“Brutal and genocidal”: dismantling Julius Caesar to warn us about Trump and other Caesars

Some titles reach our televisions with strange translations. The BBC documentary Julius Caesar: The making of a dictator It is explicit in its statement: how a dictator was made. Movistar+ has released it with a more neutral name, Julius Caesar: The rise of the Roman Empire. It will be because the man who liquidated the Roman Republic enjoys a certain historical prestige, since Plutarch put him at the level of Alexander the Great in his biography. Parallel lives: Alexander-Caesar, passing through Shakespeare and Hollywood, to the Asterix comics, designed from the Gaul resistance, but which treated him as a respectable figure, in words, a worthy enemy.

This three-episode British miniseries pulls no punches: it shows Julius Caesar as someone cunning, calculating, unscrupulous, a prisoner of excessive ambition, who did not give up his efforts until he became a dictator for life, a figure who destroyed five centuries of republican tradition. A system that, if it cannot be called completely democratic, was at least participatory, had a Senate and used elective procedures for its consuls, who held power in pairs and in a limited manner. What followed was something else: five centuries of despotic empire.

He is called here “brutal, ruthless, genocidal on a large scale,” “dishonorable, immoral, anti-religious and tyrant”; It is said that he massacred more than 400,000 people in his conquests of Gaul, in violation of Roman laws. This is another docudrama, a genre that is experiencing a sudden boom, but the historians and politicians who participate (Tom Holland, Rory Stewart or Shami Chakrabarti) take the lead and the dramatized scenes are silent, an attractive background image for the narration.

The entire documentary maintains the thread of his political career firmly. There are not many details about his private life: not even his relationship with Cleopatra is mentioned, which would play so well in another type of production; Julia’s daughter is only talked about because she married her to Pompey, and her death in childbirth broke that bond. Nor are his mythical aptitudes for military strategy analyzed. The question is how he came to power over 16 years, because he gives lessons that are still valid. That is why the secondary characters in this story are his rivals or his political allies, very fickle categories: the aforementioned Pompey, Crassus, Cato, Cicero, Mark Antony, Cassius, Decimus. And Brutus, claimed as a defender of the Republic who found no other way to overthrow tyranny than to kill the tyrant.

César’s bad tricks are detailed, his sudden changes of partners, the violence he exercised without hesitation directly or through gangs of thugs that he sent to intimidate or assassinate his political enemies. His ability to unleash chaos to present himself as the only salvation. It also explains his charisma, how he became a hero to the people thanks to his military triumphs, and how he convinced the masses that he was with them and against the elites. He already made a motto of freedom. Among the merits that are recognized: the promotion of infrastructure (“What have the Romans ever done for us?”), of food distribution and great shows. Bread and Circus.

The central thesis is that Julius Caesar was a “populist capable of corrupting an entire State”, and this is what links to today. With this world in which a democracy that emits signs of decadence produces leaders with authoritarian traits that violate its spirit and, often, its rules. Donald Trump is cited here several times, as well as Jair Bolsonaro, because both, in the 21st century, instigated assaults by their followers on the Parliaments of their countries, in the same way that the Roman Senate suffered the attacks of Caesar’s faithful and then its conversion into a puppet theater where adulation was paid to it. Berlusconi and Putin are also mentioned. It’s not very subtle: when they pronounce those names they had already come to mind.

From Caesar came the expression Caesarism, which defines hyper-leadership in politics. They now abound in this connected world poisoned by tension. A second term for Trump would be much more dangerous than the first for the most powerful democracy on the planet: he no longer needs to deceive anyone, he goes without a mask. He just said that if he wins there will be no violence, but if he doesn’t win, it “depends.” He is not the only leader with short-term prospects for victory; It is not only the ultras who surrender to the pull of the strong man. Let’s not take democracy for granted, warn these experts who have portrayed Caesar so that we take care of other Caesars. Nothing happens that wouldn’t have happened in the ancient world.

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