Table of Contents
Also by Michael Parenti
The Terrorism Trap (2002)
Democracy for the Few (7th edition, 2001)
To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2000)
History as Mystery (1999)
America Besieged (1998)
Blackshirts and Reds (1997)
Dirty Truths (1996)
Against Empire (1995)
Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America (1994)
Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media (1986, 1993)
Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment (1992)
The Sword and the Dollar (1989)
Power and the Powerless (1978)
Ethnic and Political Attitudes (1975)
Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy (1971)
The Anti-Communist Impulse (1969)
To Marina Anttila
with love
Acknowledgments
O ver the years Charles Briody tried to improve upon my childhood altar boys Latin with ad hoc lessons, mostly on the telephone now that we live at opposite ends of North America. I must confess that all his best efforts never got me much beyond the Omnis Galla est divisa in tres partes level. For this I have only myself to blame. Luckily, all the major (and most minor) ancient sources are available in various English translations. Briody also generously provided me with some crucial literature and notes of his own, and did a most helpful reading of the manuscript. So too did Iain Boal and Daniel Shoup who, like Briody, gave me the benefit of their substantive criticisms and their classical education.
Peggy Karp did a close and especially valuable reading of the manuscript. Jane Scantlebury helped me locate sources, and tendered advice and encouragement over the long duration of the writing. She also contributed a useful critique of the manuscript. Susan McAllister went over an early version of the opening chapter for me, and provided other needed assistance.
Peter Livingston saved the dayand the booklaboring hard to snatch from the jaws of my treacherous computer precious text and endnotes that had been mysteriously devoured. He thereby saved me many impossible months of reconstructive effort. Willa Madden, my webmeister, also conducted helpful operations against the wanton vicissitudes of electronic storage. Richard Wiebe and Andrea Segall brought several useful sources to my attention. And Sheeda Jamsheed helped me navigate my way through the University of California library to dig up some materials. My editor at The New Press, Colin Robinson, was enthusiastic and supportive all the way. His assistant, Abby Aguirre, was most helpful. Production editor Sarah Fan walked the book through its various phases with reassuring proficiency. And Holly Knowles provided an excellent index.
To all these fine people I extend my heartfelt thanks.
Introduction: Tyrannicide or Treason?
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourishd over us.
JULIUS CAESAR ACT III, SCENE 2
O n the fifteenth of March, 44 B.C., in a meeting hall adjacent to Pompeys theater, the Roman Senate awaited the arrival of the Republics supreme commander, Julius Caesar. This particular session did not promise to be an eventful one for most of the senators. But others among them were fully alive to what was in the offing. They stood about trying to maintain a calm and casual posewith daggers concealed beneath their togas.
Finally Caesar entered the chamber. He had an imposing presence, augmented by an air of command that came with being at the height of his power. Moving quickly to the front of the hall, he sat himself in the place of honor. First to approach him was a senator who pretended to enter a personal plea on behalf of a relative. Close behind came a group of others who crowded around the ceremonial chair. At a given signal, they began to slash at their prey with their knives, delivering fatal wounds. By this act, the assailants believed they had saved the Roman Republic. In fact, they had set the stage for its complete undoing.
The question that informs this book is, why did a coterie of Roman senators assassinate their fellow aristocrat and celebrated ruler, Julius Caesar? An inquiry into this incident reveals something important about the nature of political rule, class power, and a peoples struggle for democracy and social justiceissues that are still very much with us. The assassination also marked a turning point in the history of Rome. It set in motion a civil war, and put an end to whatever democracy there had been, ushering in an absolutist rule that would prevail over Western Europe for centuries to come.
The prevailing opinion among historians, ancient and modern alike, is that the senatorial assassins were intent upon restoring republican liberties by doing away with a despotic usurper. This is the justification proffered by the assassins themselves. In this book I present an alternative explanation: The Senate aristocrats killed Caesar because they perceived him to be a popular leader who threatened their privileged interests. By this view, the deed was more an act of treason than tyrannicide, one incident in a line of political murders dating back across the better part of a century, a dramatic manifestation of a long-standing struggle between opulent conservatives and popularly supported reformers. This struggle and these earlier assassinations will be treated in the pages ahead.
This book is not only about the history of the Late Republic but about how that history has been distorted by those writers who regularly downplay the importance of material interests, those whose ideological taboos about class realities dim their perception of the past. This distortion is also manifested in the way many historians, both ancient and modern, have portrayed the common people of Rome as being little better than a noisome rabble and riotous mob.
In word and action, wealthy Romans made no secret of their fear and hatred of the common people and of anyone else who infringed upon their class prerogatives. History is full of examples of politico-economic elites who equate any challenge to their privileged social order as a challenge to all social order, an invitation to chaos and perdition.
The oligarchs of Rome were no exception. Steeped in utter opulence and luxury, they remained forever inhospitable to Romes democratic element. They valued the Republic only as long as it served their way of life. They dismissed as demagogues and usurpers the dedicated leaders who took up the popular cause. The historians of that day, often wealthy slaveholders themselves, usually agreed with this assessment. So too classical historians of the modern era, many of whom adopt a viewpoint not too different from the one held by the Roman aristocracy.
Caesars sin, I shall argue, was not that he was subverting the Roman constitutionwhich was an unwritten onebut that he was loosening the oligarchys overbearing grip on it. Worse still, he used state power to effect some limited benefits for small farmers, debtors, and urban proletariat, at the expense of the wealthy few. No matter how limited these reforms proved to be, the oligarchs never forgave him. And so Caesar met the same fate as other Roman reformers before him.
My primary interest is not in Julius Caesar as an individual but in the issues of popular struggle and oligarchic power that were being played out decades before he was born, continuing into his life and leading to his death. Well into my adulthood, most of what I knew about ancient Rome was learned from Hollywood and television. In my head were images of men in togas, striding about marbled palaces, mouthing lapidary phrases in stage-mannered accents, and of course images of chariot races and frenzied arena crowds giving thumbs-down to hapless victims.
