BOOKNOTES:

The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti (C-SPAN, September 7, 2003, 8 & 11 pm)

Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility. They have generally regarded Roman commoners as a parasitic mob interested only in bread and circuses, as Cicero’s “starving, contemptible rabble.” And they have cast Caesar, who took up the popular cause of the poor, as little better than an adventurer and a demagogue, presenting his murder as a personal feud or a constitutional struggle, devoid of social content. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the distinguished author Michael Parenti subjects these assertions of “gentlemen historians” to a bracing critique, and presents us with a story of popular resistance against entrenched power and wealth.

As he carefully weighs the evidence concerning the murder of Caesar, Parenti sketches in the background to the crime with fascinating detail about wider Roman society. In these pages we find reflections on the democratic struggle waged by Roman commoners, religious augury as an instrument of social control, the patriarchal oppression of women, and the political use of homophobic attacks. The Assassination of Julius Caesar offers a whole new perspective on an era we thought we knew well.

Mr. Parenti is apparently a Marxist, so it's hard to take his arguments too seriously--in fact, it's amusing to listen to an NPR host try to keep him in the realm of reality when he compares the current situation in America to a Rome with roving death squads--but here it is:

The history of the Late Republic has been distorted by those writers who regularly downplay the importance of material interests, those whose ideological taboos about class realities dim their perception of the past. This distortion is also manifested in the way many historians, both ancient and modern, have portrayed the common people of Rome as being little better than a noisome rabble and riotous mob. In word and action, wealthy Romans made no secret of their fear and hatred of the common people and of anyone else who infringed upon their class prerogatives. History is full of examples of politico-economic elites who equate any challenge to their privileged social order as a challenge to all social order, an invitation to chaos and perdition.

The oligarchs of Rome were no exception. Steeped in utter opulence and luxury, they remained forever inhospitable to Rome's democratic element. They valued the Republic only as long as it served their way of life. They dismissed as "demagogues" and usurpers the dedicated leaders who took up the popular cause. The historians of that day, often wealthy slaveholders themselves, usually agreed with this assessment. What is rather startling is the fact that the great majority of classical historians of the modern era adopt a viewpoint not too different from the one held by the Roman aristocracy. Whatever their differences in nationality, religion, language, and epoch, most of these historians share the same class-bound ideology, causing them to see the struggles of ancient Rome from the perspective of the elites rather than from that of the struggling proletarii and plebs.

Caesar's sin was not that he was subverting the Roman constitution---which was an unwritten one---but that he was loosening the oligarchy's overbearing grip on it. Worse still, he used state power to effect some limited benefits for small farmers, debtors, and urban proletariat, at the expense of the wealthy few. No matter how limited these reforms proved to be, the oligarchs never forgave him. And so Caesar met the same fate as numerous other reformers before him---and so many other reformers down through the centuries since his day.

MORE:
-AUTHOR SITE: Michael Parenti
-BOOK SITE: The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti (New Press)
-ESSAY: Why Caesar Was Really Killed (Michael Parenti, History News Network)
-ESSAY:To Kill Iraq (Michael Parenti. May 2003)
-ESSAY: Terrorism Meets Reactionism (Michael Parenti, October 2001)
-AUDIO INTERVIEW: The Death of Julius Caesar (The Connection, 7/21/2003)
-AUDIO INTERVIEW: People's History of Ancient Rome (Here and Now, 8/27/2003)
-AUDIO INTERVIEW: Michael Parenti (Todd Mundt Show, July 24, 2003)
-REVIEW: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (Brothers Judd)
-REVIEW: of The Assassination of Julius Caesar Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2003 12:05 PM