Re:Parthia: Rome's Ablest Competitor
by zozbot234 on Thursday October 03, 2019 @02:57PM
(#21150698)
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.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Parthia: Rome's Ablest Competitor
by RcouF1uZ4gsC on Thursday October 03, 2019 @06:03PM
(#21152725)
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.