1 – Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar is one of the most famous men in history, and the subject of one of the most famous assassinations of all time to boot, making him a prime candidate for our list. But was he a tyrant? His murderers, led by Brutus,
To understand the politics of Julius Caesar’s demise, it makes sense to first understand the political system of Ancient Rome at the time. The Roman Republic worked like a kind of British House of Commons in reverse: where the British government (lead by the Prime Minister) today asks the Commons, who are representative of the people, to vote on an issue and then the Lords, who are not elected and were previously made up of nobles and gentry), can only veto it, the Roman Republic’s Consuls – there were generally two, who could veto each other – proposed legislation to the unelected Senate (made up of nobles), who debated it and then passed it onto the Tribune of the Plebeians, elected by non-nobles, who could potentially veto it.
Consuls were always taken from the Senate, always nobles and generally acted on behalf of their noble class. It was a strong system of checks and balances. The only way that it could be subverted was if the Senate decided to vote in a Dictator. This was only ever temporary – lasting six months at most – and only to be used in very specific circumstances.
The fly in the ointment was the Governors. The Senate appointed Governors to run the provinces that Rome had conquered, especially as they were too far away to govern centrally. Thus Governors became localized chiefs, running the Roman army in their territory without the same structure of checks and balances as Rome itself. Thus, they could, if they were strong enough militarily, challenge Rome directly, as Caesar – who had been Governor of Gaul (France) – did in 50BC. He marched on Rome and “captured” the city, ousting his rival, Pompey, and becoming sole Consul himself.
He was then appointed Dictator in 49 BC and reappointed it again in 48 BC for a year and then in 47 BC for a decade. It made a mockery of the supposedly temporary nature of the post and angered many in the Senate. When Caesar was named Dictator for Life in 44 BC, it was the last straw.
A cabal of senators, feeling that the power of the Roman Republic was slipping from their grasp, acted to save the Senatorial system of rule by murdering Caesar. Around 60 of them stabbed him to death. It did little to save the Republic. Caesar’s time in office had been characterized by a move toward populist policies that bypassed the Senate and spoke directly to the people, which had made him very popular, and the lower classes were angered by his murder. They attacked the homes of the murderers and sparked a civil war between the leaders of the conspiracy, Brutus and Cassius, and Caesar’s appointed successor, Octavian.
Octavian won, beating out all opposition to become the undisputed leader of Rome and was proclaimed the first Emperor. In killing Caesar, those who sought to preserve Roman democracy from the tyranny of one individual had inadvertently delivered the entire Empire into the hands of just one man.
The whole episode has gone down as one of the most influential events in world history. Most of our perception of what happened on the Ides of March, as the date of Caesar’s assassination was known in Rome, comes from the Shakespeare play of the 16th century, but the real history is also well known. The legacy of Caesar as a tyrant is still disputed, but in the eyes of the conspirators at least, he certainly got what was coming to him.
He would be far from the last to receive such treatment. The next on our list, Caligula, however, was a far less ambiguous character.