But back in Rome, there is a very strong sense that liberty - the liberty of the Roman people - is being removed by Caesar as an autocrat.Īnd a group of, actually, his friends stab him in the Senate house in the middle of a public meeting in order to remove the tyrant. The whole principal of the Roman Republic was opposed to anything that smacked of kingship - one-man rule - for any long period. So effectively, he invades his hometown and sooner rather than later establishes himself as dictator - one-man rule. He'd come back to Rome wanting to go straight into major political office again. MARY BEARD: Well, Julius Caesar, perhaps the most famous Roman of them all, had just conquered Gaul - you know, actually a brutal series of campaigns that even some Romans liken to genocide. First, remind us of the circumstances of the assassination of Julius Caesar. I'd like to start with an interesting contrast you draw between two murders - one probably the most memorable event in Roman history, the assassination of Julius Caesar - and then another some decades later of the Emperor Gaius - because it tells us something about the transition of Rome from a republic, when there was a senate and elected consuls who had some authority, to this era where there were truly strongman emperors. I spoke to her last fall when it was published in hardback. Mary Beard's book "SPQR: A History Of Ancient Rome" is out in paperback next month. She offers insights into the reasons for Rome's prosperity and military expansion and provides fresh interpretations of turning points in Roman history.Īnd she makes ordinary Romans a central part of the story, describing both their impact on important events and their daily lives. Beard's latest book covers about a thousand years of Roman history, but it isn't just kings and emperors. She also does TV and radio documentaries, writes a well-read blog and has become somewhat famous for taking on Internet trolls. Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Cambridge University who's spent a career studying Rome and written a dozen books. And in a bit, she'll share what we think Julius Caesar really said as he was being stabbed by Roman senators. Our guest, historian Mary Beard, can give you the real story of the Spartacus uprising. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #9: (As character) I'm Spartacus.ĭAVIES: That was Charlton Heston with Shakespeare's version of Julius Caesar's funeral and the dramatic end of the slave revolt led by Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #8: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) I'm Spartacus. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I'm Spartacus. Your lives are to be spared on the single condition that you identify the body or the living person of the slave called Spartacus. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.ĭAVIES: When we think of Ancient Rome, images from Hollywood often come to mind.ĬARLETON YOUNG: (As Herald) I bring a message from your master, Marcus Licinius Crassus. In his long campaigns against the Gauls, Caesar would be the first general to obsess not solely about the bravery of the brilliance of his strategy, but on the primacy of logistics - the top to bottom and codified management of a supply chain for a campaigning force.CHARLTON HESTON: (As Mark Antony) Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Conquest, civil war and assassination later, history would know him as Caesar.īut what has Caesar got to do with oil and gas? Well, the city of Leptis Magna in the Roman province of Africa used to render unto Caesar a tribute of three million pounds of oil – olive oil, that is. Their son would, unimaginatively, be called Gaius. The proud parents, Gaius and Aurelia are no ordinary toffs, in fact they claim descent from Iulus, son of the Trojan prince Aeneas and the goddess Venus herself – quite some family tree. July 12th, 654 ab urbe condita, urbis romae – A son is born to in the Eternal City to a patrician family, the gens Julia.
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