Is It Still “Too Soon” To Tell the Truth About Julius Caesar?
In the high school Latin classroom, Caesar is often presented as a hero worthy of admiration. Why do we as Latin teachers — and as a field — continue to protect his image and legacy millennia after his death?
The recent death of Kobe Bryant reminded us of our mortality and represented the loss of an accomplished athlete, savvy businessman, and devoted father. It also sparked a national conversation about the way we memorialize and represent human failures after death. In the case of Bryant, this conversation started the same day as his death, but this conversation is one middle and high school Latin teachers still need to have about Julius Caesar. Caesar did not die last week. He has been dead for two millennia. Why do we continue to protect him as if it were “too soon” to mention anything negative about him?
Providing an incomplete version of ancient Roman history and eliding the brutality of Roman imperialism is both unethical and negligent. Students encounter ancient Rome in a modern context that includes variations of the same violence, displacement, and suffering that we often sanitize in our instruction about Caesar and Roman imperialism more generally. Though individual teachers might choose to discuss the brutality and violence of Caesar’s campaign, many pre-collegiate resources gloss over it. For example, Latin for the New Millennium (Level 1) describes Caesar’s works as a “gold mine of information about the Late Roman Republic, and especially the impressive Roman military machine” and claims Caesar “was also an excellent observer of the customs and habits of other peoples.” The introduction of a popular Advanced Placement text similarly downplays Caesar’s brutality by comparing him to a CEO. On Planet Latin, invasions are travel and plunder profit-sharing:
Although the power of life and death dramatically illustrates Caesar’s authority, it does not offer a comprehensive or representative view… Caesar exercised his authority judiciously, and he lets us know throughout his narrative how important the health and safety of his men were to him. Almost like the CEO of a large corporation, the dux had to build cities (camps), supply that city with food and other necessities, find new markets to fund profit-sharing (plunder), and make travel arrangements (e.g., invade), manage hostile takeovers (battle), and negotiate contracts (treaties), as well as supervise and direct operations in the heat of battle… For Rome too, of course, Caesar also protected the safety and integrity of his province in a hostile and brutal world (as cruel as the Romans may seem to us — and they were — their enemies were no less cruel rapacious, and violent.)
The National Latin Exam, which 140,000 students take each year, frequently frames non-Roman peoples are “the enemy” whose main function is to strengthen the military dominance of the good-guy Romans. “The other” exists to be visited, conquered, and absorbed into the empire, a portrayal that denies them the same humanity afforded to the Romans. The NLE’s representation of “the enemy” and textbooks’ portrayal of Caesar are common in secondary Latin classrooms, but unbalanced representations exist outside of the classroom as well. Despite the trend to include Caesar in opinion pieces about abuse of power, sanitized versions Caesar are still common in popular culture. In a 2014 International Journal of the Classical Tradition article, Marice Rose discusses the appeal and value of Caesar-inspired branding at Caesars Atlantic City, whose advertising slogan at one point was “Our Empire is Your Empire.”
About the casino, Rose writes, “The intention was never to create a historical space.” In the classroom, however, we have different responsibilities. What does it say about our field that we rarely discuss the wholesale slaughter and brutality of Caesar’s Gallic campaign and that we continue to protect Caesar’s reputation over accuracy? In many Latin classrooms, we present Caesar as a hero and students root for him as the Western dominance over “the barbaric.” Though Caesar is not used to market casinos in secondary classrooms, he is used to market a fantasy version of ancient Rome and, by extension, Latin.
Presenting a fuller picture of Caesar does not need to involve revisionism or the imposition of 21st-century values on the ancient Roman world. Social Studies standards related to other instances of imperialism require students to think critically about the events in question and their effects. Furthermore, Caesar is not the only source of information we have about the Gallic wars. And, not everyone shared the same opinions about his campaigns. Contemporaries found Caesar’s violence noteworthy, even in their own context where mass violence and enslavement of conquered peoples was commonplace.
At the beginning of De Bello Gallico, Caesar himself admits to killing Helvetii, many of whom were women, children, and other noncombatant migrants (1.12.2–4):
Ubi per exploratores Caesar certior factus est tres iam partes copiarum Helvetios id flumen traduxisse, quartam vero partem citra flumen Ararim reliquam esse, de tertia vigilia cum legionibus tribus e castris profectus ad eam partem pervenit quae nondum flumen transierat. Eos impeditos et inopinantes adgressus magnam partem eorum concidit; reliqui sese fugae mandarunt atque in proximas silvas abdiderunt.
When Caesar found out from scouts that a three quarters of the Helvetii had crossed that river, but a quarter had been left on the other side of the Saone river, around the third watch he set out from the camp with with three legions and reached the group that had not yet crossed the river. Catching them off guard, he killed them as they were weighed down with baggage.
Elsewhere, Caesar describes killing 400,000 people, once again targeting noncombatants, women, and children from the Tencteri and Usipetes (De Bello Gallico, 4.14.5–15.2):
At reliqua multitudo puerorum mulierumque (nam cum omnibus suis domo excesserant Rhenum transierant) passim fugere coepit, ad quos consectandos Caesar equitatum misit. Germani post tergum clamore audito, cum suos interfici viderent, armis abiectis signis militaribus relictis se ex castris eiecerunt, et cum ad confluentem Mosae et Rheni pervenissent, reliqua fuga desperata, magno numero interfecto, reliqui se in flumen praecipitaverunt atque ibi timore, lassitudine, vi fluminis oppressi perierunt.
But the remaining multitude of children and women (you see, they had set out from their homes and crossed the Rhine with everyone else) started to flee in all directions. Caesar sent his horsemen after them. When Germans heard their cries from behind and saw their people were being killed, they threw down their weapons, abandoned their military standards, and hurried out of their encampment. And, when they had arrived at the Meuse and Rhine and gave up on a successful escape, a great number were killed, the rest flinging themselves into the river out of fear and weakness and, overcome by the force of the river, perished there.
There are other places Caesar writes of mass violence. In Book VI, he mentions exterminating the race of Eburones during a truce. Although the term “genocide” originated in the 20th century, Caesar himself described his action as eradicating an entire nation (De Bello Gallico, VI.34):
Si negotium confici stirpemque hominum sceleratorum interfici vellet, dimittendae plures manus diducendique erant milites… Dimittit ad finitimas civitates nuntios Caesar: omnes ad se vocat spe praedae ad diripiendos Eburones, ut potius in silvis Gallorum vita quam legionarius miles periclitetur, simul ut magna multitudine circumfusa pro tali facinore stirps ac nomen civitatis tollatur. Magnus undique numerus celeriter convenit.
If he wanted this affair to be completed and the race of wicked men to be slaughtered, he had to send out more units and deploy more soldiers… Caesar sent messengers to the neighboring states and recruited them with the hope of riches from plundering the Eburones; better to risk the life of the Gauls in the forest than that of a legionary soldier; and better that the race and name of the state should be destroyed for such a crime after assembling a large force.
Although Caesar received much praise for his military achievements in his lifetime, he did not enjoy universal approval. According to Suetonius the Roman senate wanted to investigate him for his “unjust” actions in Gaul (Divus Iulius 24.3):
Nec deinde ulla belli occasione, ne iniusti quidem ac periculosi abstinuit, tam foederatis quam infestis ac feris gentibus ultro lacessitis, adeo ut senatus quondam legatos ad explorandum statum Galliarum mittendos decreverit ac nonnulli dedendum eum hostibus censuerint.
Then, he did not abstain from any occasion for war, even if it was unjust and dangerous, attacking allies and fierce enemy nations alike to such an extent that the senate once decreed that a delegation should be sent to investigate the situation in Gaul and a few recommended that should be handed over to the enemy.
Pliny the Elder described the killing of 1,192,000 people in foreign battles as an “injustice to the human race” that he personally found problematic (Natural Histories, 7.25):
nam praeter civiles victorias undeciens centena et nonaginta duo milia hominum occisa proeliis ab eo non equidem in gloria posuerim, tantam etiam coactam humani generis iniuriam.
Beyond ancient Roman voices, there are many other resources available that approach Caesar’s conquests in a more honest way. It is not our job to contort history in order to cover for the ancient Romans. Other subjects do not approach history and primary sources this way. At the very least, we should align our instruction with standards of other content areas that address these topics more rigorously and critically.
In the introduction of his new translation of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, Jim O’Donnell writes:
Caesar deserves to be compared with Alexander the Great. No one before or since comes close… Have I said that right? Isn’t that what you would expect a translation of Caesar to say? It’s entirely true and many have said as much before. But saying just that makes you admire him without understanding him, makes you complicit in his ill-doing as well. This translation of his account of the war in Gaul will try to restore your objectivity and freedom of judgment.
It is not necessary to provide sweeping judgments of Caesar in presenting more comprehensive information. It is, however, dishonest to present an incomplete version of Julius Caesar as pure and judgment-free. The goal is not to replace uncritical acceptance of a myth-version of Caesar with a teacher-driven condemnation, but students should leave our classrooms with something more than unmitigated admiration of Caesar as a symbol of Roman greatness and glory.
