by
Damien F. Mackey
In Part
One we learned that much of the ‘Julius Caesar’ that has come down to us constitutes
a composite figure drawn from, e.g., Jesus Christ; Alexander the Great; and “perhaps other composites as well”, such as Julius Caesar
Octavianus Augustus.
The ‘heretical’
question had to be asked (though without an answer so far given):
Did Julius
Caesar really exist?
Now, enlarging
upon the Alexander factor, this Part Two will consider a broader Hellenistic
influence upon the composition of the one we know as ‘Julius Caesar’.
Hellenistic
Influence
A common theme of mine, as also referred to and referenced in Part One, has
been the constant Greco-Roman appropriations of various aspects of ancient Near
Eastern culture and civilisation – most notably that of the Hebrews.
The younger histories borrowing from the vastly older ones.
But might not the younger Roman Republican ‘history’ have also absorbed,
and appropriated, certain elements of the widespread Hellenistic empire? Biblically
(I accept the Catholic canon), Rome emerges very late, but with glowing praise.
I refer to 1 Maccabees 8, in which Judas Maccabeus makes a treaty with Rome.
The conventional date for this is c. 160 BC, but I would imagine that this will
need to be, through astute revisionism, significantly lowered. The Maccabean
writer eulogises both Roman military might and Roman fair dealing (1-13):
Judas had heard of
the reputation of the Romans. They were valiant fighters and acted amiably to
all who took their side. They established a friendly alliance with all who
applied to them. He
was also told of their battles and the brave deeds that they performed against
the Gauls, conquering them and forcing them to pay tribute; and what they did in
Spain to get possession of the silver and gold mines there. By planning and
persistence they subjugated the whole region, although it was very remote from
their own. They also subjugated the kings who had come against them from the
far corners of the earth until they crushed them and inflicted on them severe
defeat. The rest paid tribute to them every year. Philip and Perseus, king of the
Macedonians, and the others who opposed them in battle they overwhelmed and
subjugated. Antiochus
the Great, king of Asia, who fought against them with a hundred and twenty
elephants and with cavalry and chariots and a very great army, was defeated by
them. They took him
alive and obliged him and the kings who succeeded him to pay a heavy tribute,
to give hostages and to cede Lycia, Mysia, and Lydia from among
their best provinces. The Romans took these from him and gave them to King
Eumenes. When the Greeks planned to come and destroy them, the Romans discovered it, and sent against
the Greeks a single general who made war on them. Many were wounded and fell,
and the Romans took their wives and children captive. They plundered them, took
possession of their land, tore down their strongholds and reduced them to
slavery even to this day. All the other kingdoms and islands that had ever opposed them they
destroyed and enslaved; with their friends, however, and those who relied on
them, they maintained friendship. They subjugated kings both near and far, and
all who heard of their fame were afraid of them. Those whom they wish to help and to make
kings, they make kings; and those whom they wish, they depose; and they were greatly
exalted.
This terrifying military strength and domination was, however, modified by
wise government (vv. 14-16):
Yet with all this, none of them put on a diadem or wore purple as a
display of grandeur. But they made for themselves a senate chamber, and every day three
hundred and twenty men took counsel, deliberating on all that concerned the
people and their well-being. They entrust their government to one man every year, to rule over their entire land, and they all obey that one,
and there is no envy or jealousy among them.
Unfortunately, the Maccabean account of the journey to Rome for Treaty
purposes by “Eupolemus, son of
John, son of Accos, and Jason, son of Eleazar” (vv. 17-32) does not include any Roman names whatsoever.
“Later,
Simon sent Numenius to Rome with the gift of a large gold shield weighing half
a ton, to confirm the Jews’ alliance with the Romans” (14:24). Judas Maccabeus
was now dead and his brother Simon was High Priest. Conventionally, this second
Jewish approach to Rome is dated about 20 years later (c. 140 BC) than the one
at the time of Judas.
Finally,
this time, we are given a Roman name, “Lucius”, a consul, most generally thought
to have been Lucius Calpurnius Piso.
A Roman consul who is said (1 Maccabees 15:16;) to
have written a letter to Ptolemy Euergetes securing to Simon the high priest
and to the Jews the protection of Rome. As the praenomen only of the consul is
given, there has been much discussion as to the person intended. The weight of
probability has been assigned to Lucius Calpurnius Piso, who was one of the
consuls in 139-138 B.C., the fact of his praenomen being Cneius and not Lucius
being explained by an error in transcription and the fragmentary character of
the documents. The authority of the Romans not being as yet thoroughly
established in Asia, they were naturally anxious to form alliances with the
kings of Egypt and with the Jews to keep Syria in check. The imperfections that
are generally admitted in the transcription of the Roman letter are not such as
in any serious degree to invalidate the authority of the narrative in 1
Maccabees.
The
Maccabean text reads as follows (15:5-24):
Meanwhile,
Numenius and those with him arrived in Jerusalem from Rome with the following
letter addressed to various kings and countries:
From Lucius, consul of the Romans, to King Ptolemy,
greetings. A delegation from our friends and allies the Jews has come to us to
renew the earlier treaty of friendship and alliance. They were sent by the High
Priest Simon and the Jewish people, and they have brought as a gift a gold
shield weighing half a ton. So we have decided to write to various kings and
countries urging them not to harm the Jews, their towns, or their country in
any way. They must not make war against the Jews or give support to those who
attack them. We have decided to accept the shield and grant them protection.
Therefore if any traitors escape from Judea and seek refuge in your land, hand
them over to Simon the High Priest, so that he may punish them according to
Jewish law.
Lucius wrote the same letter to King Demetrius, to
Attalus, Ariarathes, and Arsaces, and to all the following countries:
Sampsames, Sparta, Delos, Myndos, Sicyon, Caria, Samos, Pamphylia, Lycia,
Halicarnassus, Rhodes, Phaselis, Cos, Side, Aradus, Gortyna, Cnidus, Cyprus,
and Cyrene.
A copy of the letter was also sent to Simon the
High Priest.
The Divine
Julius
That the ‘Julius Caesar’ that has come down to us exhibits some marked
Hellenistic aspects is apparent from the account of Caesar given by N. Fields
in his Warlords of Republican Rome. Caesar
versus Pompey (2008). Fields, writing in his section,
“The Second Dictator”, finds himself confronted with those vexed questions
regarding Caesar’s status and intentions (pp. 175-176):
[Caesar’s]
acceptance of the title dictator perpetuus
demonstrates that Caesar did intend to retain power indefinitely, but this then
raise two further extraordinary questions. First, was Caesar seeking a
quasi-divine status, and second, was he going to convert the perpetual dictatorship
into a hereditary monarchy? Even to this day both of these points are fiercely
argued about by academics. Balsdon, for instance, coolly argues that the notion
that Caesar hankered after divine status and kingship was the invention and elaboration
of his assassins. On the other hand, others such as Taylor and Weinstock
earnestly believe that Caesar was seeking divine status, that is to say, a
Hellenistic-type monarch, despotic and absolute, worshipped with god-like
honours ….
Fields becomes more explicit in his section, “The ‘Divine King’”. Following
the battle of Munda, Fields writes (pp. 176-177):
… the Senate
awarded Caesar another heap of honours in his absence. Again this included an
ivory statue, which was inscribed ‘To the undefeated God’ and carried in procession
with a statue of Victory at the opening of all games in the circus. The
inscription itself had strong overtones of Alexander the Great and admittedly
this is a difficult one to explain away, especially as the master of Rome did
not over-rule the Senate this time.
Post-Alexander
But such excessive honour also smacked of the post-Alexander Ptolemies (p.
177): “Naturally Caesar was worshipped in the Greek east, where Hellenistic
monarchs (and powerful Romans before Caesar) had been typically granted divine
status while alive, the most celebrated being the Ptolemies of Egypt”.
Without my having yet done really thorough research on the matter, I would
nonetheless anticipate that Hellenistic history - just like I have shown to be the
case with Egyptian, Assyro-Babylonian and Persian history - will require
significant streamlining.
How many of those many Ptolemies and Cleopatras are actually repetitions?
And how much belongs to Greece, and how much to Rome? Contemporaneous with
the famous Cicero (c. 106-43 BC), or “Chickpea”, for example, was a Ptolemaïc
“Chickpea”, Ptolemy IX Lathyrus
(= Chickpea).
There is much sorting out to be done here.
Fields’ account of the enigmatic
Caesar is full of questions, often with Hellenistic answers.
P. 178:
Herein lies a
possible solution to the question of Caesar’s so-called divine status. It is
certainly true that the divine worship of Hellenistic monarchs became the model
for the Roman emperors, and thus we could argue that Caesar, dictator for life,
was the first example of this practice.
….
King of Rome?
But why did
Caesar need the more glamorous but invidious title of rex, especially as he now held all the power he required by ruling
Rome through the position of dictator
perpetuus? Syme believes it is not necessary to accept that he sought to
establish a Hellenistic-style monarchy, because the dictatorship was sufficient
….
Did Julius Caesar really exist?
Stay posted.
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