Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
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2023–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- "The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome" by Michael Parenti is worth reading.
Though I don't agree with it, I can't stand this cruel imperialist.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37811.The_Assassination_...
- If you want the most passionate and entertaining takedown (not just of the man but the tradition that has accepted his output uncritically), it would be Michael Parenti’s in The Assassination of Julius Caesar.
But you can read about Cicero’s two Catiline conspiracies, the first completely fabricated, the second embellished beyond all reason, see his second oration against Catiline, chapter 4, sections 7-8 for the juiciest accusations re: corrupting the nation’s youth.
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
Early in his career he credited himself with bravely speaking out against allies of Sulla, but that was probably an embellishment:
https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/11875418/THE_PUBLICATION_...
He’s a very entertaining figure, and you can’t help but read his letters and identify a little with him (even as he swings from proclaiming himself the greatest human ever to live, to being wildly neurotic). He was a Demosthenes forever in search of a Philip but was ultimately too spineless and indecisive to affect events when it counted. In some ways I find him pitiable in the same way as Pompey - desperate to be accepted by the aristocracy and always insecure about it. But while his literary output was sparkling, his politics and egotism were contemptible.
- Yes, but there is also the other elephant in the room. Don’t underestimate Trump, he may not have read about Michael Parenti’s explanation of The Assassination of Julius Caesar: where he argues that Caesar was killed not as a tyrant threatening republican liberty, but as a popular reformer who challenged the Roman oligarchy's wealth and power and thirst for wars. Maybe Parenti doesn't explicitly equate JFK's killing to Caesar’s, the similarity lies in both being elite-driven assassinations to preserve power: Caesar by Roman senators against reforms, akin to theories of JFK's killing over anti-war shifts and perceived threats to entrenched interests. Critics note Parenti's JFK work critiques official narratives as state cover-ups, mirroring his Caesar "people's history" inversion of "gentlemen historians."
