The only thing Caesar did wrong was let his enemies live. He knew he would look like a tyrant if he killed off his enemies in the Senate outright.
He didn't do anything wrong. The citizens of Rome were out of work. Rome's recent successes around the Mediterranean brought in a ton of slaves who took all the work. The only ones rich enough to own slaves were Senators, and thus were getting all the work orders and commissions.
They wouldn't allow another large-scale war, so Caesar funded it himself. He marched into Gaul, got rich as fuck doing it, and came back a hero, promising to use his wealth to make a massive series of public works that would employ veterans and citizens.
There was nothing he did that wasn't for the people. Whether he was a tyrant or not isn't important-- the fact that he was respected by his friends and enemies shows that he was in the right.
Jordan Gonzalez
This, Caesar was on the side of the people and not the few. He was on the right side of history, like Lenin or Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders.
It's typical of right wing capitalists who want to preserve the status quo to assassinate popular left wing leaders.
Ethan Harris
He did enslave lots of people and nowadays that tends to be frowned upon.
Sebastian Walker
Caesar instigated a war with the Gauls just to increase his personal holdings and prestige. He crossed the channel and invaded Britain just to do it, risking legions on his adventurism and for very little gain. He's not a hero, but he's not really a villain either. The Senate and in fact the entire structure of the Republic was unsustainable, and everyone had known it since the Gracchi. Rome was going to have more civil wars and it was only a matter of time before someone less noble than Cincinnatus or less autistic than Sulla was going to put themselves in charge and just stay there.
Kayden Adams
Depends too hugely on how you define "doing something wrong."
The entire Roman system was set up to limit the power of any one man over the rest, with all levels of magistrate have annual terms and co-equals who could veto them, with the Tribunes of the people able to veto with abandon or call assemblies to pass laws (into which patricians could not even enter)
There was one office that had no co-equal, had to be obeyed and could not be held to account in court afterward -- the Dictator. Bu the Dictatorship was severally limited in time, the term of a Dictator was supposed to be only 6 months.
Sulla fucked that up, by accepting a Dictatorship that was open-ended -- he'd step down when he thought the job was done. He got away with it because he was more than happy to slaughter as many opponents as it took to keep things under control. And then he surprised everybody by declaring, "That's it, jobs done, I've restored the state, hooray for me, I am now retiring to fuck girls, boys, wildebeests, aurochs and anything else my old-man dick can fit into until I die."
This set a precedent for a longer dictatorship, but ...
Continues below
Joseph Russell
Continuing...
also set more firmly into the law that doing what Sulla did was wrong that power should be limited, that the traditional ways in which the Roman state worked were to be respected.
Now Caesar's provocations were great. The Optimates were, in his case, obstructive for the sake of obstruction. They did not so much object to any specific thing he wanted done as object to him personally.
Having won his civil war with the Optimates (including a very short stint as Dictator to preside over elections at a time when no magistrates were in the city to do so) he tried to step back into a semi-normal civilian structure. His policy of mercy to defeated foes meant he still ahad a number of political enemies in Rome, who now also resented him for the perceived snootiness of "I am more important than you, I can grant pardons on my own to political enemies as if they were criminals."
He also was somewhat low on good administrators he could leave in charge of Rome while he went east to fight one more glorious war against a foreign foe.
And there sat Sulla's precedent, just hanging there begging to be considered.
Caesar's huge mistake was accepting the Dictatorship, to allow him to technically be over any fools the voters might pick as Consuls while he was gone) -- he accepted it being made for life, even worse than Sulla's innovation and particularly dangerous in a climate where he was being accused of wanting to be a king. He accepted it when the state was crawling with people who had been willing to fight a civil war against him very recently. And he accepted it to no purpose, since though he'd TECHNICALLY outrank any Consuls at home, he'd be too far from home for this to make any practical difference.
So what Caesar did wrong was -- he made a mockery of one of the oldest and most sacred traditions of the Roman state, for little real gain and in an atmosphere where it was unlikely to be accepted.
Cameron Phillips
It was part of his plan all along, he even had Marc Antony offer to put a crown on his head to see how the public would react. Only when they went dead silent (the Roman equvilant of booing) did he refuse the crown and claim that only Jupiter was king in Rome (playing the religious card, typical right winger).
Owen Martinez
>Lenin or Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders. Comparing Caesar to those three limp wristed commie faggots.
Suck a dick you leftist shill. Go back and shit up /pol/
Carter Ramirez
Fuck off to Kekistan /pol/tard and never come back to Veeky Forums. You are not welcome here.
Noah Harris
>He knew he would look like a tyrant if he killed off his enemies in the Senate outright.
He looked like one anyway when he accepted a life Dictatorship.
>The citizens of Rome were out of work. Rome's recent successes around the Mediterranean brought in a ton of slaves who took all the work.
Source for this in Caesar's time?
>The only ones rich enough to own slaves were Senators, and thus were getting all the work orders and commissions.
This is nonsense. The definition of being abjectly poor in Rome was to be unable to afford a slave. Most people had at least one slave -- female preferred, since not only could you get your cooking and cleaning done, but... ahem. Senators could not engage in commerce, so could not be directly renting out their slaves to "do all the work."
>There was nothing he did that wasn't for the people.
Well... He was a Popularis by nature, politically, Do not conflate that with similar modern political terms. He recognized that the populace as a whole was a potent force in Roman politics, and a source of power for a politician.
To what extent, if any, he wanted to put a chicken in every pot and a new chariot in every garage is not really knowable any more.
>Whether he was a tyrant or not isn't important--
Not any more, I guess.
>the fact that he was respected by his friends and enemies shows that he was in the right. That respect did not stop 30 of them from sticking a knife in him.