Ebook: Caesar (German Edition)

Negatives first: Trying to reach conclusions about the psychology of a person who dies over 2,000 years ago is a dubious enterprise. Use of descriptors such as alienation or "outsider" is a 20th century psycho-jargon. (Maybe in the original German it's more palatable.)

Positives: Explaining the differences between present day political conception and those of the Roman Republic is most useful. The absence of political parties and "-isms" in the modern sense is one. Pointing out and the unity (in the Roman mind)of the state and society versus our contemporary conception as separate is another. The Roman senate was a legislature without a corresponding judicial and executive institutions. The senate attempted to be all three and largely succeeded until the the size of the Republic became to great. A power vacuum was created which resulted in a series of "big men", Pompey, Caesar, Antony, Octavian, etc. Caesar was the most interesting and possibly the most pivotal. A major historical thread of the next 1,800 years was seeking the resolution of this problem.