Caesar: Life of a Colossus

Caesar: Life of a Colossus
by Adrian Goldsworthy

Caesar: Life of a Colossus
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Book Summary Information

Author: Adrian Goldsworthy
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-28
ISBN: 0300126891
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Yale University Press

Book Reviews of Caesar: Life of a Colossus

Book Review: The Greatest Biography on the Great Man Ever
Summary: 5 Stars

Adrian Goldsworthy is known as a Roman military historian of the finest grade. His books on the Roman army and the Punic Wars are some of the best ever written. In this book he tackles the big man himself: Julius Caesar. J.C. is the second most famous man with those initials in history, and the other was born almost exactly 100 years after him. And he earned his spot. Goldsworthy shows that he is more than just a military historian, capturing the political and social situation of his day just as well as he captures Caesar's military campaigns. Speaking of those campaigns he includes extremely helpful diagrams to make his texts clearer. It's nice to see his military side taken so seriously. A lot of biographies skip that. The politics of the Republic can be confusing for people, and they do seem simplified somewhat here, but the book maintains such a tight focus on Caesar throughout that it would be irrelevant to explain aspects of Roman civilization that Caesar wouldn't have dealt with.

As a character study Goldsworthy treats Caesar too kindly, never hiding his darker qualities, but emphasizing the ones that made him great. It seems that most biographers tend to either glorify or vilify their subject so it's understandable, and he doesn't take it as far as some. Reading Mieirs biography and his concerted attacks on Caesar even when he was behaving well (Caesar's ribbing of the soothsayer on the Senate steps was considered a cruel mockery) made it hard to read. Goldsworthy's take is more balanced. If you ever wanted to know about the man who brought an end to the Roman Republic and left such an indelible impression on history (Both kaisar and tsar come from Caesar) then you can't do much better than this book.

Summary of Caesar: Life of a Colossus

As Adrian Goldsworthy writes in the introduction to this book, "in his fifty-six years, Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator . . . as well as husband, father, lover and adulterer." In this landmark biography, Goldsworthy examines all of these roles and places his subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C.

Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Caesar's life from birth through assassination, Goldsworthy covers not only Caesar's accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar's character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later.

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