Quotes From the Twelve Caesars (4)

This will be my last post on Julius Caesar (the first of the twelve Caesars). We’ll be moving on to Augustus soon enough!

Julius Caesar was an enigmatic ruler; autocratic and narcissistic, and yet he identified himself with and perhaps even loved both Rome and her people.

According to Suetonius, he had often portended “It is more important for Rome than for myself that I should survive. I have long been sated with power and glory; but, should anything happen to me, Rome will enjoy no peace. A new Civil War will break out under far worse conditions than the last.”

Perhaps Caesar had an inexplicable premonition of his own death. Suetonius recounts that he had discussed with a friend his loathing of growing old and infirm, and said of death, “Let it come swiftly and unexpectedly.”

Translation By Robert Graves

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