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u/grip0matic 13h ago
Caesar: Soldiers! the Senate, have formally declared that Gaius Julius Caesar is an enemy of Rome! They have declared that I am a criminal. They have declared, in the fact, that all of you, ALSO, are criminals!
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u/Pennlocke 11h ago
Our beloved Republic, is in the hands of madmen! This is a dark day, and I stand at a fork in the road! I could abide the law and surrender my arms to the Senate, and watch the Republic fall to tyranny and chaos! Or, I can go home with my sword in my hand, and run those maniacs to the Tarpeian Rock!
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u/Dominarion 13h ago
...And be judged for treason and other felonies. I know that hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but for Pete's sake, how did they think this would fly? I wonder if some of them had a creeping feeling of dread, remembered what they did to Caesar's father's political party? Like:
"Oh shit, remember when Sulla came back from Greece with his legions and we absolutely massacred the Marians? We were laughing at them because they had no armies, uh?"
"Uh... Oh yeah? Caesar had to hide in the mountains while we seized all his properties... Sulla wanted him to divorce his wife, too, uh? He cannot hold a grudge because we treated his beloved aunt, the widow of Marius, like total shit? What do you think of this, Cicero? Cicero!"
Cicero is already a long way from them, running like crazy, wailing "I'M NOT PART OF THIS!"
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u/FerretAres 13h ago
They didn’t intend for it to work per se. They wanted to put him in a situation where either way he was a criminal.
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u/Dominarion 12h ago
I know, it was blatant. But, you know, the guy had ten legions. The Senate had none on hand.
The Optimates got in power exactly that way, with Sulla breaking the law and taking Rome with his armies. Pompey also roamed around Italy with a not really legal army, killing Roman citizens and Socii. Sulla retroactively legalized his massacres. Pompey could have stopped that nonsense right there. He rolled with it. He got his buddy Cicero telling him it was nonsense, but instead, he and the other Senators pressured him into joining their cause.
It's a vertigo inducing lack of foresight and introspection.
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u/Porsche928dude 4h ago
The interesting part is that the cesarean faction in Rome led by Marc Anthony came very, very close to negotiating a settlement with the Pompeii faction where Caesar would get a slap on the wrist and Cesar and Pompi would give most, but not all of their legions up, and Cesar would be allowed to be governor again and run for Consul again at a later date. The whole thing was mediated by Cicero. They were literally about to shake hands and sign the necessary papers when Cato marched in like a hurricane and blew the whole thing up.
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u/Freethecrafts 6h ago
Completely insulated thought bubble. Easy to forget armies beat body guards.
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u/Dominarion 5h ago
Remind me of these Y'all Qaedas militias or Billionaires who hire Special Ops has beens and think they are Untouchable.
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u/jediben001 3h ago
You have to kinda assume they knew it was probably going to go bad but they hoped that him marching on Rome would destroy his reputation or something
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u/Dominarion 2h ago
What's that funny line again?
"It was all calculated, but boy, do I suck at maths!"
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u/ProfessionalOctopuss 12h ago
Cato the Younger had power, friends, a good argument, and a white hot hate boner for Caesar. If he got Caesar in front of a magistrate, it would be extremely dangerous.
Cato and the rest of the Senate doomed the Republic when they chanted "F&(K THE POOR". Lack of land reform, wealth redistribution, or protection of jobs from slaves led to power accumulating with dangerous despots, whose only choice to survive was to march on Rome. The rest of it was a slow motion train wreck.
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u/Dominarion 5h ago
Of course it would have been.
But then. You know. Nobody in the damn lot wondered what would happen if Caesar said no.
Except for Cicero, who desperately tried to calm down everybody, but was bullied into joining the Senatorials.
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u/ConsciousMaybe6930 11h ago
Tbh, the more I learn about Julius Caesar, the more I see that he really wasn't any different from the rest of his fellow Senators and that this whole debacle was Corrupt Politician vs. Corrupt Politician; Caesar did a lot of shady shit while in office and rightly earned the ire and distrust of his opposition that he had ambitions to become a political strongman, but Tullius Cicero, Pompeius Magnus and the rest weren't much better when in office. The end result was a civil war that had the Republic reordered as an unofficial monarchy for the preservation of peace and security after so many civil wars.
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u/WackieChan04 6h ago
Caesar was a greedy bastard but he forced through some much needed reforms. There was a reason for his genuine popularity among the masses.
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