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You act like a tame herd, notwithstanding your great numbers, allowing yourselves to be possessed and fleeced by the few.... I do not recommend armed violence or a secession but only that you refuse to shed your blood in their behalf.... Let those of us who have no share in the profits be free also from danger and toil. (116-17)
These exhortations could very well be heard from a bullhorn today; they were, however, delivered over two thousand years ago by a Roman tribune, Licinius Macer, to an assembly of the Roman people. This scene, along with many others like it, can be found in Michael Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar. The reasons for the striking parallels between then and now must be ascribed to something more than coincidence; class conflict has its enduring attributes and it is the depiction of the interepochal parallels arising from these struggles that makes Parenti's book so instructive and fascinating.
Although, as the title suggests, the book culminates in the assassination of Julius Caesar, it is the historical and social background enhanced by acute political analysis that gives it a unique significance. It becomes quite clear that Julius Caesar is in many important ways a truly legendary figure whose image in traditional history and literature diverges from the historical reality. The prevalence of Caesar's fictitious persona and the multifarious misrepresentations of reality found in conventional descriptions of important aspects of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations are the result of class-oriented perspectives on historical processes. These class-induced distortions have characterized the writings of ancient historiographers down to most modern historians. The rest of the book gives substantial support to these two fundamental propositions: (1) class conflict is a very significant determinant in the development of historical events; (2) class-oriented perspectives influence and often distort the interpretation and portrayal of these events.
Tyrannicide or treason?
Parenti opens with a brief account of the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BCE by his fellow senators. He then writes:
The question that informs this book is, why did a coterie of Roman senators assassinate their fellow aristocrat and celebrated ruler, Julius Caesar? An inquiry into this incident reveals something important about the nature of political rule, class power,...