Before he was a Shakespearean character, Julius Caesar was one of the most powerful men Rome ever produced. Understanding who he really was is understanding why his death, in 44 BC, did not end an era, but opened another, that of the Empire.
The general who won everything
Julius Caesar lived in the 1st century BC, at a time when the Roman Republic was already creaking under the weight of its own conquests. A brilliant soldier and skillful politician, he won decisive campaigns, went through a civil war against his rivals and emerged from it as the strongest man in the state. Instead of exterminating the defeated, he adopted a policy of clemency: he forgave many of those who had fought against him, which further increased his prestige among the people.
In the eyes of the crowds, Caesar was no longer just a general. He began to be treated as something greater: a man who walked among mortals as if he were more than mortal.
From man to god
This is where the story touches on a delicate point, the cult of the emperor. Rome had a habit of idolizing power, and Caesar fueled this idolatry. Two years after his death, the Senate made official what the crowd already felt: it declared Caesar a god, Divus Iulius, the Divine Julius. The cult of the deified ruler, which would mark the entire Empire, begins with him.
When a people transforms a living man into a god, they have already prepared the ground for the cult of power.
This mechanism is not just old. The cult of personality, the transformation of a leader into a figure above criticism and human measurement, is a phenomenon that spans history. Caesar is its founding portrait.
The death that founded the Empire
The most ironic point in Caesar's life is his death. A group of senators, led by Brutus and Cassius, feared that he would destroy the Republic and become king. They killed him in advance, to save freedom. They achieved the opposite.
The assassination opened a new civil war. Proscriptions came, killing a hundred senators, including Cicero. And, when the dust settled, power was concentrated in the hands of Octavius, Caesar's heir, who would become Augustus, the first emperor. The Republic that the conspirators wanted to save died with the man they killed to save it. It was Caesar's myth, not his sword, that won in the end.
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Who was Julius Caesar?
Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman from the 1st century BC. He won the civil war, gained unprecedented powers as a dictator and was acclaimed almost like a god, until he was assassinated in the Senate in 44 BC.
Why was Julius Caesar assassinated?
A group of senators, led by Brutus and Cassius, feared that Caesar would become a tyrant and destroy the Republic. They killed him in advance, to prevent a tyranny that had not yet happened.
Did Caesar's death save the Republic?
No, it produced the opposite. The murder opened a new civil war, with proscriptions that killed a hundred senators, and ended with Octavius the Augustus founding the Empire. Caesar's death hastened the end of the Republic.
Go deeper: Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare: summary and analysis · Where Caesar died, in Rome · What is preventive tyrannicide
Source class (YouTube): Júlio César, de Shakespeare (NousCast)