volume I contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus and Theseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and many more powerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome.

The present translation, originally published in 1683 in conjunction with a life of Plutarch by John Dryden, was revised in 1864 by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose notes and preface are also included in this edition.
Publisher: Modern Library; Reprint edition (September 1992)

The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves
Listed under Roman Emperors

The Civil Wars
by Appianus, translated by John Carter
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper); (December )
 
 

Julius Caesar on DVD

Julius Caesar (1953) VHS Starring: Marlon Brando, James Mason,  John Gielgud Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz An examination of the relationship between political power and personal conscience, Joseph Mankiewicz's traditional Julius Caesar (1953) is a veritable master class for aspiring thespians. As the opportunistic Marc Antony, Marlon Brando delivers the famous funeral speech with pure conviction, elsewhere casting an intense physicality that recalls his work in A Streetcar Named Desire. James Mason suggests a latent Hamlet in his turn as the honorable Brutus, while John Gielgud is positively serpentine as the lean, hungry Cassius. Louis Calhern invests Caesar with intelligence and edgy noir echoes, and director Mankiewicz astutely balances the Renaissance view of Caesar as a power-obsessed, corrupt tyrant destined for punishment with modern suggestions that his murder may have been ill advised. The director's scrupulous pacing is supported in no small measure by Miklós Rósza's stunning score. At film's end, power itself is without a master, and the spirit of Caesar has been left unrevived: and to Mankiewicz's credit, the latter is revealed to be the true tragedy of Julius Caesar. --Kevin Mulhall - Amazon.com Julius Caesar - Shakespeare Director: Stuart Burge NTSC format, Color Caesar and Cleopatra. 1946 VHS Stars Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh Adaption of a play by George Bernard Shaw Out of Print - Try Used Books Julius Caesar. 1970 VHS John Gielgud, Charlton Heston Out of Print - Try Used Books

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