fajrdrako | Thinking about Caesar...

I have recently finished the last (so far) of the Steven Saylor mystery novels about late Republican Rome, The Judgment of Caesar. I loved it for various reasons - including its depiction of Julius Caesar, who is a major character in the book. In fact, Saylor manages to have his viewpoint character and protagonist, Gordianus, present at all the historically significant monent of Caesar's time in Egypt. How delightful. Caesar just happens to be one of my favourite historical figures.

Saylor has a twist on the history that I hadn't thought of before. King Ptolemy of Egypt and his sister/queen/wife Cleopatra are at war. Caesar comes on the scene and becomes both a catalyst and a balance of power in their war, trying to negotiate a truce betweem and an end to the war in such a way that will be beneficial to Rome. Caesar as arbitrator. We all know about Clepatra rolling out of the rug at his feet; but where Saylor makes it different is in depicting Ptolemy as also being in love with Caesar. Both he and Cleopatra are trying to seduce Caesar sexually as well as poltiically.

And in Saylor's version of the story, Caesar chooses Ptolemy. According to Saylor, it's in Caesar's memoirs that Ptolemy's last words to him were something like, "I can't bear to be parted from you." I wonder where he wrote that?

In any case, Ptolemy betrays Caesar and Caesar takes up with Cleopatra instead (never telling her she was a second choice!), and the rest is... history

Flush with enthusiasm for Caesar (it doesn't take much), I recently also read The October Horse by Colleen McCullough - I’d been wanting to read this for a long time, mostly because it is part of a series about Julius Caesar. With my current level of enthusiasm for Roman history, it seemed a good time, so I started listening to the audiobook on my way to and from work.

It started out fine, with a good positive depiction of Caesar. I very soon became frustrated.

The story picks up fairly late in his career, as Caesar arrives in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey. As happened historically is that Caesar was at war with Popmey; the Egyptians decided to do him a favour and decapitate his enemy. But Caesar was furious: he said he wanted a negotiated peace or a decisive war. In the story, Caesar takes the head of Pompey, and once alone, weeps over it.

Why? I wondered. What was their relationship like? If I had read the preceding books, would I know? I knew Pompey had once been Caesar’s father in law, but that didn’t help. Were they friends, enemies, lovers, mentor and student? Did they challenge each other, hate each other, what?

The novel gave no hint, and I felt that (even if we were supposed to have knowledge from previous books in the series) there ought to have been more information. In contrast, in the Saylor book, I felt no confusion at all. Caesar there was sorrowful and angry with the Egyptians not so much for the sake of Pompey and the blow to Roman dignity, but because it was a non-verbal message from Ptolemy to the effect that the Romans should not be too compacent about their role in Egyptian affairs, since the Egyptians had no compunction about assassinating ambitous, over-proud Roman generals. I was convinced, at least in the context of that story, that this was what Ptolemy meant, and it was what Caesar understood. But then - his weeping over Pompey in this story was no more than one angry tear.

Back to the McCullough book: Then we next get on to Caesar’s meeting with Cleopatra. Cleopatra is delivered to Caesar rolled up in a carpet, but we don’t get the over-familiar scene of her being unrolled dramatically at his feet. Instead Caesar lay on the floor to peer into the rolled-up end of the carpet. "Can you breathe in there?" he askd. She wiggled her toes. Okay, bonus points for doing something different with the scene.

But as it continued I was less charmed. Cleopatra sounded like a California flower-child, with her talk about priests and portents, and she seemed to get ditzier scene by scene. She wants him to get her pregnant that very night; he is willing, though his attitude is unenthusiastic - he thinks she has beautiful eyes, but is too flat-chested. (I can’t think why that would bother Caesar.) So his lovemaking is, well, adequate but not much more. That didn’t sound in character to me. It is clear, over the next few scenes, that Cleopatra has fallen madly in love with Caesar but his attitude was much more obscure. The text says that he was so busy she never got to see him for more than an hour per day; but it never says what they did during that hour. Talk politics? Make love? Eat? Fight over policy? Play poker? Later, when she wants to join him (with their newborn son) in Rome, he was unenthusiastic about that, too. Did he not want to see her? Did he even believe their marriage was legal? Or care?

By that time I was getting tired of having to guess what was going on in the hero’s head and gave up. I could have got as much information from any history book; I like a novel to tell me what my protagonist is thinking or feeling. In one half-page appearance in one of Saylor’s books I felt I knew Caesar better than in the many pages I read about him the McCullough book. What’s the point of reading a novel where you don’t learn anything about the personality of the hero? I gave up.

I wonder how long I'll have to wait for the sequel to The Judgment of Caesar I started to read

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I have recently finished the last (so far) of the Steven Saylor mystery novels about late Republican Rome, The Judgment of Caesar. I loved it for various reasons - including its depiction of Julius Caesar, who is a major character in the book. In fact, Saylor manages to have his viewpoint character and protagonist, Gordianus, present at all the historically significant monent of Caesar's time in Egypt. How delightful. Caesar just happens to be one of my favourite historical figures.

Saylor has a twist on the history that I hadn't thought of before. <lj-cut text="Cut in case of spoilers, but most of this is just historical nattering."> King Ptolemy of Egypt and his sister/queen/wife Cleopatra are at war. Caesar comes on the scene and becomes both a catalyst and a balance of power in their war, trying to negotiate a truce betweem and an end to the war in such a way that will be beneficial to Rome. Caesar as arbitrator. We all know about Clepatra rolling out of the rug at his feet; but where Saylor makes it different is in depicting Ptolemy as also being in love with Caesar. Both he and Cleopatra are trying to seduce Caesar sexually as well as poltiically.

And in Saylor's version of the story, Caesar chooses Ptolemy. According to Saylor, it's in Caesar's memoirs that Ptolemy's last words to him were something like, "I can't bear to be parted from you." I wonder where he wrote that?

In any case, Ptolemy betrays Caesar and Caesar takes up with Cleopatra instead (never telling her she was a second choice!), and the rest is... history

Flush with enthusiasm for Caesar (it doesn't take much), I recently also read The October Horse by Colleen McCullough - I’d been wanting to read this for a long time, mostly because it is part of a series about Julius Caesar. With my current level of enthusiasm for Roman history, it seemed a good time, so I started listening to the audiobook on my way to and from work.

It started out fine, with a good positive depiction of Caesar. I very soon became frustrated.

The story picks up fairly late in his career, as Caesar arrives in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey. As happened historically is that Caesar was at war with Popmey; the Egyptians decided to do him a favour and decapitate his enemy. But Caesar was furious: he said he wanted a negotiated peace or a decisive war. In the story, Caesar takes the head of Pompey, and once alone, weeps over it.

Why? I wondered. What was their relationship like? If I had read the preceding books, would I know? I knew Pompey had once been Caesar’s father in law, but that didn’t help. Were they friends, enemies, lovers, mentor and student? Did they challenge each other, hate each other, what?

The novel gave no hint, and I felt that (even if we were supposed to have knowledge from previous books in the series) there ought to have been more information. In contrast, in the Saylor book, I felt no confusion at all. Caesar there was sorrowful and angry with the Egyptians not so much for the sake of Pompey and the blow to Roman dignity, but because it was a non-verbal message from Ptolemy to the effect that the Romans should not be too compacent about their role in Egyptian affairs, since the Egyptians had no compunction about assassinating ambitous, over-proud Roman generals. I was convinced, at least in the context of that story, that this was what Ptolemy meant, and it was what Caesar understood. But then - his weeping over Pompey in this story was no more than one angry tear.

Back to the McCullough book: Then we next get on to Caesar’s meeting with Cleopatra. Cleopatra is delivered to Caesar rolled up in a carpet, but we don’t get the over-familiar scene of her being unrolled dramatically at his feet. Instead Caesar lay on the floor to peer into the rolled-up end of the carpet. "Can you breathe in there?" he askd. She wiggled her toes. Okay, bonus points for doing something different with the scene.

But as it continued I was less charmed. Cleopatra sounded like a California flower-child, with her talk about priests and portents, and she seemed to get ditzier scene by scene. She wants him to get her pregnant that very night; he is willing, though his attitude is unenthusiastic - he thinks she has beautiful eyes, but is too flat-chested. (I can’t think why that would bother Caesar.) So his lovemaking is, well, adequate but not much more. That didn’t sound in character to me. It is clear, over the next few scenes, that Cleopatra has fallen madly in love with Caesar but his attitude was much more obscure. The text says that he was so busy she never got to see him for more than an hour per day; but it never says what they did during that hour. Talk politics? Make love? Eat? Fight over policy? Play poker? Later, when she wants to join him (with their newborn son) in Rome, he was unenthusiastic about that, too. Did he not want to see her? Did he even believe their marriage was legal? Or care?

By that time I was getting tired of having to guess what was going on in the hero’s head and gave up. I could have got as much information from any history book; I like a novel to tell me what my protagonist is thinking or feeling. In one half-page appearance in one of Saylor’s books I felt I knew Caesar better than in the many pages I read about him the McCullough book. What’s the point of reading a novel where you don’t learn anything about the personality of the hero? I gave up.

I wonder how long I'll have to wait for the sequel to The Judgment of Caesar I started to read <i?The Germanicus Mosaic by Rosemary Rowe, but it isn't much of a substitute: Roman, yes, but set in Britain, not Rome, and it's about two hundred years after Caesar's time. Maybe I'll just read Plutarch and Suetonius for a while. </lj-cut>

One of my favourite lines about Caesar (of many) is the assertion that he was called omnium virorum mulier, omnium mulierum virum, which I have always translated as "the wife of every man and the husband of every woman". Oddly, Saylor renders it as "the husband of every woman and the husband of every man", which makes less than sense to me. Unless he is trying to avoid the implication that Caesar, lord of Rome, might be a bottom? On the other hand, this man uses the word "alright", so however profound my respect for his history, my respect for his English usage is not so great.