Always I am Caesar

Tatum has something on Julius Caesar for everyone, from a refresher on the social and political structure of Republican Rome, to a new slant on the significance of Caesar's famous dying words, to a comparison between Caesar and notable modern leaders. Since the material is taken from public lectures, the prose flows like that of engaging modern professor or storyteller.

Always I am Caesar is more than a biography. It focuses on the events and people of the late Republic that shaped and were shaped by Julius Caesar.

Caesar was a force, whether for good or ill. How you see him depends on your politics. Caesar had become dictator for life at the time of his assassination on the Ides of March 44 B.C. Augustus completed Caesar's move to autocracy when he changed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Tatum argues by doing so Augustus provided something better than what the Republic had to offer: Where the Republic offered great men, like Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar, the chance to make names for themselves and their posterity, Augustus offered peace and security. Tatum argues this conclusion well, if unconvincingly.