On Asconius, see B. A. Marshall, A Historical Commentary on Asconius (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985).
D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ed., Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 7 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965–70) is fundamental, as is idem, Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares (Letters to His Friends), 2 vols. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977) and idem, Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrum et M. Brutum (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Two useful commentaries on Cicero’s Philippics are W. K. Lacey, Second Philippic Oration/Cicero (Bristol, Avon: Bolchazy Carducci; Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Humanities Press, 1986) and John T. Ramsey, ed., Philippics I–II/Cicero (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
CAESAR
Caesar wrote concisely but his life is a huge subject inspiring many books. For the man in a nutshell, it would be hard to beat J. P. V. D. Balsdon’s excellent little volume, Julius Caesar (New York: Atheneum, 1967). For an introduction to the many subjects in Caesar studies today that interest scholars, see the excellent essays in Miriam Griffin, ed., A Companion to Julius Caesar (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). A classic of good judgment and good scholarship is Matthias Gelzer, Caesar: Politician and Statesman, translated by Peter Needham (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969). Christian Meier, Caesar, translated by David McLintock (New York: Basic Books/HarperCollins) is a great book, scholarly and gripping, but not always right. For a critical review that advances a more negative theory of Caesar’s dynastic ambitions, see E. Badian, “Christian Meier: Caesar,” Gnomon 62.1 (1990): 22–39. An outstanding, recent biography is Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). Philip Freeman, Julius Caesar (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008) is astute and succinct. W. Jeffrey Tatum, Always I Am Caesar (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008) is a lively and insightful introduction. For those with German, E. Baltrusch offers a trenchant comparison of Caesar and Pompey in Caesar und Pompeius (Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004). Two important books by Zvi Yavetz analyze Caesar’s program, his propaganda, and his appeal to the ordinary Roman: Plebs and Princeps (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) and Julius Caesar and His Public Image (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). For more on Caesar’s appeal to the poor and noncitizens, see Luciano Canfora, Julius Caesar: The Life and Times of the People’s Dictator, translated by Marian Hill and Kevin Windle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). In a similar vein, see Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New York: New Press, 2003).
On Caesar as commander, see J. F. C. Fuller, Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant (New Brunswick, NJ: Da Capo, 1965); Kimberly Kagan, The Eye of Command (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006). On Caesar as risk taker, see my Masters of Command: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar and the Genius of Leadership (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), passim.
On the enduring legacy of Caesar, see three very valuable books by Maria Wyke: Caesar: A Life in Western Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); idem, Caesar in the USA (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); idem, ed., Julius Caesar in Western Culture (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006).
On Caesar’s early career, see: Lily Ross Taylor, “The Rise of Julius Caesar.” Greece and Rome (Second Series) 4.1 (1957); R. T. Ridley, “The Dictator’s Mistake: Caesar’s Escape from Sulla,” Historia 49.2 (2000): 211–29.
On Caesar in Gaul, see K. Gilliver, Caesar’s Gallic Wars 58–50 BC (London: Routledge, 2003); T. R. Holmes, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911); Christophe Goudineau, César et la Gaule (Paris: Errance, 1992); Kathryn Welch, “Caesar and His Officers in the Gallic War Commentaries,” in Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell, eds., Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments (London: Duckworth; Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 1998), 85–110.
On the Civil War, see Adrian Goldsworthy, “Caesar’s Civil War 49–44 BC,” in Kate Gilliver, Adrian Goldsworthy, and Michael Whitby, with a foreword by Steven Saylor, Rome at War (Oxford and New York: Osprey, 2005), 106–82. I offer an analysis of Caesar’s Civil War tactics and strategy in Masters of Command, passim.
On Caesar as propagandist, see J. H. Collins, “Caesar as a Political Propagandist,” in H. Temporini, ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, vol. 1.1 (Berlin and New York: DeGruyter, 1972), 922–66. On Caesar’s use of Venus as propaganda, see “Caesar’s Divine Heritage and the Battle for Venus,” retrieved July 24, 2013, from http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/acans/caesar/Career_Venus.htm.
On Caesar’s appearance, see P. Zanker, “The Irritating Statues and Contradictory Portraits of Julius Caesar,” in Griffin, ed., Companion to Caesar, 288–313.
The best study of Caesar as dictator is Martin Jehne, Der Staat des Dictators Caesar (The State of the Dictator Caesar) (Cologne, Germany: Böhlau, 1987). Important essays on the last phase of Caesar’s career are found in Gianpaolo Urso, ed., L’ultimo Cesare: Scritti, Riforme, Progetti, Congiure: atti del Convegno Internazionale, Cividale del Friuli (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2000). See also John H. Collins, “Caesar and the Corruption of Power,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 4.4 (1955): 445–65; Marta Sordi, “Caesar’s Powers in His Last Phase,” in Francis Cairns and Elaine Fantham, eds., Caesar Against Liberty? Perspectives on his Autocracy, Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 11 (Cambridge: Francis Cairns, 2003), 190–99; J. T. Ramsey, “Did Julius Caesar Temporarily Banish Mark Antony from His Inner Circle?,” Classical Quarterly 54.1 (2004): 161–73. On the Lupercalia, see A. K. Michels, “The Topography and Interpretation of the Lupercalia,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 84 (1953): 35–59.
A basic work on the deification of Caesar is Stefan Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). See the important revisions by Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002).
ROMAN POLITICS: INSTITUTIONS AND PRACTICES
Two fine introductions to Roman political life in Caesar’s day are Lily Ross Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961 [1949]) and Claude Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, trans. P. S. Falla (London: Batsford Academic and Educational, 1980). Fergus Millar argues that Roman politics was more democratic than scholars had thought in The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988). For a skeptical view of Roman democracy, see Henrik Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Robert Morstein-Marx offers an insightful analysis of Roman political oratory, with the days after the Ides of March being an important case in point, in Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). F. Pina Polo offers a catalog of Public Meetings (contiones) in Las Contiones Civiles y Militares en Roma (Zaragoza, Spain: Universidad de Zaragoza, 1989).
On the Best Men and the Populists, see W. K. Lacey, “Boni atque Improbi,” Greece & Rome, 2nd ser. 17.1 (1970): 3–16.
CAESAR’S RIVALS
On Pompey, two succinct biographies are Robin Seager, Pompey the Great, A Political Biography, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002) and Patricia Southern, Pompey (Stroud, England: Tempus, 2002). For more details, see P. A. L. Greenhalgh, Pompey, the Roman Alexander (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981) and idem, Pompey, the Republican Prince (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1982).
A good introduction to Cato the Younger is Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni, Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012).
A fine introduction to Cicero is Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician (New York: Random House, 2002). Elizabeth Rawson, Cicero: A Portrait, rev. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), is the work of a
n expert in the intellectual world of the Late Republic. Two good introductions to Cicero and politics are R. E. Smith, Cicero the Statesman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966) and D. Stockton, Cicero: A Political Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).
On Clodius, see W. Jeffrey Tatum, The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
CAESAR’S MEN
Two good introductory biographies to Mark Antony are E. G. Huzar, Mark Antony: A Biography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978) and P. Southern, Mark Antony (Stroud, England: Tempus, 2006). There is much of value in Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). An important work on Antony’s relationship to Caesar is J. T. Ramsey, “Did Julius Caesar Temporarily Banish Mark Antony from His Inner Circle?,” Classical Quarterly 54.1 (2004): 161–73. A grand old account, by turns fanciful and wise, is Arthur Weigall, The Life and Times of Marc Antony (Garden City, NY: Garden City, 1931).
On Lepidus, see Richard D. Weigel, Lepidus: The Tarnished Triumvir (London and New York: Routledge, 1992); L. Hayne, “M. Lepidus and His Wife,” Latomus 33 (1974): 76–79; L. Hayne, “M. Lepidus (cos. 78)—A Reappraisal,” Historia 21 (1972): 661–68.
On Oppius and Balbus and the bitterness their rise inspired in the Roman nobility, see Kathryn E. Welch, “The Praefectura Urbis of 45 B.C. and the Ambitions of L. Cornelius Balbus,” Antichthon 24 (1990): 53–69. See also Ralph Masciantonio, “Balbus the Unique,” Classical World 61.4 (December 1967): 134–38.
THE CONSPIRATORS
The old but still fundamental discussion of the evidence for the conspirators and the conspiracy is W. Drumann, Geschichte Roms [History of Rome] in seinem Übergange von der republikanischen zur monarchischen Verfassung; oder, Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen nach Geschlechtern und mit genealogischen Tabellen, vol. 3: Domitii–Julii, 2nd ed., ed. P. Groebe (Leipzig: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1906), 624–28. The commentary in Pelling, Plutarch’s Caesar is essential for serious study of the conspirators, the assassination, and the aftermath. The best and most concise introduction to the conspiracy and the aftermath is the chapter in Greg Woolf, Et Tu, Brute? The Murder of Caesar and Political Assassination (London: Profile Books, 2006), 1–51; Woolf is, however, unduly diffident about the possibility of reconstructing the details of the assassination. Woolf argues that the conspirators would have gotten away with their murder if not for Caesar’s soldiers, a force that insisted on revenge; the Roman nobility was probably willing to accept it. Zvi Yavetz, “Existimatio, Fama and the Ides of March,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 78 (1974): 35–65, argues that the conspirators mistakenly believed that public opinion was on their side. D. F. Epstein, “Caesar’s Personal Enemies on the Ides of March,” Latomus 46, Fasc. 3 (1987): 566–70, argues that personal and not ideological motives inspired the conspirators. Andrew Lintott, “The Assassination,” in Griffin, ed., Companion to Caesar, 72–81, takes ideological motives more seriously. Also valuable are R. E. Smith, “The Conspiracy and the Conspirators,” Greece & Rome, 2nd Series 4.1 (1957): 58–70, and R. H. Storch, “Relative Deprivation and the Ides of March: Motive for Murder,” Ancient History Bulletin 9 (1995): 45–52.
T. P. Wiseman, Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) argues that Caesar’s killers were arrogant aristocrats while Caesar followed the rule of law and had the support of the Roman people. See the valuable review by Josiah Osgood, Classical Journal 105.2 (2009): 180–83.
M. H. Dettenhofer offers an important insight into the generation of most of the conspirators—and for that matter, of their opponents Antony and Lepidus—who were all around the age of forty at the time of the Ides of March. See her Perdita iuventus: zwischen den Generationen von Caesar und Augustus (Lost Youth: Between the Generations of Caesar and Augustus) (Munich: Beck, 1992).
The most accessible book in English on Marcus Brutus is M. L. Clarke’s fine work, The Noblest Roman: Marcus Brutus and His Reputation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), but the most penetrating analysis is in German: Hermann Bengston, Zur Geschichte des Brutus, Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Munich: Beck, 1970). Erik Wistrand offers a persuasive account of Brutus’s moderation in The Policy of Brutus the Tyrannicide (Göteborg: Kungl. Vetenskaps-och Vitterhets-samhället, 1981). See the review essay by G. Dobesch, “Review of the Noblest Roman. Marcus Brutus and His Reputation by M.L. Clarke; The Policy of Brutus the Tyrannicide by Erik Wistrand,” Gnomon 56.8 (1984): 708–22.
Ramsay MacMullen offers a perceptive analysis of Brutus’s motives and his later reputation in Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest, and Alienation in The Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), 1–45. Sheldon Nodelman offers an insightful study of the evidence of coins and sculpture in “The Portrait of Brutus the Tyrannicide,” Occasional Papers on Antiquities 4: Ancient Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum 1 (1987): 41–86. T. W. Africa puts Brutus on the couch in “The Mask of an Assassin: A Psychohistorical Study of M. Junius Brutus,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8, 4 (1978): 599–626. Graham Wylie emphasizes Brutus’s status as an icon and his failure as a leader in “The Ides of March and the Immovable Icon,” in Carl Deroux, ed., Studies in Latin literature and Roman history, vol. 9 (Brussels: Latomus, 1998), 167–85. M. Radin, Marcus Brutus (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1939), is highly speculative.
On Brutus as an orator see Andrea Balbo, “Marcus Junius Brutus the Orator: Between Philosophy and Rhetoric,” in Catherine Steel and Henriette van Der Blom, eds., Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 315–28.
For a perceptive study of Cassius and Brutus, see Elizabeth Rawson, “Cassius and Brutus: The Memory of the Liberators,” in I. S. Moxon, J.D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, eds., Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing, Papers Presented at a Conference in Leeds, 6–8 April 1983 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 101–19.
On Decimus Brutus, the fundamental study, with a full citation of sources, is Friedrich Münzer, s.v. Iunius (Brutus) (55a), in August Pauly and Georg Wissowa, eds., Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Supplementband V, Agamemnon-Statilius (Stuttgart, 1931), cols. 369–85 (in German). Also extremely important is Bernard Camillus Bondurant, Decimus Brutus Albinus: A Historical Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1907). I have benefited from the short but astute analysis of Decimus in Dettenhofer, Perdita Iuventus, 258–62.
Syme pursued his thesis that Decimus was Caesar’s bastard son in “Bastards in the Roman Aristocracy,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 104, 3 (1960): 323–27, and “No Son for Caesar?,” Historia 29 (1980): 422–37, esp. 426–30. G. M. Duval puts forth a much more convincing thesis in “D. Junius Brutus: mari ou fils de Sempronia?,” Latomus 50.3 (1991): 608–15. There is a good discussion of Decimus and the sea in R. Schulz, “Caesar und das Meer,” Historische Zeitschrift 271.2 (2000): 281–309. See also John C. Rolfe, “Brutus and the Ships of the Veneti,” Classical Weekly 11.14 (Jan. 28, 1918): 106–7.
For Decimus’s behavior after Caesar’s funeral, see S. Accame, “Decimo Bruto dopo i Funerali di Cesare,” Rivista di filologica e di istruzione classica 62 (1934): 201–8. An important study of the endgame of Decimus’s life is Denis van Berchem, “La Fuite de Decimus Brutus,” Les routes et l’histoire: 355 études sur les Helvètes et leurs voisins dans l’Empire romain (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1982), 55–65.
Although certain scholars recognize Decimus’s significance in the conspiracy they argue that it is impossible to ascertain his motives; Baltrusch, Caesar und Pompeius, 166–67, is a good example. Syme points a way forward when he notes how much of his career Decimus spent in Gaul and how little in Rome (Syme, “No Son for Caesar?”, 436). As a military man and a person with one foot in Celt
ic notions of honor, Decimus might not have responded kindly to his exclusion from the Parthian War and his eclipse by Octavian.
THE IDES OF MARCH
In addition to Woolf, Et tu Brute?, 1–18, and Lintott, “The Assassination,” there are important introductions in J. V. P. D Balsdon, “The Ides of March,” Historia 7 (1958): 80–94, and N. Horsfall, “The Ides of March: Some New Problems,” Greece and Rome 21 (1974): 191–99. Etienne, Ides de Mars, offers a more detailed account. So does Stephen Dando-Collins, The Ides: Caesar’s Murder and the War for Rome (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2010). Parenti, Assassination of Julius Caesar, 167–86, offers a discussion. M. E. Deutsch considers an earlier, failed assassination plan in “The Plot to Murder Caesar on the Bridge,” UCP 2 (1908/16): 267–78.
Death of Caesar : The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination (9781451668827) Page 27