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In Caesar, Christian Meier has undertaken a difficult task; he attempts to provide a complete biography of Gaius Julius Caesar. In addition to examining the bare facts of Caesar's life, Meier presents an in-depth psychological and social study of the man. The author seems primarily interested in answering the questions concerning Caesar's greatness (its source, its perception both by Caesar himself and by others, and its impact on society) and those concerning the end of the the Roman Republic (its origins and reasons).
Meier sees Caesar's role in the fall the Roman Republic as that of "last straw," a fairly obvious and acceptable interpretation. Caesar, he claims, differed from previous figures such as Pompey and Sulla in that while those figures sought greatness and power in the context of republican institutions (i.e. the Senate, the various magistracies, etc.) Caesar was an outsider (a term used repeatedly in the book), and did not see his own greatness (and his deliberate quest for that greatness) as being dependent on those institutions. The republican positions of power, in other words, were means to an end, not the end in themselves. This perception, of course, led to the fears that Caesar aimed to re-establish the monarchy.
Although the views and opinions put forward are interesting, and generally make sense, Caesar is a flawed book in some important ways. First of all, the style is difficult to follow at times (this may or may not be partially a function of the translation). Meier does, however, balance his stylistic difficulties by repeating certain key points throughout the text, thus obviating the need for flipping back and forth. Without this repetition, Caesar would be an almost prohibitively frustrating read. Secondly, and unforgivably, the book lacks both footnotes and a proper bibliography. The lack of footnotes is particularly damaging (Meier does include a brief discussion of some of the major sources, primary and secondary, in place of a bibliography), as the author quotes extensively without giving the interested reader more than a vague notion of where to go to follow up.
This brief review cannot hope to sum up entirely the different aspects of a 500+ page biography, particularly when the biography in question deals with one of the most fascinating and complex figures of a fascinating and complex time. Suffice it to say that there is much merit, particularly in the depth in which issues are examined, in Meier's Caesar, but several important flaws as well. The book will probably be most useful for those who have a serious, "scholastic" interest in Julius Caesar and the late Roman Republic. Others may find Caesar to be a convoluted, frustrating, and eventually unrewarding read.
Reviewed by Patrick Conway on March 7, 1997. Posted in soc.history.ancient on March 7, 1997. Photograph from Great Leaders of Rome.
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