He could have followed a more conventional career, relying on oratory and military success in order to build up towards high office. But he's also doing some very distinctively populous things that his contemporaries aren't ther solly doing. All our evidence about the young caesar comes from later biographical writers who are writing knowing full well that he does becam so everything's significant. I think for man to take over half the world, across the rubicon can still be called a young generalis not young in the real sense.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life, work and reputation of Julius Caesar. Famously assassinated as he entered the Roman senate on the Ides of March, 44 BC, Caesar was an inspirational general who conquered much of Europe. He was a ruthless and canny politician who became dictator of Rome, and wrote The Gallic Wars, one of the most admired and studied works of Latin literature. Shakespeare is one of many later writers to have been fascinated by the figure of Julius Caesar.
With:
Christopher Pelling
Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford
Catherine Steel
Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow
Maria Wyke
Professor of Latin at University College London
Producer: Thomas Morris.