In modern Rome, a statue of Caesar gazes down inscrutably over the ruins of his forum at the foot of the Capitoline hill. Following his vast Triumphs in 46 and 45 BC, he would have ridden through Rome in his triumphal regalia with a traditional slave standing behind him, reminding him that he, too, was only mortal. For a man who valued his own legacy to history, what kind of achievement remains?

Since his death over nearly 2,050 years ago, Caesar's effect on Roman history has been constantly debated. His career in life was conspicuously controversial, so it is logical that historians have always tended to come down either for his actions or against them. In later centuries, illiterate tribesmen who knew little of Rome had heard his name and it is notable that, even today, his is one of few names which are recognized, however imperfectly, as illustrating the might of Rome. Historians who adore Cicero invariably contrast the brave, noble orator against the ambitious, monomaniacal destroyer of the Republic; similarly, those who admire Caesar tend to look on Cicero as a self-serving mouthpiece for the oligarchs who, by themselves, had weakened the Republic long before Caesar's advent. After the hero-worship of 19th century historians, particularly Mommsen, and the turn in the war-torn 20th century away from men of violence, the truth of his historical importance falls somewhere in between these polar extremes.

Led largely by the influential German scholar, Theodore Mommsen, it was fashionable in the 19th century for scholars to elevate Caesar's statesmanship and wisdom into something approaching a cult of personality. To Mommsen, Roman society was out of control and drifting towards destruction; only Caesar's resolution grasped control of its history and led to the stable centuries of the Empire. The inevitable reaction following the conclusion of WWII made Caesar seem to many later 20th-century historians a mere megalomaniac warmonger like Hitler and Stalin. However, Caesar's reputation has survived two millennia of chaotic politics and will survive the extremes of the past century.

How a student of history answers the questions largely depends on his or her conviction that the Roman Republic, as it stood in Caesar's day, was capable of, or even worth, saving. I believe Caesar's career is a watershed in Roman history and a necessary one. While no writer can discount his sublime ambition, singling out Caesar as a man obsessed by personal dignitas shows a clear misunderstanding of the Roman mind set of his own times. To dare greatly in pursuit of personal glory was the sine qua non of a patrician whose only immortality lay in permanently affecting Rome's history. Cicero, for all his clear-headed understanding of Rome's past, burned with an unslaked lust to impact his own times and be remembered for it. Pompey and Crassus both were infant warlords without Caesar's skill or judgment. Caesar brought extraordinary qualities to his eventual control of the state lacked by all his ambitious contemporaries. I find the argument unpersuasive that says that the legislation of his Consulate and the later reforms carried out while Dictator did not seriously attempt to redress wrongs long ignored by the squabbling oligarchs who claimed that he destroyed liberty single-handed. In this, unlike the Gracchi, Caesar was a progressive with more than ideas. It is difficult to separate the valid criticisms of Caesar's actions from the suspicion that many of his peers were motivated largely by their own greed and envy of his stature among them.

Moreover, the ability of Republican Rome, with its conviction that the Republic was the best of all possible worlds and that any change was not only dangerous but positively unpatriotic, was completely incapable of peacefully accepting the reforms of Caesar or any other man. To read the history of Rome from the Gracchi to Augustus is a long and depressing exploration of what intolerance, factionalism, personal ambition, violence, and greed had done to Romans high and low. Essentially, the Roman Republic had become rather enmeshed in the breakdown when men no longer define the common good similarly, and where the ambitions of individuals or families was paramount. Cicero may have deeply wished to believe in a concordance of the orders, of the ability of all Romans to work together, but he framed his argument entirely to the benefit of the status quo and those who had ruled Rome for centuries, continuing to do so.

Perhaps most critical in evaluating whether the Republic could have viably continued without Caesar's actions is to accept that the determination that no one man should ever amass too much power or influence had come to mean, in practical terms, that any reformer was destroyed regardless of whether his reforms were good or bad, but because to implement them might win him too many grateful clients. From the Gracchi to Caesar, those struggling to confront the problems of the late Republic were destroyed. No change seemed possible within the system and change was desperately needed. This mind set is a sine qua non of all revolutions, and Caesar was merely the one who lived long enough to begin breaking down that mindset. That he did not do so with sufficient ruthlessness is largely why he died. It took another civil war - that of his great-nephew - and another 20 years of turbulence before the mass of Romans accepted that autocracy might be preferable to independence if it brought peace in its train. And Augustus was able to do something Caesar never did - to create, through a bureaucratic civil service, an outlet for the rich and ambitious young noble to serve his country without resorting to violence.

In the short time where peace permitted him, Caesar's reforms, which will be discussed in more depth in 6.2, were considerable enough.