>The question is not whether Caesar was popular. The question is whether he could have been removed from power by political means if the people had wanted to.

This plays into the status games endemic to late Republics. To quote another maligned general that was merciful to the vanquished and cruel to the recalcitrant: "Your pretended fear lest error should step in, is like the man who would keep all wine out of the country, lest men should be drunk. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition he may abuse it."

Caesar didn't proscribe his opponents. They killed themselves rather than be in sufferance of his mercy. He didn't attempt to become king or imperator. Augustus grasped his "inheritance" himself. Caesar revelled in his well-earned and legally-entitled glory that overshadowed those of his older, wealthier peers. What he did extralegally in the aftermath of the civil war, like Augustus, he did to conform with the facade of legality to protect the commonweal. Like Cicero, he lived to take the blame of necessity personally. Had he failed in the public eye is a pointless exercise however; He did not fail.

It's informative to ask: Was FDR a dictator? He had an unprecedented scope of power, illegally enlarged the executive branch multiple times, engaged in extralegal economic redistribution, defied informal term limits, and was beloved by the masses.

Yet, if FDR had lost any of his presidential campaigns, would he have left office and transitioned accordingly? There's not a shred, not a whisp, of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Sometimes, and I know well that we live in all too human times that make such people and their circumstances mythical, people do struggle to do good for their own honor and the sake of the public good.

To crib from the eulogy of a would-be American Caesar, executed amidst similarly trying times: "Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change."

> revelled in his well-earned and legally-entitled glory that

That's really a heavily biased claim. First of all Cesar's invasion of Gaul was actual illegal. The stuff he did there even shocked some of the ussually bloodthirsty Roman aristocrats. Regardless of whether he felt what the senate did was just or not his refusal to give up his governorship and the subsequent march on Rome was in no way legal.

His position of dictator was only legal because Ceasar passed laws making it legal. Dictator for life was never a constitutional office in Rome (besides the two times when rebelling general lead his army into the city and forced the senate/assembly to appoint him as one).

Term limits were fundamental part of Roman Consitution and the Republic. While Cesar did not call himself king he was one effectively.

After he was assassinated the office of Dictator was officially abolished. And basically equated to that of King (any person who attempted to make himself dictator could be executed without a trial). You know who proposed this law? Mark Anthony...

Actually Augustus position was legalistically more legitimate (obviously it's only semantics at this point) sensing that Ceasar made mistake appointed himself dictator Augustus had the senate grant him a bunch of separate offices and special powers but he never legally held absolute power in the same way Ceasar did and maintained the illusion that the Republic was still in place.

> Was FDR a dictator?

FDR did not conquer Washington DC with an army. But yeah I guess it's a scale. Ceasar was much, much closer to being an absolute ruler than Roosevelt was. Roosevelt could not legally not execute any American citizen he wanted (Ceasar could even if he ussually chose not to do this)

> "Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery"

Caesar was a glory seeking opportunist (just like almost every other Roman politician...) and a war criminal even if a brilliant general. I'm not saying his opponents were any better but I really don't understand in what way did Ceasar display "Moral courage"?

> It's informative to ask: Was FDR a dictator? He had an unprecedented scope of power, illegally enlarged the executive branch multiple times, engaged in extralegal economic redistribution, defied informal term limits, and was beloved by the masses.

Drawing an equivalency between FDR, who was repeatedly reelected by huge majorities after his terms expired, and did comply with the rulings of a hostile Supreme Court after failing to outmaneuver them, to Caesar, who had himself declared dictator for life by the Senate (itself hardly a democratic institution), and removed multiple Tribunes from office who had more electoral legitimacy than he did, is a bit of a reach.

In May 1937, Associate Justice Owen Roberts, who had previously been a reliable conservative vote on the Court, voted with the liberal wing of the Court in upholding a state minimum wage law. This unexpected switch gave the Court a 5-4 majority in favor of upholding the New Deal legislation, and effectively ended Roosevelt's plans to expand the Court.

It's absolutely ludicrous to say he outmaneuvered them. Roberts conceded and FDR abandoned his plans to pack the court.

FDR did not abandon his plans because of a change in the court's jurisprudence. He abandoned them because he ran into insurmountable opposition from his own party that killed the plan. The House Judiciary chairman called it unconstitutional, for example, and it repeatedly failed votes in the Senate Judiciary committee. It had been made abundantly clear by mid-year that the bill had no chance of passing, hence its failure; otherwise, he would have pushed for it regardless of what the court ruled in West Coast Hotel. Even still, he complied with prior court rulings that had struck down parts of the New Deal after his efforts failed.

Do you think that Caesar was unlimited de facto in what he could put forth whereas FDR was circumscribed?

I think Caesar had carte blanche control over his soldiers, and FDR didn't (which I, and I think even he, would agree was a good thing). I think FDR was elected to a preexisting constitutional office for a predefined term by the people of the nation, while Caesar had himself ad-hoc declared 'Dictator for life' by an undemocratic Senate he effectively held at sword point. I think that that FDR operated under restrictions (which he did at times try to loosen, with varying degrees of success), while Caesar had virtually none (save for factors that motivated some of his policymaking, such as keeping those soldiers happy).

Obviously you believe in populism, economic and/or otherwise, so I suppose you think it is a good thing that someone like Caesar was able to act largely without restrictions in implementing his plans; I don't think a lack of checks is a good thing, even if I believe the policy being implemented is itself good (though Caesar did do things I think were wrong, particularly on the military front, Gaul, etc.). I guess that's just a difference of opinion that we have.

I disagree that Caesar had total control over his soldiers. Labienus and Antony alone among his legates shows that loyalty to Caesar had very real limits that could either turn into antipathy or debauchery. The diadem incident showed that whatever the intent was, Caesar was limited in what he could do.

I don't believe that violation of precedent leads to positive outcomes and that each violation destroys its own foundation, but I also believe that slavish adherence to a stultified and failing system of precedence leads to outcomes that mimic the proverb "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." Lawfare is another kind of civic death, as Cato demonstrated multiple times. So if you want to call opposition to terminal ossification "populism" then sure, you've got me.

> The diadem incident showed that whatever the intent was, Caesar was limited in what he could do.

I largely think this is a good place to leave this conversation, but I can't help but point out that when the limit is 'you can't openly declare yourself king in a nation whose fundamental character is defined as opposition to monarchy', there isn't much of a real limit.

Ultimately, from what I understand, the post-civil war opposition to Caesar was less about what he did than how he did it, so I think that yes, that was a very real limit. If he had or even wanted the kind of total and repressive control that is frequently hinted at but never entirely substantiated (and I think our picture of that control is colored very much by the post-Augustan emperors) along with his supposed revolutionary ambition, then becoming a hereditary king would have been very much the logical conclusion, yet there's very little evidence that Caesar, unlike say Napoleon (or even Cromwell) aimed at this.

If he did aim at it, he did it uncharacteristically poorly. True, his dictatorship ended prematurely so it's ultimately a counterfactual in any case, but keeping your enemies around after they've been defeated in order to declare yourself king at some point after returning from another multi-year military campaign triggers my sense of absolute disbelief, but your mileage may vary.

I think it more likely that the suppression of the Tribunes, the diadem incident, etc. were constructed by others attempting to gin up the fears of "a nation whose fundamental character is defined as opposition to monarchy." I believe that Caesar was among the best of the Romans.

I hope that in 2024, we will successfully recover some lost works via the Vesuvius Prize to justify or refute this position with more direct evidence.

> keeping your enemies around after they've been defeated

I don't think this specifically is evidence of much. Caesar did this all the time; he believed (ultimately incorrectly in my view, based on the way he died), that he would be much better served by brining these people to his side, with their existing powerbases and supporters.

> were constructed by others

Some of it could have been, I guess? But he certainly didn't have to take the bait and remove the tribunes, and the accounts of the diadem incident I've read suggest he knew it would happen ahead of time.

> I believe that Caesar was among the best of the Romans.

Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion. But I gotta say, the stuff I've read about what he did in Gaul and elsewhere makes it impossible for me to view him as any sort of paragon. I'm not saying he was a unique sort of evil or anything (obviously not, the Roman Republic was an expansionist state whose history is littered with atrocities), but I don't find myself feeling very charitable towards him.

>Caesar did this all the time; he believed (ultimately incorrectly in my view, based on the way he died), that he would be much better served by brining these people to his side, with their existing powerbases and supporters.

Yes, but this all occurred prior to his dictatorship. Coalitions are needed when sovereignty is in doubt. If he intended to be king or imperator (and allegedly already was de facto), what incentives does he have to effectively double the elites requiring patronage and titles? Praetors and consuls were limited as were provincial commands. And the Proscriptions were fresh enough in everyone's mind (and subsequently repeated after his death) that it doesn't jive with me that a Rex Caesar needed former Pompeiians to justify his rule when both his ability to rule and his pool of seized wealth to distribute were negatively impacted by their rehabilitation.

>But he certainly didn't have to take the bait and remove the tribunes, and the accounts of the diadem incident I've read suggest he knew it would happen ahead of time.

Given the need of Caesar to be seen as doing the "right thing" rather than the "public thing" I think it's understandable why he would defend citizens and supporters against spurious charges drummed up to harm him. It recalls the episode where Marcus Claudius Marcellus had a Transpadane magistrate whipped (something forbidden to be done to Roman citizens) because Caesar had treated them as citizens while not actually being so. I imagine events like that hit a sore spot personally and not simply puncturing his auctoritas. Something akin to Buzz Aldrin punching a conspiracy theorist in the face for calling him a liar and a phony.

The diadem incident was a scissor statement regardless of who actually orchestrated it. Opponents would see it as testing the waters for kingship and allies an explicit repudiation of it. Given what I perceive to be Caesar's prudence and the desperation of his opponents to manufacture opposition, I find the latter motivation to be more credible, by far.

>But I gotta say, the stuff I've read about what he did in Gaul and elsewhere makes it impossible for me to view him as any sort of paragon.

I meant specifically as a Roman, not necessarily under modern mores. Caesar in my mind was a necessary force rather than a desirable one. Yet I will admit that I'm in the minority when it comes to "cruel necessity" in war, particularly conducted by those that abide by tit for two tats. I think I would rather have punctuated Gaulish atrocities, Sacks of Wexford, Burning of Atlantas, and Hiroshimas than continual and ineffective warfare that sacrifices more real humans and real wealth for slower but larger meat grinders led by forgotten and incompetent men. In short, there are only two kinds of historical personages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody remembers.

> Coalitions are needed when sovereignty is in doubt.

Every leader requires a coalition to stay in power, not just to achieve it.

> what incentives does he have to effectively double the elites requiring patronage and titles

As shown by Cato killing himself rather than accept clemency, it put those who accepted it into a massive debt of honor to Caesar and was massively useful in helping turn those he pardoned to his side. Caesar himself clearly understood this, per what he reportedly said upon hearing of Cato's death - "O Cato, I begrudge you your death; for you begrudged me the sparing of your life."

> allies an explicit repudiation of it

This would be far more credible if he wasn't sitting on a golden throne on a raised dais when Marc Antony presented him the diadem.

> I think I would rather have punctuated Gaulish atrocities

I don't think the Gallic atrocities that Caesar himself recounted were necessary for the most part. And yes, all major historical figures are complained about, but some complaints are more valid than others.

Hot take: The Republic was always a plutocratic/hoplocratic oligarchy where real power was only superficially related to formal process. Talking about when it “died” is mostly debate about how to selectively romanticize its “life”.

But, romanticizing either the Republic or the Empire or both has been (and remains) pretty foundational to political society and national identity for a wide swathe of the world...