The Assassination Of Julius Caesar: A People's History Of Ancient Rome (New Press People's History)

In these pages one will find so many parallels between ancient oligarchs and today's oligarchs that one could replace the old names with new names. Further, though the sources on the common people of Rome are so scarce, Parenti mines the existing sources for every useful scrap about them to show us their true character- and we see that they were just like us and not the mindless, bloodthirsty mob that they have been accused of.A significant portion of this book isn't about Gaius Julius Caesar but an examination of how previous scholarship has not used sufficient critical thinking on the material. Most previous historians writing about Rome have accepted too much of the sources at face value and did not dig deeper to find the story that Parenti has found.

Michaels book sheds a much needed light in history, the history of one of the most, if not the most influential society of our era, moreover not learning from the work herein will inevitably lead us down the same path, the only difference between nowadays and then.. Is that today we have no Julius Caesar to fight for the rights of the people, the same people that hold in their shoulders the "success" of the optimates of every era! Much recommended book!

Parenti rejects the "gentlemen's history" of ancient and contemporary times to take a scientific look at the history of Rome's proletariat class, their struggles, the assassination of leaders who took up the popular cause of reforms, and the ultimate demise of the Republic at the hands of those assassins. Must read for even casual students of ancient history or class struggle through the ages.

I almost quit reading at the 15% Mark but glad I continued. The author repeatedly suggests one shouldn't judge the past by today's values. Then he proceeds to proselytize about the evils of "slaveholders" and the low esteem in which women were held. Christianity is mentioned in a dismissive derogatory manner. I enjoyed learning some little known facts about the subject even though interpreted from a far left point of view.

Michael Parenti, page 151: "Caesar reduced the numbers on the grain dole from 320,000 to 150,000 ridding the swollen lists of fraudulent recipients, including slaveholders who deliberately would 'free' their workforce then present their slaves' food bill to the state for reimbursement. Caesar prohibited the hoarding of huge sums of cash, and eased the desperate straits of a large debtor class by allowing people to repay their debts at lower prewar rates. He also imposed usury limits on creditors, at the same time forbidding them from suing for any arrears of interest that exceeded the sum of the original loan. He forbade proscription, property confiscation, and fines on debtors. He ordered all interest already paid to be deducted from principle owed, and canceled the interest due since the beginning of the civil war. This last measure alone, Suetonius reckons, erased one quarter of all outstanding debt......There are two theories about why people fall deeply into debt. The first says that persons burdened with high rents, extortionate taxes, and low income are often unable to earn enough or keep enough of what they earn. So they are forced to borrow on their future labor, hoping that things will take a favorable turn."The Roman landowner creditor class, from which the assassins came, had a multitude of reasons to murder Caesar. His moves to outlaw their payday loan businesses was only one. From Cato the Younger to Cicero, the titans of Roman aristocracy are exposed to be hypocrites and schemers, whose primary objective was to preserve their power and wealth, not the unwritten Constitution of the Roman Republic. Parenti says the 'gentlemen historians' who have written on ancient Rome, and which he often quotes, have held that the Senate assassins of Caesar were virtuous and unsullied heroes of democracy and human rights, largely because the historians come from the same moneyed upper class background, creating a strong bias. Parenti upturns this standard historical view, which also holds that the commoners were an unruly contemptible mob easily manipulated by despots. He also recounts the circumstances of the murders of other 'populares' (of Caesar's Party) by 'optimate' assassin squads.

Having had my opinions of Julius Caesar and his assassins shaped by the Bard and others, I've found this well documented presentation of the other side of the story fascinating and enlightening. Its echoes of our own economically divided society make it a "must-read" for today.

Book arrived in perfect condition.

Every read a class analysis of Roman society? No, then read this. It's quite unlike anything you normally get on this subject as it offers a more complete picture of the history, rather than the narrow viewed, obfuscations you get from the rich-boy publications.

A refreshingly clear realistic political perspective , nothing has changed in 2000 years.

The author seeks to demonstrate that Caesar's assassination, rather than being the act of men restoring republican liberties by eliminating a "despotic usurper" was in fact the act of men who perceived Caesar to be "a popular leader who threatened their privileged interests". That's a great theory, and I applaud the author's attempt to prove it. However, there were a number of factors that, in my opinion, stood in the way of his body of proof.I would have had more respect for his examples, had he been more honest in the use of sources. The book states that "history reflects the age in which it was written" and invites the reader to thus take with a pinch of salt some of the things for example written by Gibbon, yet continues to use primary source examples outside the scope of the study itself - for example, Juvenal (late 1st and early 2nd century AD), Martial (b. AD 40), Marcellinus (b. late 4th century AD), Appian (b. c. AD 95). Given that Caesar died in 44 BC, these authors were writing well outside Caesar's lifetime, and were often writing in times of political unrest under later Emperors.Secondary sources, used by the author to demonstrate blinkered thinking on such things as the life of Roman people, slavery and other "popular" matters, consisted primarily of what the author referred to as "gentlemen historians" and included Jerome Carcopino (b. 1881), Lionel Casson (b. 1914), John Balsdon (b. 1901), Ronald Syme (b. 1903), Theodor Mommsen (b. 1817), Cyril Robinson (b. 1884), H H Scullard (b. 1903), Christian Meier (b. 1929). Clearly many, if not all these men were products of a late-19th century, early-20th century education based heavily on classical sources (Cicero, Seneca etc.), but who were also writing in troubled times of their own. There were, and are many other secondary sources that the author could have used of more recent date, that would not perhaps have suited his purpose so well, and thus were ignored. For example, Thomas Wiedemann (b. 1950) who studied and wrote extensively on Roman slavery, John Clarke (b. 1945) who wrote on Roman life and society from 100 BC to AD 200, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (b. 1951) who has written extensively on Roman culture, society and Roman history in general, Gregory Aldrete (b. 1966) who has published on life in Roman cities; and others.There are other points which offered misrepresentation. As an example: on page 17, the author quotes a passage "observed" by the "Caledonian chief Calgacus". This was in fact a passage attributed to Calgacus in AD 83 or AD 84, by Tacitus, writing in c. AD 98. So not really representative of anything that the author seeks to demonstrate for the time of the late Republic, and more indicative of the period following the assassination of Domitian, who had persecuted Tacitus' father-in-law, Agricola, in whose life the passage is first written. Again: there is a passage on page 38 quoted from Seneca the Younger, which describes some of the "indignities endured by household slaves". Seneca the Younger was not even born until 4 BC, so again was not writing of Republican times.It's a pity - the thesis was sound, and deserved to be explored, yet the author let himself down because of a bias that was unmistakable from the beginning of the book to the end. It was always going to be a bit of a stretch to class Caesar in with the Gracchi, Milo or Catiline, but the attempt could at least have been carried out with a bit more conviction. The result was a book that really didn't offer a fair hearing to all sides of the story - conclusion: theory unproved, in my opinion. The book is well written; it just does not use honest reasoning, nor deliver a very honest result. The theory deserves to be visited again, by another author I think.

We think we know the Julius Caesar story. Numerous films and TV programmes, Shakespeare and so on. What Michael Parenti does is look at the story from a Marxist perspective - Marx doesn't get mentioned at all, but that's not the point.Parenti asks the simple question: what did Caesar stand for that made the group of extremely wealthy men who ran the Roman world want to kill him? The answer is that he wanted to institute a series of mild reforms that shifted a little bit, but not too much, wealth, land, property, food, housing, tax burden from the tiny number of very rich people to the much larger numbers of urban and rural poor.In this desire, Caesar stood in the tradition of populares who had gone before him such as the Gracchi brothers. The Gracchi and all the other populares had been murdered for their efforts.This small redistribution of wealth was too much for the optimates - the small group of wealthy aristocrats. And so they tried to undermine Caesar. And when they failed to undermine him, they murdered him.And for more than 2,000 years the dominant view of these events has been that the wealthy murderers were really men who loved democracy, liberty and the rule of law, in other words the optimates view of history written by members of that class in the Roman world and accepted uncritically by 'gentlemen' historians down to this day.Parenti turns that upside down - or, rather, he turns it the right way up. Excellently researched, snappily written, easily read. A joy.