1Īlways I am Caesar originates in the De Carle Lectures, a series of public lectures which Tatum gave at the University of Otago in 2005. In Always I am Caesar, the question of Caesar’s singularity becomes a springboard for separating Caesar the icon from Caesar the historical figure, and especially for elucidating his relationship to the society and culture which shaped him and in which he operated. Was Caesar truly an incomparable genius, unwilling and unable to live as a citizen of the Republic? Or was he a rather less prodigious product of his time and culture, driven by the relentless competition among aristocrats and by the machinations of his enemies into civil war and dictatorship? As Tatum sees it, this familiar line of questioning reduces Caesar to an ideological choice between the noble and dark sides of empire, ignoring both generations of reception and the nuances of contemporary context. Although the book falls into the broad biography-cum-context category, Always I am Caesar is concerned with city and society as much as the man himself, and it delves most fruitfully into the culture and norms which converged to create the Caesar we know. In Always I am Caesar, Tatum offers a wide lens onto Caesar and his times in “an attempt to understand central aspects of Caesar’s life within a pertinent slice of Roman habits, concepts and expectations” (3). Caesar has always fascinated those who encountered him, whether in person or through the reception of text, memory and image.
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