SOURCE: “Caesar and Caesarism in the Historical Writing of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Julius Caesar and His Public Image, Cornell University Press, 1983, pp. 10-57.

In the following excerpt, originally published in German in 1979, Yavetz surveys modern interpretations of Caesar, focusing on the question of whether he should be considered a dictator.

The Problem1

In 1953 Hermann Strasburger startled a group of German teachers when he stated briefly and persuasively,² that Julius Caesar, despite his image of great popularity,³ was nothing more than a lonely dictator: not a single Roman senator supported his fateful decision to cross the Rubicon.

Before he took this risk, Caesar addressed his companions, ‘My friends, if I do not cross this stream, there will be manifold distress for me; if I do cross it, it will be for all mankind.’⁴ This warning left his friends unmoved. Some of them, including Calpurnius Piso (his...