The life of julius caesar plutarch summary

Julius Caesar Oxford First Source Julius Caesar Plutarch Subject: Period, The Salvation Religions, 200 BCE to 900 CE, Topic, War, Conflict, and Diplomacy, States, Empires, and Revolutions, Region, The Mediterranean DOI: 10.1093/acref/9780199399680.013.0267 Abstract and Keywords Plutarch (c. 46 – 120 CE) was the most important Greek writer of his age. He is best known for his Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans. In the Lives, he attempted to present moral lessons by describing the lives of famous Greeks and Romans who exemplified specific virtues. The subject of this selection from Plutarch's Lives is Gaius Julius Caesar (102 BCE-44 BCE). In this particular piece by Plutarch, it is believed that the opening paragraphs of this story, likely describing Caesar's birth and youth, are lost. Caesar is a key figure in Rome's transformation from republic to empire. Through a series of political alliances and military actions, he would rise into power and prominence – ultimately gaining full power through civil war in 49 BC and naming himself dictator for life. Under his rule, Rome underwent extensive changes through social and political reforms. His actions, however, clashed with many in the empire, including friend Marcus Junius Brutus, and would ultimately lead to his assassination on the Ides of March (March 15) in 44 BCE. Plutarch, The Parallel Lives. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1919) Document After these matters had been finished and he had been declared consul for the fourth time, Caesar made an expedition into Spain against the sons of Pompey. These were still young, but had collected an army of amazing numbers and displayed a boldness which justified their claims to leadership, so that they beset Caesar with the greatest peril. The great battle was joined near the city of Munda, and here Caesar, seeing his own men hard pressed and making a feeble resistance, asked in a loud voice as he ran through the armed ranks whether they felt no shame to take him and put him in the hands of boys. With difficulty and after much strenuous effort he repulsed the enemy and slew over thirty thousand of them, but he lost one Page 1 of 7 PRINTED FROM OXFORD FIRST SOURSCE (www.oxfordfirstsource.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2013. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford FIRST SOURCE for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Normand Lambert; date: 12 November 2015 Julius Caesar thousand of his own men, and those the very best. […] This was the last war that Caesar waged; and the triumph that was celebrated for it vexed the Romans as nothing else had done. For it commemorated no victory over foreign commanders or barbarian kings, but the utter annihilation of the sons and the family of the mightiest of the Romans, who had fallen upon misfortune; and it was not meet for Caesar to celebrate a triumph for the calamities of his country, priding himself upon actions which had no defense before gods or men except that they had been done under necessity, and that too although previously he had sent neither messenger nor letters to announce to the people a victory in the civil wars, but had scrupulously put from him the fame arising there from. However, the Romans gave way before the good fortune of the man and accepted the bit, and regarding the monarchy as a respite from the evils of the civil wars, they appointed him dictator for life. This was confessedly a tyranny, since the monarchy, besides the element of irresponsibility, now took on that of permanence. It was Cicero who proposed the first honours for him in the senate, and their magnitude was, after all, not too great for a man; but others added excessive honours and vied with one another in proposing them, thus rendering Caesar odious and obnoxious even to the mildest citizens because of the pretension and extravagance of what was decreed for him. It is thought, too, that the enemies of Caesar no less than his flatterers helped to force these measures through, in order that they might have as many pretexts as possible against him and might be thought to have the best reasons for attempting his life.