Our ancient sources paint a grim view of the collapse of Roman political society in the late Republic-from Marius’ Populares and Sulla’s Optimates proscriptions and counter-proscriptions to Clodius’ plebian mob squaring off against the patrician Milo’s gladiators in the Forum. This chaotic world couldn’t be further from the placid Victorian England of J.A. Froude.

Froude was the foremost student and follower of the great Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle, and his works are generally from a sort of “High Tory” perspective, in contrast to the more dominant and famous Whig school of history. Froude was enormously well known in his day, but both he and his perspective on history have fallen into obscurity. Subjects and themes generally celebrated in our day, like democracy, “the people” and popular will are not trusted. This perspective is rare today. His works are mercifully free of the dense or florid prose one often encounters in many historians of this era-like Carlyle-and reads extremely easily. Though not a classicist, like almost all scholars of this time, his education would have included Latin and Greek, and a focus on the works of the Greeks and Romans, and these works were familiar to him in the original languages. The Victorian era was still that of the “Historian”, mercifully free of the navel-gazing of over specialization.

Caesar, then, seems an ideal subject for him. Not surprisingly, given Froude’s world-view, Caesar is portrayed as a Great Man-a Hero of the type written about by his mentor. Curiously, though, Caesar seems to loom more in the background of this work putatively about him, with Cicero, his career and thoughts, taking center stage. Part of this stems from the nature of the evidence-Caesar has left us only his commentaries on the Gallic Wars, while Cicero’s enormous corpus of books, letters and speeches are an unparalleled survival from Antiquity. Froude addresses this in his preface, explaining why he calls this a “sketch” rather than a portrait. Repeatedly in his text, he mentions the biases of the ancient authorities (generally pro-republic) and often dismisses accounts of personal character faults as not being admissible for “gossip is not evidence, nor does it become evidence because it is in Latin and has been repeated many generations”, a true enough statement.

He sees Caesar as rising above his time and place to save the Roman Empire from destruction either under a corrupt kleptocracy of the unworthy oligarchy set up by Sulla or from anarchy under Clodius’ plebian semi-communistic rule. Virtue resides not in the common people or in the “talkers” of the Senate but in the army. Because of this, many heroes and much admired figures of this time are roundly criticized from an unusual point of view. The disdain Froude feels for the “talkers” is almost palpable, which makes is dislike of Sulla a bit puzzling. We have in Sulla a classic example of a great man-defeating a resourceful and grave threat to the empire, Mithradates, and his willingness to use political violence. He was certainly more a man of action and achievement than Cicero, Cato or the other Optimate targets of Froude. Sulla’s reaction to Marius and the reforming tribunes seems to Froude to be half-done, agreeing with the subject of his work that Sulla was foolish for giving up the power he had only to restore the oligarchy.

Demagogues like Clodius are dismissed as street thugs, and Froude’s dislike of democracy is readily apparent in his description of the Roman electorate as being bribed by the grain dole. To Froude, the failure of the Gracchi, Saturninus, Galucia, Marius & Cinna governing as proto-democrats is preordained while they left the rump of the aristocracy alive with Sulla. In Cinna’s consecutive consulships he sees a rehearsal for the Empire, in the connection with the power of the emperors and the mass of the Roman people, with them serving as his clients in the Roman sense. But this stability still rests on a popular basis-something Froude doesn’t approve of because of its essentially shifting nature.

However, he reserves his greatest criticism for the hallowed names of the Optimates- Cato and Cicero. Cato he describes as a fanatic. He attributes Cato’s dislike of Caesar to plain jealousy of a pedant to a man of genius. His virtues he dismisses as put on in imitation of his great-grandfather. He was honest and incorruptible, but without vision, a stoic clinging to old ways. Of Cicero, he says he is “a half-made great man left unfinished”. His lack of decisiveness is constantly criticized by Froude, who ultimately makes the observation that Cicero’s talents would have been best served in acting as Caesar’s support. I was not aware, prior to reading this, of Caesar’s offer to Cicero of serving as his second-in-command in the Gallic War, which had he taken that up, would have made for a rather different outcome in history.

As for the rest of the aristocracy, Froude strongly agrees with Cicero’s assessment of them as “fish pond gazers”, more concerned with their own material status than the well being of the Empire. Were the Republic and the republican cause doomed? One can’t see Pompey-especially as Froude describes him- following the path of Caesar had he won at Pharsalus. His career following his supra-consular control of the east was undistinguished-lazy almost. Froude seconds Cicero’s assessment of the man. Perhaps he underrates the abilities of Cato, who posterity has made a hero from the time of his death to Dante to Addison and Washington. But here too, Cicero’s criticism of the man as unflinching and totally uncompromising means he would never have succeeded. As for the others major Optimates, there is no denying that Caesar was superior politically, intellectually and morally to almost all of them-Labineus, Domitius Ahenobarbarus and Scipio Metellus.

Caesar, as portrayed by Froude, is difficult to dislike. His willingness to pardon even his greatest enemies stands in contrast to his recent past and to his contemporaries and rivals. At a time when proconsuls couldn’t wait to take their provinces with the express purpose of taking everything that wasn’t nailed down, his quasteorship in Spain and his administration of Gaul stand out. As Froude points out, he left nothing unfinished. While the Roman world was tearing itself to shreds, Gaul stayed quiet. A nation that only five years before had put 250,000 men in the field was so thoroughly conquered that we hear almost nothing of it in the Civil Wars. As for his other accomplishments, Froude makes a little too much of the Lex Julia. These laws were a long time coming, and were the product of many hands. He doesn't go into great detail with Caesars's military campaigns, but as the book focuses more on Caesar's political career, rather than the military, he does do a good job addressing them.

The disgusting sycophancy and eventual deification of Caesar by the Caesarian rump Senate (later filled out with provincials and new men) and the Roman mob is one of the sadder aspects of his ascension to power. This is dismissed by Froude, who says it is “not the most extravagant freak of ancient superstation”. The Gracchi, Cinna, Marius, and Clodius were not exalted to the heavens as Caesar was-not even when Marius was at the height of his power.

Based on his assessment of Caesar, Froude would seem to welcome the transition to Empire, ignoring potential danger of Caligulas in favor of the blessings of Trajans. After finishing this, the question which occurred to me is what did Froude think of Augustus? What little he says about him is positive. The strong unquestioned central rule his uncle and he inaugurated, presaged by Cinna, Marius and Sulla, was the type Froude favored. He didn’t like this power resting on the will of the people. Caesar coupled it with the one body Froude says still embodied the old Roman virtues-the Army. This was the formula of the Principate. The Emperor as commander-in-chief was unstoppable, able to use the legions to overwhelm any possible rivals. This stability would last only so long as the central control was unquestioned. The army would then learn that it could make and unmake emperors, and the Roman world would find itself back in the chaotic state of the late Republic. But while it worked, it worked quite well. And for this, Froude, and I think most scholars, can thank Julius Caesar as the man who decisively moved Rome that way. ( )