Category:
Adults,
Autobiography & Biographies,
History,
MilitaryLanguage:
EnglishKeywords:
100's B.C. Military Leader Politician Reformer Republic RomeWritten by Philip Freeman
Read by James Cameron Stewart
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: May 21, 2019
Duration: 14:44:45
More than two thousand years after his death, Julius Caesar remains one of the great figures of history. He shaped Rome for generations, and his name became a synonym for “emperor”-not only in Rome but as far away as Germany and Russia. He is best known as the general who defeated the Gauls and doubled the size of Rome’s territories. But, as Philip Freeman describes in this fascinating new biography, Caesar was also a brilliant orator, an accomplished writer, a skilled politician, and much more.
Julius Caesar was a complex man, both hero and villain. He possessed great courage, ambition, honor, and vanity. Born into a noble family that had long been in decline, he advanced his career cunningly, beginning as a priest and eventually becoming Rome’s leading general. He made alliances with his rivals and then discarded them when it suited him. He was a spokesman for the ordinary people of Rome, who rallied around him time and again, but he profited enormously from his conquests and lived opulently. Eventually he was murdered in one of the most famous assassinations in history.
In this splendid biography, Freeman presents Julius Caesar in all his dimensions and contradictions. This book will captivate listeners discovering Caesar and ancient Rome for the first time as well as those who have a deep interest in the classical world.
Publishers Weekly
“… In fast-paced prose and detailed historical sketches, Freeman traces Caesar’s life from early youth onward… Drawing on Caesar’s own writings, Freeman portrays him as a brilliant military strategist whose defense of Roman land in the Gallic Wars extended the rule of Rome from Italy to the Atlantic. Caesar returned to Italy in 49 B.C. and became dictator three years later, seeking to improve the republic through civic reforms, including the taking of a proper census, the building of a library, the codification of Roman law and the conversion of Rome to a solar calendar. Although Freeman’s biography reveals little new information about Caesar, his cultural and historical knowledge bring the emperor to life and humanize him in a way no writer before him has succeeded in doing.”