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Michael Parenti

The Assassination Of Julius Caesar: A People's History Of Ancient Rome (New Press People's History) Paperback – August 30, 2004

by Michael Parenti (Author)

195 ratings

Part of: New Press People's History (9 books)

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“A provocative history” of intrigue and class struggle in Ancient Rome―“an important alternative to the usual views of Caesar and the Roman Empire” (Publishers Weekly).

Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility―the 1 percent of the population who controlled 99 percent of the empire’s wealth. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, Michael Parenti recounts this period, spanning the years 100 to 33 BC, from the perspective of the Roman people. In doing so, he presents a provocative, trenchantly researched narrative of popular resistance against a powerful elite.

As Parenti carefully weighs the evidence concerning the murder of Caesar, he adds essential context to the crime with fascinating details about Roman society as a whole. In these pages, we find reflections on the democratic struggle waged by Roman commoners, religious augury as an instrument of social control, the patriarchal oppression of women, and the political use of homophobic attacks. The Assassination of Julius Caesar offers a whole new perspective on an era thought to be well-known.

“A highly accessible and entertaining addition to history.” ―Book Marks

Print length

276 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The New Press
Publication date

August 30, 2004
Dimensions

5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

1565849426
ISBN-13

978-1565849426
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Scintillating storytelling and deeply examined historical insight. . . . An important alternative to the usual views of Caesar and the Roman Empire."
―Publishers Weekly

"A highly accessible and entertaining addition to history. . . . It breathes contempt for the rich of ancient Rome and their apologists hiding in classical studies departments today."
―Bookmarks

"A novel approach."
―Library Journal

About the Author

Michael Parenti is the author of sixteen books including History as Mystery, The Terrorism Trap, Democracy for the Few, Against Empire, Dirty Truths, Blackshirts and Reds, and America Besieged. His work has been translated into twelve languages. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press; First Edition, 4th Printing (August 30, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 276 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1565849426
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1565849426
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #170,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #90 in Historiography (Books)
- #112 in Slavery & Emancipation History
- #243 in Ancient Roman History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
195 ratings

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Michael Parenti

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Michael Parenti (Berkeley, CA) is the acclaimed author of more than twenty books, including, most recently, Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader; The Assassination of Julius Caesar; and The Culture Struggle. The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Nation, and Antioch Review, are among the countless publications that have praised Parenti's work. For further information, visit his Web site: michaelparenti.org

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Great read on the people's history of Rome

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2019

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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.

11 people found this helpful

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Catamaran'78

The hypocrisy of the assassins of Caesar, and the bias of history

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2015

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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.

32 people found this helpful

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John Michael Crawford

Different approach

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2019

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Shows the greed and oppression of Caesars opponents.

2 people found this helpful

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James Rawson

Excellent Summary

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2004

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"The Assassination of Julius Caesar" is definitely one of
the best one-volume surveys of that event and its times
that I have read to date. It provides summary treatment of
many important areas, but not in a way that impacts or
lessens its arguments. Parenti's thesis, that the
Senatorial oligarchs were unwilling to share any of their
nearly complete economic domination of the Roman world
with the masses, and destroyed anyone who tried to help
improve the imbalance, is simply what any reading of that
era makes an inescapable conclusion regardless of one's
political or philosophical bent.
As a case in point, Parenti notes that the "Republican"
heroes of the Ides of March claimed to detest Caesar's
monarchical rule and Caesar's complete disregard for
constitutional forms. Yet such a careful avoidance of
one-man rule and such a close preservation of the
constitution was nowhere evident when the Senate appointed
Pompey sole consul in 52 BC. As seems to hold for all
peoples in all times, the Romans were fiercely loyal to the
law when it served their interest, and bent it or tossed it
out all together when it did not.
I could not disagree with any of Parenti's major theses,
though I am no Marxist (and I think that Parenti is likely
to consider himself a Marxian historian, not merely a "progressive",
though I am not sure.) I fall short of considering
Caesar's rule as "a dictatorship of the proletarii." It
most assuredly was not (and I do not think Parenti truly
believes that it was.) I see Caesar (and I think that
Parenti could agree with this) as being more akin to FDR:
an enlightened oligarch who knew what it would take to
stabilize his unsteady world. By bettering the lot of the
masses -- even when it noticibly impinged upon the
oligarchs' traditional advantages -- he made it possible
for the oligarchy to persist. Caesar was no popular
revolutionary, though a reformer (nor was FDR a
revolutionary, though many today call him such.)
Parenti does not use original sources, preferring to rely
on standard works in English translation, and standard
authors such as Syme, Scullard, and Grant, as well as
Gibbon and Mommsen, but he clearly has read a wide range
and great depth from these resources.
This was an extremely readable, well researched, and
though-provoking book. I do not buy into every single part
of Parenti's theses, but I find it overall convincing and
persuasive.

28 people found this helpful

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charles williams

The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2016

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The book is extremely informative with respect to the political and social climate in Rome before and around Carsar's reign. Michael Parenti has a way of pointing out power relationships as well as anyone, and he does it exceedingly proficiently in this book.

6 people found this helpful

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Cletus Jones

The assassination of Julius Caesar is used to illustrate the struggles of ancient Rome

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2015

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This was a brilliant look at Rome in the time of Julius Caesar. Parenti uses the story of Julius Caesar and his assassination to illustrate the struggles and tensions in Roman society. It gave me a clearer understanding of ancient Rome.

7 people found this helpful

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Leonard Smouter

Perfect condition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2019

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Book arrived in perfect condition.

James Cook

Every read a class analysis of Roman society?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 4, 2017

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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.

3 people found this helpful

Jock

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2015

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

One person found this helpful

The Keen Reader

Good theory ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2013

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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.

9 people found this helpful

Germinal

Classic Alternative View

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2008

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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.

14 people found this helpful

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