Book Review – The Assassination of Julius Caesar

The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Perhaps Michael Parenti doesn’t exactly deserve “Historian of the Year” for stating painfully obvious facts about the death of the Republic. But as he rightly points out, the Optimates’ constant motive of insatiable greed is all too often downplayed or outright denied by historians ancient and modern who seek to keep the likes of Cicero and Cato on their pedestals. That these men managed to engineer the demise of their own self-serving system in less than 100 years seems somehow just, though of course Augustus and his followers were seldom any kinder than the Senate had been to Parenti’s beloved common people. Though this contains little new information for even casual students of Roman history, it’s nice to see the facts presented in a way that’s genuinely critical of the ruling class.

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