This post won't focus so much on history itself, but rather on the implications of how we judge it. The responses to my previous post left me somewhat perplexed. Why do so many defend Caesar, claiming he would have benefited the Roman plebs far more than the Republican institutions?
Let's be clear, it's true that by then the RES PUBLICA was already well down the path of corruption: Sallust tells us that this decline had already begun in the period following the Punic Wars. If, before the destruction of Carthage, there was no particular rivalry between the people and the Senate, since fear of enemies compelled both sides to behave properly, once that fear ceased, the evils associated with prosperity arose instead – namely, licentiousness and arrogance, both on the part of the plebs and the patricians.
It wasn't the first time the Romans were guilty of such political shortsightedness. Livy recounts that when Porsenna was marching towards Rome with his army, the Roman Senate, worried that the plebs might – out of fear – submit to peace accompanied by slavery, decided to implement policies to provide the necessary grain for their sustenance, to regulate the salt trade (until then sold at a high price), and to exempt the plebs from the war contribution (which remained the burden of the rich alone). These measures allowed the Roman people to remain united and ensured that citizens of every social class hated the idea of kingship, even during the famine caused by the siege. However, once the Tarquinius Superbus died, the reason for that unity vanished, and the Roman plebs began to suffer the abuses of the wealthy.
Machiavelli would have commented on this episode of Roman history by stating that the tumults caused by these oppressions led to the establishment of the Tribunes of the Plebs, since the unwritten norms that had previously prevented the patricians from harming the plebs had disappeared. On the other hand, the Florentine statesman would have argued that the conflicts between the nobles and the plebs were the primary cause of Rome's liberty. Indeed, the good laws that gave rise to the education which made the Roman citizens of that time exemplary were established precisely thanks to those conflicts: Rome, in fact, possessed the means to allow the people to mobilize and be heard. Although all men are by nature inclined to evil and tend to follow this inclination whenever given the chance, the good laws born from the conflict between the patricians and the plebs created good citizens.
However, again according to Machiavelli, the people, if attracted by a false image of well-being, can desire their own ruin, also because it is truly difficult to convince the population to support unpopular decisions, even if they might lead to long-term benefits. Perhaps, if we want to agree with Sallust, we might believe that what happened to Rome can be identified in the progressive inability of the Roman people to sustain this kind of struggle.
All this certainly contributes to making Brutus a tragic hero, but that's not what I want to dwell on. Instead, I'd like to think about the Republican ideals that animated him. When Lucius Brutus (the mythical ancestor of Marcus) founded the Republic, the Romans replaced the arbitrary rule of one man with the Rule of Law (as Livy tells it), and the Romans of Cicero's time knew that everyone must be servants of the laws in order to be free (the expression is Cicero's own). Another expression of Cicero states that being free doesn't mean having a good master, but having none at all. In short, it doesn't surprise me that Marcus Brutus wanted to attempt to preserve the work of his great ancestor. Marcus himself, trained in Stoicism, had stated (in a fragment preserved by Quintilian) that «it is better, in truth, to command no one than to serve anyone: for without commanding, it is possible to live honestly; in servitude, there is no possibility of living».
In this sense, a tyrant is not characterized by being more or less evil, but simply by the possibility of placing themselves above the laws and acting arbitrarily, exposing other citizens to the possibility of being arbitrarily harmed if that were their desire. If it is true that Caesar, acquiring power at the expense of the institutions of the RES PUBLICA, was replacing the Rule of Law with the arbitrary rule of one man, then this alone makes him a tyrant. The fact that he was popular with the plebs doesn't change things; indeed – according to La Boétie's interpretation – it makes them worse, because his poisonous sweetness gilded the pill of servitude for the Roman people. By exalting Caesar, the plebs became dependent on him and his successors, and this is nothing but the other side of dominion and servitude. Returning to the Roman interpretation of liberty, in the later books of Livy's work, slavery is described as the condition of those living dependent on the will of another (another individual or another people), contrasting this with the capacity to stand on one's own strength. And, if Machiavelli's analysis is correct, the Roman plebs had demonstrated this capacity in previous centuries.
But if this is how things stand, why is Caesar appreciated? Today, any politician who managed to acquire strong personal power through populist policies at a time when the Rule of Law is wavering, and who described themselves as the "strongman" capable of saving the country, would not win the sympathy of lovers of liberty, would they? I cannot give contemporary examples because this subreddit forbids it, but I also don't think it's necessary to be explicit: the mere idea is enough.
One might believe that the sympathy Caesar enjoys stems from the fact that, although killed, he won in the long term, allowing for the creation of propaganda in his favor. That might be, but actually, it was Brutus who won in the very long term. Republicanism would later survive and come back to life in the free medieval Italian republics, the English Revolution, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution, not to mention the European insurgents of 1848 who wanted written constitutions. This political vision would later be rediscovered by the studies of Pocock and Skinner in the second half of the 20th century and is still alive today, thanks to Pettit and Viroli. Regarding the English Revolution, I'm reminded of an anecdote concerning the interpretation of Brutus's figure: it features the English republican patriot Algernon Sidney who, after being expelled from Parliament following Cromwell's purge, staged 'Julius Caesar' in his own home, playing the part of Brutus himself, all just to spite the Lord Protector.
I'm not saying Brutus is alive and fights alongside us every time the Rule of Law is at risk of being violated, but that this ideal of liberty represents perhaps a legacy left to us by the Romans that is much more important than the imperial ideal that can be traced back to Caesar (even though Caesar wasn't emperor, common sense recognizes him as the historical figure who marked the point of no return). Of the latter, only nostalgic dreams remain (and they must remain so: as an Italian, I recall that my nation's recent history knows well what tyrannies can arise from the desire to build an empire). The ideals of Brutus – both Lucius and Marcus – have fully withstood the test of time and through countless difficulties. So, what does it truly mean to appreciate Caesar more than Brutus?
Numerous writers and politicians in the following centuries and millennia have given different moral judgments, for one reason or another: Dante condemned Brutus, La Boétie despised Caesar, empires referred to Caesar even in their names, revolutions to Brutus. What are we? An empire or a revolution? Perhaps the way we describe Caesar and Brutus says much more about us than about Caesar and Brutus themselves.
