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Why do we glorify horrible people from the distant past?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Asklemmy
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Julius Ceasar wasn't so bad. Parenti's book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome is an interesting read, looking at his assassination as a reaction from the ruling class who felt threatened by his reformist policies that benefited the lower classes.
In general though we do seem to value the lives and experiences of people in even recent history as lesser. I don't know why, it's a good question.
I think you have to ignore large parts of his legacy to consider a genocidal warlord like Caesar "not so bad".
Pursuing the agenda of the populares may have made him less domestically odious than some of his fellow patricians from the optimates, but he was still a member of the ruling class monopolizing power in his person. On top of the whole brutal genocidal warlord thing.