There's actually something deeply weird about Caesar's assassination. He was well aware that folks were plotting against him, and was incredibly complacent about it all - this is something that ancient sources mention again and again, not just urban legend. You can read that as him just being fatalistic (which was incredibly common in the ancient world) but it's almost as if he willfully invited the whole thing.

I think Julius Caesar lived his whole life, believing (or at least acting) like he was invincible.

He gets captured by pirates, and he incessantly demands they treat him with respect and that he is going to come back and crucify them. They don't kill him, and he later comes back and crucifies them.

During his Gaul campaigns, he would regularly be in the thick of the fight, and several times came close to being killed.

During mutinies, he would regularly go out among the mutinous soldiers without really a whole lot of protection and talk them down. He could have been easily killed during that time.

So what we see as complacency or fatalism, may just be Julius Caesar acting like he always did. That strategy had worked his whole life, until at the end, it didn't.

Reminds me of George Washington. He literally marches in front of bullets and luckily he was misses

i agree with about 98% of what you said, but julius caesar had also heavily mortgaged the future for the present. he had aging legions who had already mutinied a few times and he kept winning them back with more and more promises that he'd not yet fulfilled. i wonder if a force as formidable as the parthian archers would be something that ended up finally breaking the resolve of those experienced legions.

Julius Caesar was one of the greatest generals according to a history written by the victors. Namely, him.

Not that I'm saying you're wrong, but invading Parthia would be a rather different story than invading Gaul.

> Julius Caesar was one of the greatest generals according to a history written by the victors. Namely, him.

Well, sure, but when the question is "who's good at winning?", it's not obviously wrong to see what the victors think.

Hannibal was one of the greatest generals according to a history written by the victors, even though the victors despised him.

Another example is Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant. Even though Grant was the winner, often Lee is perceived as the better general. Though I think if you ask historians now who was the better general, I think many will say Grant as he had a deeper understanding of overall strategy (including logistics, manpower, etc) which is more important than whatever tactical brilliance Lee may have had.

I read a very interesting account of how poorly Lee in particular and the Confederacy in general prosecuted the Civil War. They misunderstood their political goals absolutely and instead of simply fighting a war of defense - holding out long enough to appear a legitimate nation in their own right, (essentially running down the clock), they fought to take and hold territory that they didn't need. Tactical brilliance is nothing without sound strategy.

Montgomery vs Rommel is a good example of that too!

Politics again. Grant was a lousy president afterwards, and the south needed a hero. Thus their storylines diverge.

In fact, given the political needs in ensuing decades, there's really no need for the "story" to reflect the record at all.

Hannibal gets more credit as a result.

Note, I'm not necessarily saying Caesar was bad. He did win, as you say. But he had significant materiel and troop advantages against the Gauls and against Pompey. Maybe we should credit him more as a politician and less as a general.