"Life of Caesar" Podcast: Episode 12
Episode 12:
• 00:35 – Cam: "And I have to say this is where it starts to get good. Everything that's happened in Caesar's life up to now, Ray, has been just a preamble. He's had a fairly average life and career for Roman aristocracy."
In this episode, Cam and Ray borrow heavily from Goldsworthy, who says that "the overall pattern of Caesar's career had been broadly conventional." And he's right. Caesar's career followed the established rules. He wasn't like Pompey, whose entire career was unorthodox. But "average career" kind of implies "mediocre." Caesar was a military tribune, quaestor, aedile, praetor, governor of Further Spain, consul, and now a proconsul of three provinces. He is the second youngest Pontifex Maximus in Rome's history and the winner of the corona civica. He got these posts as soon as he was eligible, bringing his family from the outskirts of the Roman elite to the forefront. That's not average. Most senators never reached the consulship.
• 05:45 – Cam on a theory that Jesus Christ was based on Caesar: "Supposedly, when Jesus was on the cross, some Roman centurion comes up and stabs him in the side with a spear. What was the name of the guy?"
Ray: "Longinus?"
Cam: "Yes! . . . The leader of the conspiracy . . . to kill Caesar? Gaius Cassius Longinus. Who stabbed Caesar in the side."
a) "Longinus" was a widespread Roman cognomen in all social strata. There are several hundred inscriptions mentioning it.
b) Cassius didn't stab Caesar in the side – he slashed him across the face.
• 09:22 – Cam: "What's he actually got is Cisalpine Gaul, Illyricum and Transalpine Gaul or Gallia Narbonensis."
In Caesar's day, it was called just Transalpine Gaul. It was renamed Gallia Narbonesis in 22 BC.
• 09:47 – Cam: "I looked it up. Was like, 'Alright, pull up a map.' Like, what kind of area was Caesar governor of here. Oh my God! Like, what a gig. No wonder he didn't go back for 9 years. So basically for those of you who don't know, this is everything from the northern part of Italy... pretty much the rest of Europe. All the good bits, anyway. It's basically, you know, most of France, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Belgium, parts of the Netherlands and Germany, right through like Croatia. Illyricum included sort of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina."
a) Cam is mistaken. Caesar's provinces did not include "the rest of Europe." Cisalpine Gaul was to the north of Italy, and Transalpine Gaul was in the south of modern France. Everything beyond that was still unconquered by the Romans. Caesar didn't get all that territory; he will conquer it in the next nine years.
b) As far as we know, Caesar went to Illyricum only once because he was too busy in Gaul. Seems like at first he was planning to campaign in the Balkans, and that's why he wanted Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul. But events near Transalpine Gaul diverted his attention.
• 12:21 – Ray: "He wants to out eclipse his son-in-law, Pompey."
He wants to join this group of great men that includes Pompey.
• 12:35 – Ray: "Even though we barely touched on it... It was Auletes and I can't remember his title, but Auletes of Egypt bribes or gives money to Caesar to pass certain laws for him. And so Caesar knows that he's not gonna be able to go to the Roman Senate that can't stand him and get a bunch of money to go start a war in the first place. So he's going to have to use his part of the money that he got from that to get this operation going, because he's going to need more men, he's gonna need material, swords, shields, or just everything you can possibly need for a war, much less to govern all these provinces."
a) Ptolemy XII. And it's not a title, it's his name. Auletes is his nickname.
b) "gives money to Caesar"
Not just to Caesar, but to Pompey as well. But as I mentioned in episode 10, it's unclear how much Caesar actually got from Ptolemy. Financial shenanigans are a bit complicated here, and some other people are involved as well (Gaius Rabirius, Aulus Gabinius).
c) "to pass certain laws for him"
The Republic formally recognized Ptolemy XII's rule.
d) "he's not gonna be able to go to the Roman Senate . . . and get a bunch of money"
Actually, the Senate did allocate him a certain amount because every proconsul was entitled to it.
• 13:25 – Ray: "But he has this plan. But it's just so audacious. And the land that he has to deal with is so huge and so populist. I think everybody else would've just went, 'There is no way this can possibly succeed.'"
Of course, if they had only one year, nobody in their right mind would think that they could conquer all of Gaul. But if they had five years and then five more like Caesar, then why not? Would they have been successful? Maybe not. But the Romans never lacked imperialistic ambitions.
• 13:40 – Cam: "It's important to understand that these regions had been sort of annexed by Rome for well over a century before Caesar got there. . . . It wasn't like Caesar went out to conquer Gaul. It had already been conquered for generations. He was going out to govern, to manage it."
No! Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were Roman provinces, but the rest of Gaul was not. Yet.
• 14:27 – Cam: "During his governorship one source I read said that as many as a million people probably died."
That particular source is Plutarch. And Plutarch's source was probably a triumphal inscription. And those need to be taken very carefully because everything about a triumph was overblown (remember Pompey's 12 million?). Valerius Paterculus says that Gallic casualties were 400,000. We don't know what his source was, but it shows that different sources had different figures.
• 15:29 – Ray: "So he's leaving Rome and all that pretty much anybody knows is that he had a pretty successful consulship, the things that they didn't agree with, guess what, he got away with. And now they're assuming he's gonna spend the rest of his life securing his legacy, doing what he has to do, so he can be in the books, so he can be a senator for a long time and maybe one day a censor. And he's gonna die in [can't make out the word] of his life. So everybody just assumes he's going to kind of fade out and fade out to the [can't make out the word], govern this place well, maybe win some battles, but they're just assuming that everything that made them nervous about Caesar is over with. And now they can kind of get on with their lives."
a) "the things that they didn't agree with, guess what, he got away with."
But he didn't. It will be his consulship that they will threaten him with.
b) They didn't expect the scale of his achievements in Gaul, but no sane person could expect him to fade out. Even if he had never stepped outside of his province, the proconsulship of three provinces for five years gives him a lot of opportunity to build a large client base.
• 16:41 – Cam on Caesar's legates: "He really didn't get anyone of note. Nobody who was anybody really wanted to go with him. . . . Most of the people that went with him to assist him were Roman nobodies at the time."
Ray: "We should probably mention some of their names, because even though these names are gonna change for the next 9 years, just so that you're familiar with them, and a lot of people probably know some of the names. Like, Labienus. The one who was having an affair with Pompey's wife, while Caesar was having an affair with Pompey's wife. . . . And, of course, Balbus, who was taking care of his finances when he was in Spain, he's gonna go with him. He's gonna be like his– is that praefectus fabrum? I'm not sure how to say that. But he's gonna handle his money and things like that. There is Vatinius, who is the one who got Caesar the five year command of Gaul. We also run across Quintus Pedius, Aulus Hirtius, Quintus Titus Sabinus. . . And, of course, Crassus' son, I thought that was interesting. Publius Crassus, the son of THE Crassus, is gonna be there as well."
a) The thing is, we know very little about Caesar's staff in the first year. In book 1 of the "Gallic War Commentaries" (that covers the first year in Gaul), Caesar mentions Labienus, Publius Crassus, and Considius.
Clodius' brother (probably Gaius) was there as well, though we can't be certain if he took any part in the action. Galba was a noble, and it's possible that he was already there in 58 BC. We probably would've known if Caesar had a lot of nobles in his camp. But it's a bit risky to say that only nobodies had gathered there.
b) Ray makes it sound as if all of these people were there from the start. Labienus and Publius Crassus definitely were. But we can't be sure about others.
c) Labienus was not Mucia's lover! It's Colleen McCullough's invention. Caesar's alleged affair with Mucia is from Suetonius, but his source is dubious.
d) Balbus was Caesar's praefectus fabrum in Spain and during his consulship. We can't be 100% certain that he held the same post in Gaul. He was Caesar's main agent and was traveling back and forth between Rome and Gaul.
e) Quintus Pedius was Caesar's nephew (the son of his first sister Julia). That's worth a mention. Suetonius calls him "great-nephew," which would make him Julia's grandson, but judging by his career, he was most likely her son.
• 29:37 – Ray on the Roman army: "So you've got this organized literally military machine. . . There wasn't a lot of screaming and yelling, 'I'm gonna kill you.' It was like a science to them, it was a business. They were lying up their youngest troops at the front. They would fight for a while until they get tired and then they would shift and move the other guys in and they would just wear down, just chew up anybody in front of them. Whereas the Gauls are gonna be just a whole bunch of crazy, some of the times drunken, guys. And there is no discipline, there are not worried about supplies or logistics."
a) Roman legions were one of the most effective armies of the ancient world, but they were human. They lost battles, they fled, they mutinied. All of these things will happen to Caesar's army as well.
b) "their youngest troops at the front"
This was a battle formation in the early and mid-Republic. It was no longer used in the post-Marian era.
c) A bunch of crazy, drunken guys? Man, that's insulting. Just because they lacked the organizational sophistication of the Roman army doesn't mean they were idiots. The Gauls and Germans were the most fearsome of Rome's opponents. The only people to ever sack Rome were Gauls. Caesar, too, had great respect for their prowess.
• 31:54 – Ray: "I thought it was interesting that the bulk of the legionaries were Roman citizens. But as far as the auxiliaries that they used: the horsemen, the light horsemen, the archers and the slingers, those tended to be of other nationalities. It was almost like, 'Ok, you can fight with us and you have the honor of dying for Rome, but you're not gonna be in the main group, you're not gonna be a legionary, you're not gonna be one of the legions.' I just thought maybe there was a bit of prejudice there."
Romans used military traditions of other nations because it made their army even more efficient. Romans excelled at heavy infantry, but other types of troops were lagging behind. They had their own cavalry some 150 years before Caesar's time, but experience had shown that Gauls and Numidians were better. Balearians had best slingers, and Cretans had best archers. So Romans switched to auxiliary for these.
There are many instances when we can scoff at Roman sense of superiority, but this is not one of them. In any army of any era, auxiliaries serve as support for the main force. And the Romans had the advantage of enlisting the best auxiliary forces.
• 41:49 – Cam: "The Gauls weren't a people, they weren't a nation. They were hundreds and hundreds of tribes, led by kings or chieftains. Like any other nation of tribes like that they probably had some similar customs and cultures, but they disagreed, they fought against each other. They weren't a unified force. And they had been occupied at this stage, as we said before, by Rome for, you know, a century, give or take, where they weren't allowed to unify or come together as a single force to push back the Romans."
a) "hundreds and hundreds of tribes"
Yes, Gaul consisted of many tribes that weren't unified into a single nation. But despite Plutarch's claim that 300 tribes were subjugated, it is doubtful that the total number of Gallic tribes reached one hundred. I don't have a full list of Gallic tribes, so I had to look it up on wiki. Wikipedia lists 73 tribes.
b) "And they had been occupied at this stage . . . by Rome for, you know, a century"
No! Only Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were Roman provinces at this point. The rest of Gaul will be brought into Roman domain in the next nine years.
c) Gauls could and would unify to try to expel the Romans. Only a few tribes wouldn't join Vercingetorix.
• 44:32 – Cam: "Caesar did write that he was sort of horrified and shocked by some of the Gauls' practices."
He never wrote such a thing.
• 45:01 – Ray on human sacrifice in Gallic religion: "But they [Gauls] would literally sit there and watch to see if the person screamed or yelled out either in pain or asking for mercy to see how brave they were. They didn't just walk away. It was the test of courage or bravery to see how intense they were."
I have no idea where Ray got these juicy details. It's not in any ancient source.
• 45:16 – Ray: "But, again, not to ruin anything, but in the future of this podcast is gonna come a point where Caesar again getting frustrated, he– one of his legates happens to, how should I put this, like administering pain and Caesar's going to use this particular legate when things get pretty tense for him."
Sadistic Labienus comes from Colleen McCullough's novels. None of the sources ascribe such inclinations to him. And if Ray is talking about Uxellodunum, Labienus wasn't even there!
Episode 12: • 00:35 – Cam: "And I have to say this is where it starts to get good. Everything that's happened in Caesar's life up to now, Ray, has been just a preamble. He's had a fairly average life and career for Roman aristocracy."
In this episode, Cam and Ray borrow heavily from Goldsworthy, who says that "the overall pattern of Caesar's career had been broadly conventional." And he's right. Caesar's career followed the established rules. He wasn't like Pompey, whose entire career was unorthodox. But "average career" kind of implies "mediocre." Caesar was a military tribune, quaestor, aedile, praetor, governor of Further Spain, consul, and now a proconsul of three provinces. He is the second youngest Pontifex Maximus in Rome's history and the winner of the corona civica. He got these posts as soon as he was eligible, bringing his family from the outskirts of the Roman elite to the forefront. That's not average. Most senators never reached the consulship.
• 05:45 – Cam on a theory that Jesus Christ was based on Caesar: "Supposedly, when Jesus was on the cross, some Roman centurion comes up and stabs him in the side with a spear. What was the name of the guy?"
Ray: "Longinus?"
Cam: "Yes! . . . The leader of the conspiracy . . . to kill Caesar? Gaius Cassius Longinus. Who stabbed Caesar in the side."
a) "Longinus" was a widespread Roman cognomen in all social strata. There are several hundred inscriptions mentioning it.
b) Cassius didn't stab Caesar in the side – he slashed him across the face.
• 09:22 – Cam: "What's he actually got is Cisalpine Gaul, Illyricum and Transalpine Gaul or Gallia Narbonensis."
In Caesar's day, it was called just Transalpine Gaul. It was renamed Gallia Narbonesis in 22 BC.
• 09:47 – Cam: "I looked it up. Was like, 'Alright, pull up a map.' Like, what kind of area was Caesar governor of here. Oh my God! Like, what a gig. No wonder he didn't go back for 9 years. So basically for those of you who don't know, this is everything from the northern part of Italy... pretty much the rest of Europe. All the good bits, anyway. It's basically, you know, most of France, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Belgium, parts of the Netherlands and Germany, right through like Croatia. Illyricum included sort of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina."
a) Cam is mistaken. Caesar's provinces did not include "the rest of Europe." Cisalpine Gaul was to the north of Italy, and Transalpine Gaul was in the south of modern France. Everything beyond that was still unconquered by the Romans. Caesar didn't get all that territory; he will conquer it in the next nine years.
b) As far as we know, Caesar went to Illyricum only once because he was too busy in Gaul. Seems like at first he was planning to campaign in the Balkans, and that's why he wanted Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul. But events near Transalpine Gaul diverted his attention.
• 12:21 – Ray: "He wants to out eclipse his son-in-law, Pompey."
He wants to join this group of great men that includes Pompey.
• 12:35 – Ray: "Even though we barely touched on it... It was Auletes and I can't remember his title, but Auletes of Egypt bribes or gives money to Caesar to pass certain laws for him. And so Caesar knows that he's not gonna be able to go to the Roman Senate that can't stand him and get a bunch of money to go start a war in the first place. So he's going to have to use his part of the money that he got from that to get this operation going, because he's going to need more men, he's gonna need material, swords, shields, or just everything you can possibly need for a war, much less to govern all these provinces."
a) Ptolemy XII. And it's not a title, it's his name. Auletes is his nickname.
b) "gives money to Caesar"
Not just to Caesar, but to Pompey as well. But as I mentioned in episode 10, it's unclear how much Caesar actually got from Ptolemy. Financial shenanigans are a bit complicated here, and some other people are involved as well (Gaius Rabirius, Aulus Gabinius).
c) "to pass certain laws for him"
The Republic formally recognized Ptolemy XII's rule.
d) "he's not gonna be able to go to the Roman Senate . . . and get a bunch of money"
Actually, the Senate did allocate him a certain amount because every proconsul was entitled to it.
• 13:25 – Ray: "But he has this plan. But it's just so audacious. And the land that he has to deal with is so huge and so populist. I think everybody else would've just went, 'There is no way this can possibly succeed.'"
Of course, if they had only one year, nobody in their right mind would think that they could conquer all of Gaul. But if they had five years and then five more like Caesar, then why not? Would they have been successful? Maybe not. But the Romans never lacked imperialistic ambitions.
• 13:40 – Cam: "It's important to understand that these regions had been sort of annexed by Rome for well over a century before Caesar got there. . . . It wasn't like Caesar went out to conquer Gaul. It had already been conquered for generations. He was going out to govern, to manage it."
No! Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were Roman provinces, but the rest of Gaul was not. Yet.
• 14:27 – Cam: "During his governorship one source I read said that as many as a million people probably died."
That particular source is Plutarch. And Plutarch's source was probably a triumphal inscription. And those need to be taken very carefully because everything about a triumph was overblown (remember Pompey's 12 million?). Valerius Paterculus says that Gallic casualties were 400,000. We don't know what his source was, but it shows that different sources had different figures.
• 15:29 – Ray: "So he's leaving Rome and all that pretty much anybody knows is that he had a pretty successful consulship, the things that they didn't agree with, guess what, he got away with. And now they're assuming he's gonna spend the rest of his life securing his legacy, doing what he has to do, so he can be in the books, so he can be a senator for a long time and maybe one day a censor. And he's gonna die in [can't make out the word] of his life. So everybody just assumes he's going to kind of fade out and fade out to the [can't make out the word], govern this place well, maybe win some battles, but they're just assuming that everything that made them nervous about Caesar is over with. And now they can kind of get on with their lives."
a) "the things that they didn't agree with, guess what, he got away with."
But he didn't. It will be his consulship that they will threaten him with.
b) They didn't expect the scale of his achievements in Gaul, but no sane person could expect him to fade out. Even if he had never stepped outside of his province, the proconsulship of three provinces for five years gives him a lot of opportunity to build a large client base.
• 16:41 – Cam on Caesar's legates: "He really didn't get anyone of note. Nobody who was anybody really wanted to go with him. . . . Most of the people that went with him to assist him were Roman nobodies at the time."
Ray: "We should probably mention some of their names, because even though these names are gonna change for the next 9 years, just so that you're familiar with them, and a lot of people probably know some of the names. Like, Labienus. The one who was having an affair with Pompey's wife, while Caesar was having an affair with Pompey's wife. . . . And, of course, Balbus, who was taking care of his finances when he was in Spain, he's gonna go with him. He's gonna be like his– is that praefectus fabrum? I'm not sure how to say that. But he's gonna handle his money and things like that. There is Vatinius, who is the one who got Caesar the five year command of Gaul. We also run across Quintus Pedius, Aulus Hirtius, Quintus Titus Sabinus. . . And, of course, Crassus' son, I thought that was interesting. Publius Crassus, the son of THE Crassus, is gonna be there as well."
a) The thing is, we know very little about Caesar's staff in the first year. In book 1 of the "Gallic War Commentaries" (that covers the first year in Gaul), Caesar mentions Labienus, Publius Crassus, and Considius.
Clodius' brother (probably Gaius) was there as well, though we can't be certain if he took any part in the action. Galba was a noble, and it's possible that he was already there in 58 BC. We probably would've known if Caesar had a lot of nobles in his camp. But it's a bit risky to say that only nobodies had gathered there.
b) Ray makes it sound as if all of these people were there from the start. Labienus and Publius Crassus definitely were. But we can't be sure about others.
c) Labienus was not Mucia's lover! It's Colleen McCullough's invention. Caesar's alleged affair with Mucia is from Suetonius, but his source is dubious.
d) Balbus was Caesar's praefectus fabrum in Spain and during his consulship. We can't be 100% certain that he held the same post in Gaul. He was Caesar's main agent and was traveling back and forth between Rome and Gaul.
e) Quintus Pedius was Caesar's nephew (the son of his first sister Julia). That's worth a mention. Suetonius calls him "great-nephew," which would make him Julia's grandson, but judging by his career, he was most likely her son.
• 29:37 – Ray on the Roman army: "So you've got this organized literally military machine. . . There wasn't a lot of screaming and yelling, 'I'm gonna kill you.' It was like a science to them, it was a business. They were lying up their youngest troops at the front. They would fight for a while until they get tired and then they would shift and move the other guys in and they would just wear down, just chew up anybody in front of them. Whereas the Gauls are gonna be just a whole bunch of crazy, some of the times drunken, guys. And there is no discipline, there are not worried about supplies or logistics."
a) Roman legions were one of the most effective armies of the ancient world, but they were human. They lost battles, they fled, they mutinied. All of these things will happen to Caesar's army as well.
b) "their youngest troops at the front"
This was a battle formation in the early and mid-Republic. It was no longer used in the post-Marian era.
c) A bunch of crazy, drunken guys? Man, that's insulting. Just because they lacked the organizational sophistication of the Roman army doesn't mean they were idiots. The Gauls and Germans were the most fearsome of Rome's opponents. The only people to ever sack Rome were Gauls. Caesar, too, had great respect for their prowess.
• 31:54 – Ray: "I thought it was interesting that the bulk of the legionaries were Roman citizens. But as far as the auxiliaries that they used: the horsemen, the light horsemen, the archers and the slingers, those tended to be of other nationalities. It was almost like, 'Ok, you can fight with us and you have the honor of dying for Rome, but you're not gonna be in the main group, you're not gonna be a legionary, you're not gonna be one of the legions.' I just thought maybe there was a bit of prejudice there."
Romans used military traditions of other nations because it made their army even more efficient. Romans excelled at heavy infantry, but other types of troops were lagging behind. They had their own cavalry some 150 years before Caesar's time, but experience had shown that Gauls and Numidians were better. Balearians had best slingers, and Cretans had best archers. So Romans switched to auxiliary for these.
There are many instances when we can scoff at Roman sense of superiority, but this is not one of them. In any army of any era, auxiliaries serve as support for the main force. And the Romans had the advantage of enlisting the best auxiliary forces.
• 41:49 – Cam: "The Gauls weren't a people, they weren't a nation. They were hundreds and hundreds of tribes, led by kings or chieftains. Like any other nation of tribes like that they probably had some similar customs and cultures, but they disagreed, they fought against each other. They weren't a unified force. And they had been occupied at this stage, as we said before, by Rome for, you know, a century, give or take, where they weren't allowed to unify or come together as a single force to push back the Romans."
a) "hundreds and hundreds of tribes"
Yes, Gaul consisted of many tribes that weren't unified into a single nation. But despite Plutarch's claim that 300 tribes were subjugated, it is doubtful that the total number of Gallic tribes reached one hundred. I don't have a full list of Gallic tribes, so I had to look it up on wiki. Wikipedia lists 73 tribes.
b) "And they had been occupied at this stage . . . by Rome for, you know, a century"
No! Only Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were Roman provinces at this point. The rest of Gaul will be brought into Roman domain in the next nine years.
c) Gauls could and would unify to try to expel the Romans. Only a few tribes wouldn't join Vercingetorix.
• 44:32 – Cam: "Caesar did write that he was sort of horrified and shocked by some of the Gauls' practices."
He never wrote such a thing.
• 45:01 – Ray on human sacrifice in Gallic religion: "But they [Gauls] would literally sit there and watch to see if the person screamed or yelled out either in pain or asking for mercy to see how brave they were. They didn't just walk away. It was the test of courage or bravery to see how intense they were."
I have no idea where Ray got these juicy details. It's not in any ancient source.
• 45:16 – Ray: "But, again, not to ruin anything, but in the future of this podcast is gonna come a point where Caesar again getting frustrated, he– one of his legates happens to, how should I put this, like administering pain and Caesar's going to use this particular legate when things get pretty tense for him."
Sadistic Labienus comes from Colleen McCullough's novels. None of the sources ascribe such inclinations to him. And if Ray is talking about Uxellodunum, Labienus wasn't even there!
• 47:31 – Ray: "Again, for those people, who are not big Caesar fans, this is where he kind of deviates from the course of trying to get everyone to like him. And he is going to purposefully start a war to make himself the greatest known Roman general, politician, civilian, whatever you wanna call it, throughout the ages."
a) Seeking to please each and everyone is not a trait of Caesar's. Fear of anyone's disapproval never stopped him from doing what he thought was necessary. Sure, he worked hard on his reputation because he wanted to be acknowledged for his merits. That's what every Roman wanted. But that doesn't mean that he wanted everyone to like him. He was far too practical for that.
b) The conquest of Gaul alone would not make him "the greatest Roman throughout the ages." It would make him one of the greatest. To be the greatest throughout the ages would take a whole lot more. Not just in the military sphere, but in the political sphere as well. And that includes the entire Civil War, his dictatorship with its massive legislative program, and everything that followed after his death. But in future episodes, Ray will insist that Caesar didn't want a Civil War. So... how was he supposed to become the greatest then? It can't happen without those future events. Ray's idea (which he borrowed from McCullough) about Caesar's supposed master plan for becoming the most famous Roman in history doesn't make any sense.
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