CAESAR, JULIUS. "PLUTARCH'S LIVES" (PLUTARCH) & "THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS" (SUETONIUS).   Term Paper ID:24961 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Compares two biographies of Julius Caesar & biases & aims of authors. Paper Introduction: Biography is an art rather than a science, and it is influenced by the attitudes of the historian writing the biography, the limits of his or her knowledge of the subject, the evidence that has been amassed, and often by political considerations which might shape how a figure is depicted. Different pictures of a figure can emerge from different biographies for these and other reasons. Two biographies of Julius Caesar from the classical era show different views of the Roman leader, that of Plutarch in his Lives and of Suetonius in The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. In the Roman era, much of Greek literature and culture was either adopted or held up as an example even though the Romans had a different worldview in many ways. The gods of Greece were carried over into the Roman pantheon, though the names and some Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Suetonius is interested primarily in information in thehistorical sense (Hadas viii-x). However, it was a law of inequalityand social prejudice which also became part of the Roman heritage. He extended the same idea in how he judged the behavior ofothers: He judged his men by their fighting record, not by their moral or social position, treating them all with equal severity--and equal indulgence. . "Introduction." Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. When Caesar refused, Sulla treated him as an enemy: Caesar disappeared from public view and, though suffering from a virulent attack of quartan fever, was forced to find a new hiding-place almost every night and bribe householders to protect him from Sulla's secret police (Suetonius 9).Suetonius also discusses the various political maneuvers undertaken byCaesar over the next several years, such as attaining a quaestorship,trying to get himself elected Governor-General of Egypt, bribing a man tobring charges of high treason against Gaius Rabirius, using bribery tosecure the office of Chief Pontiff, and eventually becoming praetor. The public careerof certain Greeks was included in various histories, but these again wereidealized portraits related to public affairs. By the time Caesar returned to rome, he was able torevive the faction behind Marius and make it his own to counter that behindSylla. Suetonius says Caesar wasnever very honest in money matters, which agrees with some of the issuesraised by Plutarch on the same behavior. This tradition is embodied in aspects of thepolitical philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and it is a theme in thelife of Caesar as detailed by both Plutarch and Suetonius even thoughCaesar made himself a ruler for life once he had made use of the democraticinstitutions that existed at that time. 12 37). Plutarch refers to the way Caesar gave a"magnificent account of his victory" in Africa to the people, "telling themthat he had subdued a country which would supply the public every year withtwo hundred thousand attic bushels of corn and three million pounds' weightof oil" (Plutarch 234). . He wrote about the Greek politicalleader Pericles and compares him to Fabius Maximus, who fought againstHannibal, and says that they are "men alike, as in their other virtues andgood parts, so especially in their mild and upright temper and demeanor,"and further notes that each was "most useful and serviceable to theinterests of their countries" (Plutarch, Vol. Rome'sgenius lay in the development of law and government. Plutarch's Lives: Volume II. Instead, they were the practitioners of power and law, and Romancivil law, which reached its peak under the emperors, excelled in precisionof formulation and logic of thought. . The Roman Empire would continue from the state that existedin Caesar's time, with the basic ideal of governance derived from JuliusCaesar, and headed by leaders whose title Emperor expressed the unlimitednature of his authority, as it did for Caesar. Such an advertisement was clearly effective as thepeople chose him consul for a fourth time, and he was the sort of ruler whoshared the wealth and praise so as to bind people to him politically:"After the triumphs, he distributed rewards to his soldiers, and treatedthe people with feasting and shows" (Plutarch 234). As noted, Plutarch generally compares one Greek and one Roman, firstwriting the biography of each and then comparing the two. As the Empire was reducedin size, it came to be largely Greek-speaking, but to the last day theEmperor and the citizenry spoke of themselves as Romans and alignedthemselves with the line descended from Caesar. During this time, Sylla'sinfluence diminished. Two biographies of Julius Caesar from theclassical era show different views of the Roman leader, that of Plutarch inhis Lives and of Suetonius in The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. In the case ofCaesar, the Roman leader is paired with Alexander the Great, but Plutarchdid not write the comparison, though he did make an explicit comparison atthe beginning of his section on Alexander while also suggesting theapproach he takes to his subjects: It begin my purpose to write the lives of Alexander the king, and of Caesar, by whom Pompey was destroyed, the multitude of their great actions affords so large a field that I were to blame if I should not by way of apology forewarn my reader that I have chosen rather to epitomize the most celebrated parts of their story, than to insist at large on every particular circumstance of it (Plutarch 139).He further states that the most "glorious" exploits are not necessarilythose which demonstrate most clearly the virtues and vices of the subject,and Plutarch then says that he "must be allowed to give my more particularattention to the marks and indications of the souls of men" (Plutarch 139)than to the more common exploits addressed by other writers. Suetonius also depicts Caesar as an innovative leader and recountsmany of the man's triumphs, including the reorganization of the calendar: He linked the year to the course of the sun by lengthening it from 355 days to 365, abolishing the short extra month intercalated after every second February, and adding an entire day every fourth year (Suetonius 27).As can be seen from this account, Suetonius tended to include more detailand to indicate precisely what Caesar did and how he accomplished it, whileplutarch recounts these successes as part of a discussion of Caesar'scharacter in more general terms. One of the primary conditions for the development ofpolitical thought in Greece was a sense of the value of the individual, andthis also meant that one of the issues that had to be addressed was theproper relationship between the individual and the collective, between theindividual and the state. The Twelve Caesars. Ancient Rome developed from a small prehistoric settlement on theTiber River in Latium in central Italy into an empire that encompassed allof the Mediterranean world, and the civilization that resulted formed thebasis for modern Western civilization. New York: Penguin Books, 1957.----------------------- 9 Plutarch begins his story of Caesar by telling about how Sylla wantedCaesar to leave his wife, Cornelia, but was unsuccessful. The Romans conqueredGreece, adopting Greek culture and transmitting it to the medieval world.Unlike the Greeks, they did not develop a philosophical theory of state andsociety. Plutarch's Lives: Volume 12. Plutarch was one practitioner, andSuetonius another. The classical features of Greek democratictradition was an emphasis on disbursing political power among all citizens,and the participation of all citizens was seen as essential both to thewell-being of the state and the citizen himself--these constitute the twoprongs of citizenship. Suetonius also talks about the politicalchanges wrought by Caesar: He brought the Senate up to strength by creating new patricians, and increased the early quota of praetors, aediles, and quaestors, as well as minor officials . Much of the early portion of Plutarch's accountof Caesar is taken up with the machinations of Sylla toward Caesar,including a kidnapping and various plots. A reading of Plutarch and Suetonius confirms this distinction, forPlutarch draws moral conclusions about those he discusses, while Suetoniusmerely presents a series of facts about the lives of each. Suetonius begins much earlier in his story about Caesar and writes amore conventional biography. Romanpolitical institutions remained relatively stable during the imperialcenturies and then disintegrated rapidly as the empire collapsed. . The genius of the Romans lay in themilitary, in government administration, and in the law, and they valuedcrafty diplomacy as much as military discipline. Moses Hadas writes in an introduction to one editionthat this development indicates a difference between the Greeks and theRomans: It may seem odd, in view of men's consuming interest in other men, that the world had to wait for so long for biography, that the classical Greeks, who were notoriously anthropocentric and who pioneered most of our literary forms, were so slow in developing biography as a literary genre (Hadas viii).Hadas further notes that the people described in classical literature, likethose depicted in classical art, tend to be idealized. Caesar achieved the praetorship and then lost it before getting theprovince of Spain. Plutarch findsthat there was hostility between Sylla and Caesar because of Sylla'srelationship with Marius. (Suetonius 37). Caesar changed the old method of registering voters: he made the City landlords help him to complete the list, street by street, and reduced from 32 , to 15 , the number of householders who might draw free grain (Suetonius 27).Suetonius continues throughout to describe the events in Caesar's life andto include all the information he has on the actions taken by the leader,including details about events. Suetonius offers a more detailed and longer account as a history,while Plutarch offers more analysis of the character of the man. In the Roman era, much of Greek literature and culture was eitheradopted or held up as an example even though the Romans had a differentworldview in many ways. Biography is an art rather than a science, and it is influenced bythe attitudes of the historian writing the biography, the limits of his orher knowledge of the subject, the evidence that has been amassed, and oftenby political considerations which might shape how a figure is depicted.Different pictures of a figure can emerge from different biographies forthese and other reasons. Romaninstitutions lasted long after rome as the center of power had beenreduced, and the sort of political creations instituted by Julius Caesaroutlived him. The gods of Greece were carried over into theRoman pantheon, though the names and some of the stories were changed.Plutarch showed a belief in deeper connections between the Greeks and theRomans in his Lives in which he generally paired a Greek and a Roman,showing that the thought of the two halves of these pairings as equal instature in some field, as the Greek Demosthenes and the Roman oratorCicero, or Alcibiades and Coriolanus. New York: P.F. The Greeks are the beginning of political thought, and the formpolitical thought took from the beginning was related to the rationalism ofthe Greek mind. Thucydides was interestedin individuals only as they affected history. Plutarch also writes about the exploits of Caesar and the events inhis life and does so largely in chronological order, but he draws lessonsfrom this life that Suetonius does not draw, at least not so direclty.Plutarch characterizes the selection of Caesar as ruler for life as adecision by his countrymen "in the hope that the government of a singleperson would give them time to breathe after so many civil wars andcalamities" (Plutarch 235). Plutarch characterizes Caesar as a man "bornto do great things" (Plutarch 236) and also as a man with a passion forhonor. Rome created the first great world-state and developed an empirewide system of law and citizenship. New York: The Heritage Press, 1965.Plutarch. Suetonius also praises Caesar asan orator, as a swordsman and horseman, and as a military leader.Suetonius also states, "Religious scruples never deterred him for a moment"(Suetonius 35). The systematic study oflives for their own sake was introduced by Aristotle, but Plutarch andSuetonius had different aims. He refers tothe affairs Caesar had with a variety of women. The viewtaken of Caesar is also more benign in Plutarch, who considers Caesar a mandestined for greatness who also achieved that greatness through valorousdeeds on the one hand and the ability to speak to and share with hisfollowers in ways that would bind them to him after on the other hand.Suetonius makes reference to similar strengths and the same basic politicalmachinations, but he offers a view that is darker on these issues, as ifthe Caesar of Suetonius were more manipulative and more deceptive than theCaesar of Plutarch. In certain respects, Plutarch's approach is more in keeping withthe classical ideal in that his depictions are of those he deems worthy andare idealized to a degree, while Suetonius does not make moral judgmentsand merely presents the information he has gathered as a historian. Collier & Son, 19 9.Suetonius. Works CitedHadas, Moses. He proposed to dig a canal through the isthmus near Corinthas well: These things were designed without being carried into effect; but his reformation of the calendar in order to rectify the irregularity of time was not only projected with great scientific ingenuity, but was brought to its completion, and proved of very great use (Plutarch 237). Plutarch may not be as interested in noble exploits as otherhistorians, but he does say that the noble exploits of Caesar did not"serve as an inducement to him to sit still and reap the fruit of his pastlabors, but were incentives and encouragements to go on" (Plutarch 236).Plutarch shows the intellectual and philosophical side of Caesar as well asa number of engineering projects that the man considered, such as his ideaof diverting the Tiber to carry it by deep channel from Rome to Cicerii andinto the sea near Tarracina, or his intention of draining all the marshesby Pomentium and Setia to divert enough water to employ thousands of men inagriculture. While the Romans adopted many Greek literary genres, they inventedone of their own in the biography. Plutarch alsowrote about a much broader segment of the population and selected each ofhis subjects based on the fact that doing so would illustrate some ethicalconsideration, while Suetonius writes about the rulers of Rome, theCaesars. He describes a wide variety of aspects ofCaesar's life as well, from the kind of clothing he wore to the homes heoccupied both in Rome and in various posts and sites abroad. Suetonius covers much of the sameterritory, but he does so with a different emphasis, considering issuesmore as historical events taking place one after the other without muchconcern for underlying moral meaning, while Plutarch seeks to understandthe virtues and vices of men. Plutarch directed his attention to ethicsand delves into the lives of his subjects in order to illuminate theirethical stance. The picture that emerges of Caesar in this account by Plutarchincludes a number of character issues, such as when Plutarch notes howCaesar was plagued by creditors. He begins when Caesar is 15 years old.Suetonius refers to the dictator Sulla, the roman spelling for Sylla, andalso details the story about how Sulla tried to get Caesar to divorceCornelia. Caesar's ambition is evident in all that Suetonius says of him, whilePlutarch is more direct in discussing the ambition of the man and inshowing how this ambition brought him into conflict with the people: But that which brought him the most apparent and mortal hatred was his desire of being king; which gave the common people the first occasion to quarrel with him, and proved the most specious pretense to those who had been his secret enemies all along (Plutarch 237).Caesar's oratorical gift is also noted by Plutarch, who further indicates aview of Caesar as a man who knew how to advertise his strengths so a to getthe people on his side. New York: Modern Library, 1992.Plutarch. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.