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 Caesar: Life of a Colossus
by Adrian Goldsworthy
List Price: $35.00
Hardcover: 608 pages / 16 pp b&w insert
ISBN: 0300120486
Publisher: Yale Press
Publish Date: September 4, 2006
New in Print
As Adrian Goldsworthy writes in the introduction to this book, “in his
fifty-six years, Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive,
prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator . . .
as well as husband, father, lover and adulterer.” In this landmark biography,
Goldsworthy examines all of these roles and places his subject firmly within
the context of Roman society in the first century B.C.
Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Caesar's life from birth through
assassination, Goldsworthy covers not only Caesar's accomplishments as
charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also
lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult,
captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his
two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately,
Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar's character and shows why
his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand
years later.
About the Author
Adrian Goldsworthy read history at Oxford and is the author of The
Roman Army at War, The Punic Wars, and other books about the
ancient world. He lives in Wales.
From Amazon.com
Starred Review. The man who virtually defined the West's concept of
leadership comes alive in this splendid biography. Military historian
Goldsworthy (The Complete Roman Army) gives a comprehensive, vigorous
account of Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his victories in the civil war that
made him master of Rome. But he doesn't stint on the nonmartial aspects of
Caesar's life—his dandyism, his flagrant womanizing (which didn't stop enemies
from gay-baiting him), his supple political genius and the flair for drama and
showmanship that cowed mutinous legionaries and courted Rome's restive masses.
Goldsworthy's is a sympathetic profile. In his telling, Caesar's massacres and
group enslavements, though "utterly ruthless," are considered and pragmatic,
not wanton, and the conqueror seems to possess a moderation and magnanimity
that sprang from the same idealized self-image that fed his ambition. The
author's vivid portrait of the late Roman Republic that Caesar toppled is
correspondingly jaundiced: its politics are about nothing except the personal
ambitions of powerful men, and chaos, corruption and violence reign beneath the
ritualistic niceties of republican procedure. More compellingly than most
biographies, Goldsworthy's exhaustive, lucid, elegantly written life makes its
subject the embodiment of his age. 16 pages of b&w photos, maps. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
Amazon.com Editorial Reviews
Simon Sebag Montefiore:
"Adrian Goldsworthy is one of the new generation of young classicists who
combine scholarship with storytelling to bring the ancient world to life. In
his masterly new Caesar, he shows us the greatest Roman as man,
statesman, soldier, and lover."-Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin:
The Court of the Red Tsar
Philip Sidnell:
"It gives me great pleasure to give Caesar the strongest possible
recommendation. Caesar was a complex character living in confusing times, but
Adrian Goldsworthy tackles the subject with a vigor, thoroughness and clarity
of purpose that the great man himself would have approved of."-Philip Sidnell,
Editor, Ancient and Medieval History Book Club (London)
Sir John Keegan:
"Adrian Goldsworthy is one of our most promising young military historians
today."-Sir John Keegan, author of The Iraq War
Philip Matyszak:
"Goldsworthy's book will remain the definitive biography of Caesar for years to
come."-Philip Matyszak, author of The Sons of Caesar: Imperial Rome's First
Dynasty
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