The Life and Times of Julius Caesar

Plot

When Julius Caesar went up to a meeting of the Roman senate on the Ides of March, 44 B.C., he was the most powerful man in the world. In Africa, in Egypt and against enemies nearer home he had proved himself a brilliant commander and had greatly extended the power of Rome. He was also an administrator who had done much to reform Roman bureaucracy while holding some formidable politic rivals at bay. Caesar, moreover, was a man of great wit and charm, whose love affairs were the subject of the ribald marching songs sung by his legions as they followed him in triumph across the world. As he walked towards his seat in the senate that day he was stabbed to death by a group of conspirators who feared that he would use his dictatorial powers to destroy the Roman republic; among them was the man whom some believed to be his son, Marcus Brutus.

Did Caesar really have the welfare of Rome at heart, or was he just a brilliant and ruthless man out to advance himself at whatever cost? This account of his life will help the reader make up his own mind, by describing his extraordinary rise to power as he fought his way through the squabbles and jealousies of rival factions in Rome, and the barbaric tribes surrounding her. There is nothing remote about this ambitious aristrocrat who sided with the people but soon saw that the real power lay with the army: his kind are still very much alive today. 154 illustrations, more than half of them in full colour, use the mosaics and sculpture of the period as well as later paintings and drawings to show what life was like for Caesar and his people as Rome acquired her mighty empire.