Greater man: Cicero or Julius Caesar

**Maggot** · 24 Oct 07, 10:21

Caesar was a remarkable man. Cicero was a remarkable weasel with great wit.

We like to think of Cicero as being a great defender of liberty, but mostly he was the atypical weasel lawyer that everyone hates.

His fame as a lawyer was made on purgery and slander. He taught lawyers that if they didn't have a case (client guilty as hell), it was their job to abuse the plaintiff. Make offhand comments in court like, 'I'm not saying that Bob is a bad witness, but I've heard it commonly said in the market that...'

**cape_royds** · 04 Nov 07, 08:53

It's an unfair comparison.

Cicero was a novus homo, what in Roman politics was called "some new guy."

By the Late Republic, Roman politics was a pure oligarchy and for someone without major wealth and family connections (what the Romans called auctoritas) to break in from the outside was quite unusual. Gaius Marius and Marcus Tullius Cicero were the last of the FNG's to make it to the consulate under the Republic.

Marius, of course, was a successful general. Tullius, on the other hand, made his way to the top through the courts and the assemblies, which was a unique achievement.

Cicero is often knocked for being a coward, but that's not really true. In his early career Cicero challenged head-on a number of very powerful people, at the risk of his life. The Late Roman Republic was a very violent place in which asassinations were a regular occurrence. If you didn't have some high-level "protection," you wouldn't last long in politics. But Cicero survived and made it to the top without enjoying that sort of protection.

Gaius Julius Caesar, on the other hand, came from a well-established and very rich Senatorial family. He was free to follow his own path in politics. Due to lack of means, Cicero had to make all sorts of ugly compromises in politics, trying to get others' support for his measures. It was pointed out that Cicero came from an equestrian family of some means, but wealth is relative, and when compared to the power and riches of rival politicians in Rome such as Hortensius, Clodius, or Caesar, Cicero was rather poor.

That's not to say Caesar wasn't the greater figure in history--he was. But Caesar was playing the game with a huge early lead on the likes of Cicero.

**Ironduke** · 04 Nov 07, 10:13

I was under the impression that Caesar had to marry and borrow his "wealth", and his family was neither remarkable or wealthy for being senatorial. On the other hand, Cicero being disadvantaged as he came from a wealthy but "non-Roman" Italian family. Also didn't Caesar gain great wealth through his military campaigns? Caesar became extremely wealthy but I don't think it's accurate to say that he started life that way.

**cape_royds** · 05 Nov 07, 04:04

The Julian clan was a very well-established part of the Roman polity, although it is true that they were not among the most prominent families. Nevertheless Caesar's father had made it praetor, and one of his uncles, I think, had been consul.

However, Caesar's personal wealth was considerable even before the plunder rolled in from his successful warmaking. He paid fifty talents of silver in ransom to the pirates who captured as a young man which, to be sure, he later recovered in celebrated fashion. But the incident nevertheless illustrates what sort of financial resources he could call upon.

In his rise to power Caesar went into debt, but that was because of his prodigious expenditure, e.g. when he served as aedile he personally borrowed over 1300 talents to spend on feasts and games (and incidentally give contracts for the Appian Way repairs to influential people). Point is, he had access to serious financial backing to get that much credit.

Caesar's lavishness was notable even in the Late Republic:

Originally Posted by Plutarch

Then there were his dinner parties and entertainments and a certain splendour about his whole way of life; all this made him gradually more and more important politically. At first his enemies thought this influence of his would soon come to nothing, once he stopped spending money, and they stood aside and watched it grow among the common people...He spent money recklessly, and many people thought he was purchasing a moment's brief fame at an enormous price, whereas in reality he was buying the greatest place in the world at inconsiderable expense.

I'm not saying Caesar was rich as Crassus, but Cicero was definitely at a "lower tier" than either of them.

Both Caesar and Cicero, like all politicians in the oligarchy, made strategic marriages to gain friends and funds. Caesar's first marriage was to one of the Cornelii, while Cicero first married into the Terentii--both brides provided by wealthy aristocratic houses.

One minor correction to my earlier post: I found there was one other novus homo who made it to the consulate between Marius and Cicero, named Gaius Caelius Caldus.

**Polybius** · 19 Jan 08, 04:24

I have great respect for Cicero, but the social , political, economical climate of the first century had socavated the foundations of the republic
Polybius like Aristotle, clearly pointed that system of goverment are cyclical.
From the rule of the aristocrat, to the rule of tyrant or king to the rule of the republican democratic model and so on until the wheel goes around again.

Rome first century politically, the wealthy controlled the political process,
( they purchased the offices , sounds familiar) ( Roman culture had experienced an aculturation of the Hellenist culture and the famous ancient Roman gravitas were on decay at least among the elite)
Cheap labor and big business, destroy the middle class , the farmer -citizen, the urban worker and the agrarian farmer were practically displaced by Slave labor , unable to compete.
( Sounds like America ? )
Polarization of Wealth, extremes rich and poor?
Insecurity , instability and lack of trust in the elected officials
And embrace of aliens customs , beliefs and way of life

( The development of a kind of multicultural state , over the previous more clear cut Roman identity , popularity of foreign languages such as the Greek language compete with Latin and became the lingua franca in Rome's domains

( sounds familiar ) Identity and Political Crisis.

So Julius Caesar was able to understand the gravity of the crisis and the need for a change in order to save what he could of the older Rome. His ability to clearly perceive and read the signs of the system decay and his absolute love for Rome , her culture and ideas , drove him to plan a change which prevent Roman decay and could save Roman's culture and world status.

Cicero , intention was good, but the crisis was too deep to allow such Republican rescue so Julius Caesar set the pace that Augusto followed and for a while Rome was able to succeed and to bright as the Morning Star of the Mediterraenean Sea

**cape_royds** · 21 Jan 08, 01:49

Caesar saw Rome as something within what had become the Roman world, while Cicero saw the Roman world from within the viewpoint of the Roman state.

That difference of viewpoint is partly because of the different paths of their political careers: Cicero made his career from within the Roman courts and Senate, while Caesar gained power from his career as a proconsul abroad.

But while Cicero was politically minded toward the institutions of his aristocratic Republic, in cultural terms Cicero was of great importance in merging and consolidating the Graeco-Roman philosophy and literature--the culture that would characterize the entire Roman Imperial era.

Only half of Cicero's career was as a politician. The other half of Cicero's life was literary. While not an original philosopher, Cicero made Hellenistic thinking accessible and acceptable to his fellow Roman aristocrats, e.g. his work De Officiis ("On Duties"). Cicero chose the type of Greek thinking most natural to a Roman--Stoicism--and made it the ideological standard of the entire Roman ruling class from that time onward.

**beansprout** · 03 Feb 08, 09:40

Caesar = the man who brought back "Rex" but never was one =]

**Sebastien** · 31 May 08, 13:35

Definately Caesar. Even if he was a dictator he did a lot more good to Rome than Cicero

**~~pate~~** · 02 Dec 08, 11:00

Cicero died a Roman. Ceasar, died in a Roman setting; did that make him Roman?

Who was greater? The man who ushered in Empire, or he who died for the Republic? Different animals, of different times...

**Ironduke** · 10 Dec 08, 11:26

Originally Posted by pate

Cicero died a Roman. Ceasar, died in a Roman setting; did that make him Roman?

Who was greater? The man who ushered in Empire, or he who died for the Republic? Different animals, of different times...

The Republic's days were over. It was necessary for the governing structure to metamorphose given the circumstances and demands created by Rome's expansion. It is one thing for a smaller state in that time to be governed as a republic, but for a true empire of the size the Romans grew to, it is necessary to have the executive power entrusted to an executive who could undertake decisive action without deliberation as necessary to defend from external enemies. The Romans had a fairly good system implemented in the time when the heirs were selected on the basis of ability, but from there it was more or less downhill.

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