What's the Big Deal About Julius Caesar?

Factual Questions
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I think we have break down your question, based on the background you supply

(Warning: long post - I actually know some things about this)

  1. Why was the the historical figure Julius Ceasar so important?

As a general he was responsible for several expansions of Roman rule that were upheld for hundreds of years, most notably Gaul (modern France, more or less)
He was popular among the soldiers common people (plebs) of the City and used that position to advance his political position, ie neutralize his political enemies and concentrate all power in his own hands. This marked the end of the Roman Republic as it stood for a few hundred years. From a modern perspective replacing a ‘republic’ with an ‘empire’ under a dictator/emperor may sound like a step backwards for a society, but keep in mind that this ‘republic’ was by no means a democracy in the modern sense, but an oligarchy where all money and power was in the hands of a very small class (the senators) who traced their family ancestry to Romulus & Remus and co.

The fact that he was a) popular among the common people and b) murdered by the once ruling elite surely helped his legendary status, but this should not be overestimated. Very few emperors in this period of Roman history died of natural causes, so to speak.

At that point in time however, he could still have ended up as ‘just another’ popular political leader who was murdered because of this. That’s where Octavian who restyled himself as Ceasar Augustus comes in. The nobles killed Caesar but lost the war …

  1. Why is/was the name ‘Ceasar’ so important?

While it was Julius Ceasar who had started the whole thing, it was Augustus who consolidated the new political constellation, using the name Ceasar to underline that he was working to continue his legacy. His function as head of state and boss of everything, which we now call ‘emperor’, was at the time commonly referred to as ‘princeps’ (first citizen) - which btw is the origin of the English word Prince. If you wanted to really insult Augustus or Julius, you’d call him ‘King’ (Rex) - the rough equivalent of calling a US presidential candidate a communist. And ‘dictator’, I might add, did not have the negative connotation of today but was rather neutral or even positive.

Anyway, after Augustus it became the tradition for emperors to name themselves Ceasar.

  1. How did the name ‘Ceasar’ (Kaiser, Czar) come to signify the highest position among nobles in medieval and early modern Europe?

First thing you have to understand is the world view of people in Roman and medieval times: Caesar/Princeps/Emperor did not just signify the head of state of the Roman Empire (as in: among other heads of state); it implied universal leadership: he was THE Emperor. The known world was either directly ruled by Rome, a tributary to Rome or Barbarian country. This notion became so firmly established in the minds that the Frankish king Charlemagne (8th-9th century AD) after conquering most of Western Europe felt he had to have himself crowned Emperor/Ceasar/Kaiser by the pope in … yes, Rome. (The Roman Empire had become Christian around the 4th century AD) Thus Charlemagne established the Empire which for centuries to come was referred to as the Holy Roman Empire. Even Napoleon, some 1000 years later crowned himself Emperor in Rome for the same reason. Charlemagne’s ‘empire’ was however soon reduced to modern day Germany, Austria and Northern Italy and the Emperor lost much of his power to the lower regional nobility and the Emperorship was even abandoned for a time until German unification in the 19th century. But nonetheless: the last German Emperor, who was deposed at the end of WWI, was still the traditional political heir of Ceasar and Augustus.

But wait, there was a second Ceasar in Moscow, the Czar!

Yes, there are traditionally two Emperors. This was a result of the cultural and political divide between the Western and Eastern parts of the Roman empire, which were in the end separated for good. After the so called ‘end’ of the Roman Empire in the early Middle Ages, there still remained an Eastern Roman emperor based in Constantinople/Byzantium (now Istanbul, Turkey) ruling over what’s usually called the Byzantine Empire. This came to an end far later, in the 15th century when the Turks conquered Constantinople. I’m less familiar with the details, but somehow the Prince of Moscow picked up the crown and styled himself Czar.

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Or God was against you (that time). Go Zealots!

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Also June Lockhart, Mae West, and Avril Lavigne.

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It’s just an example of title inflation, like how “vice-president” used to mean someone very senior in an enterprise, but can now refer to an entry-level position.

While the Byzantine emperors were still around, the title “Tsar” was being used by the rulers of Bulgaria - from the mid-tenth century, if I remember rightly. The Serbs were using it from the mid-fourteenth century. The Byzantine empire didn’t collapse until the fifteenth century, and the Muscovites didn’t start using the title until the sixteenth. But by then it had no implications of universal overlordship; it was simply a Slavonic word meaning “king”.

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While Jerez de la Frontera (not to be confused with Jerez de los Caballeros) is, indeed, where sherry is made, its name does not come from Caesar.

The oldest town known in the area was tartessic Asta (called Asta Regia by the Romans), later there was a Roman village called Ceret (main nucleus of an area called Ager Ceretanus). Ceret was pretty much abandoned by the time the 8th century rolled by; the Arabic name of the village that got founded (or re-founded) in that area was Sherish (sorry, I don’t have the actual Arabic).

That book talking about some Jewish carpenter has never sold a single copy, either.

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There is a bit more to it than that. There were explicit moves to identify Muscovy as the “Third Rome” shortly after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 which really took off in the early 16th century with the Tzar in Moscow identified as the heir to the Imperial title. “Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will be no fourth. No one shall replace your Christian Tsardom!” See the wikientry.

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In fairness, one of those defeats was at a spelling bee.

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“Very few” overstates the case a bit , unless you insist on taking Tacitus and Seutonius (via Robert Graves excellent and classic Claudius series) at face value. Tacitus and Seutonius, both born after the events they describe, may be reliable as far as public events go, but they could not have properly sourced corroboration for claims of the secret intrafamily murders of the Julian emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius (Caligula and Nero were publicly assassinated).

IMO Augustus almost surely died of natural causes, Tiberius probably did, and Claudius possibly did. That could be 3 out of 5 Julian dynasty emperors total.

I do not count the post-Nero interregnum claimants Otho, Vitellius and Galba to have been true emperors because they never enjoyed uncontested rule.

Of the successor Flavian dynasty the first two, Vespasian and Titus almost surely died of natural causes while the last, Domitian, was assassinated. That is 2 out of 3 Flavian dynasty emperors.

And of the Antonine emperors only the last of 6, Commodious, died violently (by assassination). I saw a movie years ago which depicted (yet another) intrafamily murder by poison (of M. Aurelius by Commodus). I have always assumed that arose from the same tabloid-caliber rumors and sources that Tacitus and Seutonius probably relied on for their accounts of the private lives of the emperors.

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Thia part of the question almost answers itself:
The first few emperors were related to Julius Caesar and took his name to win popular support, so the emperors after them took the name to seem like a continuation of their line. Eventually, the word “Caesar” came to be a title rather than a name. And future nations that wished to compare themselves to Rome, perhaps even portray themselves as successors to Rome, took that title for their rulers as well.

Jersey was apparently first called “Caesarea” in a survey conducted under Augustus, who had reason to publicly honor Julius Caesar (see above), and was probably in honor of J. Caesar having taken troops to England (and one presumes Jersey as well).
I assume the other places have similar stories, equally easy to find at wikipedia.

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Come to the other thread, we have cookies (although probably no cigar for Jersey).

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He also wrote Caesars Commentaries

Which is still today used for people who want to learn Latin. Not only is it written in clear and simple Latin, but it *survived. *

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Lol there u have it. At age 18 i had Tacitus as subject for a graduation test. It left a mark.thanks for that consideration.

But my point is more generally speaking: it was not uncommon for Roman politicians, both in the late republic and early empire, to get killed, especially if you were a threat to the status quo. Thus his being killed by the old elite in itself wasnt enough. If Augustus hadnt Deified him for his own goals… i dunno

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Personally, I wear the T-shirt. :wink:

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Anyway:

Yeah, I think Augustus is probably a much more important and transformative figure than his uncle. The most important thing Caesar did was probably to make Octavian/Augustus his adopted heir (that is some stellar recruitment), and accidentally give him a template for what to do and what not to do when you go about making yourself a Roman autocrat. (Such as: Don’t pardon your enemies, it’ll backfire. Just have them all killed. Don’t behave like a king. Instead, figure out a way to pretend that the Republic is still around.)

I have sort of been pondering this in the context of “great man history” vs. “trends and forces”. Caesar is often lumped in with, for instance, Alexander and Napoleon, as a great genius, the kind who takes the wheel of the history car and drives it. But I’m not really sure if Caesar is that kind of guy. He’s neither the beginning nor the end of the transition from the Republic to the Principate (which basically starts in 146 BC, right after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth). And in the context of the Late Republic, he’s not actually as unique a figure as one might think.

He’s not the only populist to have the support from the people, only to be murdered by the ruling elite. The Gracchi brothers started that whole jazz, and other tribunes followed them. He’s not the one who turns the army into a professional force, loyal to powerful commanders instead of the state: That, mostly, is Marius. He’s not even the first to march on Rome with soldiers and make himself dictator with no term limit: That is Sulla (although Sulla steps down pretty quickly). He’s certainly not the only strongman to stomp all over republican traditions and senatorial toes to get himself money, fame and power: His co-triumvirs Pompey and Crassus are into that, too. And he’s not the one who eventually breaks the cycle of political violence and civil war: That’s Augustus.

I think you could argue that if you remove an Alexander or a Napoleon (or, for that matter, a Hitler) from history, things turn out very different. They’re so idiosyncratic that no one else will readily step in to fill their shoes. I think Augustus is the same kind of guy. But what if there is no Caesar? Well, looking at the history of the Late Republic, my impression is that potential replacements are lining up around the block. Maybe they’re not quite as cool as Caesar, but he is very much a man of his time.

Now, I have to admit that I’m feeling a bit queasy saying all that, considering that Caesar is the single most famous Roman ever. So if someone wants to argue with me: Please do.

I do still think he’s the most charismatic figure of the Late Republic, and the one who embodies the period more than anyone. (I mean, he basically reduces a guy like Pompey to supporting character status. That tells you something, right there.) I guess he’s sort of the center of gravity that the whole era swirls around.

Also: Conquering Gaul, all of it, in about five minutes. Then, winning a civil war despite the odds being awful. All that stuff is pretty mental, even if his luck did eventually run out.

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Shortly after watching the PBS series and reading the books I went to the library to try learn more, especially about the arch-fiend Livia.

The Cambridge Ancient History dismissed all charges against her as, and I quote, “a farrago of nonsense”. (Yes, I had to look up “farrago”). I was a bit suprised because although Suetonius has a poor reputation, Tacitus is second to none.

I still think the Claudius books were among the 10 or so best fiction I ever read.

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Maybe I was being a bit finnicky. I will certainly go along with “not uncommon”.

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It may be an urban legend or one of those impossible to verify claims, but didn’t Caeser invent the book as we know it? My understanding is that until Caeser writing was either on scrolls or tablets. If this is correct, that would be another major achievement that could be added to his list of accomplishments.

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Or to put it another way, suppose Antony won the Battle of Actium. There would have been no Roman Empire, the whole thing would have broken apart like so many other Empires. Antony would have been incapable of doing what Octavian did, which is rule for decades as an autocrat while carefully preserving the forms of the Republic. No Augustus and the Roman Empire is in ruins.

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I’m a huge fan of I, Claudius.

I do wonder a bit what the best strategy is for writing historical fiction about the period. I mean, you really can’t shoot for realism. In reality, Livia probably didn’t murder anyone. But that is seriously boring, and it certainly doesn’t capture the spirit of the Roman writers. So I guess you basically have to take all the gossip and run with it, have a somewhat unreliable narrator, and trust the readers to know the score and get the idea.

Kudos to Graves for being brilliant about it.

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The switchover from scrolls to codices occurred around the time and Julius Caesar was apparently an early adopter. But it’s not clear that he invented it.

On a related note, there’s a theory that early Christians caused the widespread adoption of the codex form. Jewish religious texts were recorded on scrolls and when early Christians broke with Judaism they were seeking means to distinguish their religion from Judaism so they recorded their religious texts in codices. Then as Christianity entered the mainstream the use of the codex form grew alongside it.