50 pages • 1 hour read
SuetoniusThe Twelve Caesars
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 121A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The Deified JuliusChapter Summaries & Analyses
Sections 1-13 Summary
“The Deified Julius” is missing the section that would have discussed Julius Caesar’s family and childhood, though the text does mention that Julius Caesar lost his father when he was 16. The narrative truly starts with a description of Caesar embarking on his political and military career. After being elected to the priestly office of Flamen Dialis, Caesar divorced his first wife Cossutia and married Cornelia, whose father Cinna was a former consul of senatorial rank. Cornelia gave birth to a daughter named Julia. Caesar fell into danger and lost his wealth when he sided with the enemies of the dictator Sulla. Although Caesar’s relatives managed to save him and restore his fortune, Sulla allegedly predicted that Caesar would be the downfall of the “aristocratic cause” (Section 1).
Once he was pardoned by Sulla, Caesar served in the army in Asia until he received news of Sulla’s death. He returned to Rome to resume his political career but ran into trouble when he tried to bring legal charges against an ex-consul, Cornelius Dolabella. While waiting for things in Rome to settle down, Caesar left for Rhodes. On the way he was captured by pirates and held captive. Once released, he set about capturing and executing his former captors. Upon returning to Rome, Caesar rose through the political ranks. After the death of his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, he gave eulogies in which he stressed how his family was descended from ancient royalty and from the goddess Venus. Caesar married Sulla’s granddaughter, Pompeia, but quickly divorced her because of rumors that she had an affair with Publius Clodius, who had disguised himself as a woman during a religious festival.
While serving in Spain, Caesar had a dream in which he committed incest with his mother, which some dream interpreters believed was a sign that he would rule the world because his mother represented the earth itself. In his political roles, Caesar courted public popularity by funding games. However, he was targeted by the aristocratic faction of the government after he tried to have the kingdom of Egypt annexed and assigned to him as governor. Once that plan fizzled, Caesar chased the title of Pontifex Maximus, Rome’s highest religious office, through bribery, even though it put him so heavily in debt that not being elected Pontifex would have meant the end of his entire career.
Sections 14-22 Summary
Caesar was the only one who opposed executing Cataline after he was arrested for conspiring against the government. Caesar continued aggravating the aristocracy through his actions, to the point that he was accused of being allied with Cataline. When Caesar was elected consul, the aristocratic faction acted to prevent someone who shared Caesar’s views to be elected co-consul and instead made one of their own, Bibulus, consul. In response, Caesar aligned himself with the popular and influential general Gnaeus Pompey. Despite Bibulus’s interference, Caesar pushed through several reforms, and once even had Bibulus thrown out of the Forum. Romans began to joke that instead of being the consulship of Bibulus and Caesar, it was the consulship of Julius and Caesar. Meanwhile, Caesar married Calpurnia, the daughter of the next consul Lucius Piso, and then married his daughter Julia to Gnaeus Pompey to cement their alliance.
Sections 23-30 Summary
With Pompey and Piso’s help, Caesar became governor of the frontier provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria. Seeking wealth and fame, Caesar seized any pretext to attack Gaul. He spent nine years conquering Gaul while also launching attacks into Germany and Britain. In the meantime, Caesar’s daughter Julia and her child by Pompey died. To maintain his relationship with Pompey, Caesar asked him to marry Octavia, his niece’s daughter, but Pompey refused the offer.
Caesar raised more troops and gave away more money than the Senate had authorized. Worse, Caesar tried to run for consul again even though he remained in Gaul, and so but the Senate made it illegal to be a candidate for election when not present in Rome. Caesar asked the Senate to allow him to hold his military command until he was elected, but the Senate instead demanded he disband his army.
Sections 31-37 Summary
Refusing to agree to the Senate’s demands, Caesar crossed into Italian territory with his army, defying the law and sparking a civil war. Despite his former alliance with Rome, Pompey sided with the Senate and led the military effort against Caesar. Throughout the war, Caesar “always had the greatest good fortune” (Section 36) and only suffered two defeats. After a military victory at Pontus, Caesar held a triumph in which his famous slogan, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” was displayed to commemorate the quick win.
Sections 38-44 Summary
Here Suetonius describes various actions Caesar carried out while in power, including giving money, gifts, and land to his veterans and inviting them to banquets, various games, and theatrical performances he hosted. He completely overhauled the calendar by extending the length of the year to 365 days and adding the concept of a leap year, in addition to increasing the size of the Senate and the number of political offices, establishing libraries, and streamlining the law code.
Sections 45-77 Summary
These sections list of Caesar’s personal appearance and behaviors. Notably, Caesar was meticulous about his personal appearance and grew distressed when he started going bald. He also suffered from epilepsy. Caesar was known for his love affairs with men and women, including kings and queens, most notably Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, who gave birth to his son. This led one of Caesar’s enemies to quip that Caesar was “a man to every woman and a woman to every man” (Section 52). Suetonius praises Caesar’s accomplishments as a speaker, writer, and general, and how he treated his soldiers, friends, and even his enemies, arguing that Caesar was especially noteworthy for the virtue of clemency.
Sections 78-89 Summary
When the Senate gave Caesar the office of dictator for life and other political powers and honors, this provoked “extreme and fatal envy” (Section 78) and a conspiracy against Caesar’s life. Rumors spread that Caesar was trying to overthrow the republic and become king. After describing various omens predicting Caesar’s assassination, which Caesar himself ignored, Suetonius recounts how assassins accosted Caesar in the Senate chamber and stabbed him. Suetonius remarks that one legend claims that Caesar’s last words to Marcus Brutus were “You, too, my son?” in Greek (Section 82). Later, all the assassins either died in battle, in shipwrecks, or from suicide.
“The Deified Julius” Analysis
Although he is included in The Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) himself never became emperor. However, his name became a title when members of his extended family became the earliest emperors. Even when the imperial office was occupied by emperors in no way related to Julius Caesar’s family, “Caesar” remained a title used by the emperors of Rome. The German word for king (kaiser) and the Russian term for emperor (czar) are both derived from Caesar.
Though Caesar does not truly belong to the imperial period of Roman history, his story is key to understanding why Rome’s republican institutions faltered and one man, the emperor, became the dominant force in its government. In a way, Caesar’s biography as described by Suetonius is exemplary of an aristocrat in the Roman Republic. Like any aristocratic young man, Caesar sought to rise through the cursus honorum (course of honors), a ladder of elected offices any aspiring Roman nobleman must climb to eventually be elected consul, the highest political office in the Roman Republic. Significantly, the rise of the emperors ended the significance of the cursus honorum. Instead, as will be shown later, ambitious young men began relying on their social connections to the imperial family to achieve prominence.
Suetonius stresses Caesar’s aristocratic background, even describing a eulogy in which Caesar claimed distinguished and even divine ancestry. This becomes a pattern throughout The Twelve Caesars, as Suetonius clearly assumes that ancestry and class will be of great interest to Roman readers. Even when Rome’s republican institutions were at their height, Romans were very concerned with class. If one could claim aristocracy and a number of former consuls and other leading magistrates in one’s ancestry, it reflected well on one’s own merits. Another pattern in The Twelve Caesars that begins here is Suetonius’s preoccupation with dreams and omens, which always portend the deaths of the Caesars.
He depicts Julius Caesar as an exceptional man who was destined to become a great conqueror. Even Caesar’s style of dress is eccentric and distinct. In Roman politics, Caesar often acted against norms and laws to achieve his goals. In the end, he dragged the whole empire to civil war and attained the unprecedented office of dictator for life, provoking the conspiracy that would end his life.
Still, Suetonius downplays some of the political dimensions of Caesar’s career. The motives of Caesar’s rivals are either unclear or are attributed to envy and malice, though Suetonius alludes to the existence of “the aristocratic faction” and rumors accusing Caesar of aspiring to become king. Historically, Caesar was a representative of the populares, a political faction that supported extensive social reform to benefit the lower classes. The populares opposed the optimates, which defended the interests of landowners and tended to dominate the Senate. These were not political parties in the modern sense but loose coalitions united only by broad views on legislation. The clash between Caesar and the Senate was not a purely personal one but an episode in a complex socio-political conflict that had long destabilized the Roman Republic, even before Caesar was born.
