HBO series Rome thoughts

I found myself fascinated and glued to my iPad while I was watching the episodes of Rome. The setting and directing was on point to say the least. I think the series completely nailed the pin on the head in regards to the atmosphere of ceasars "triumph" episode when all the Romans cheered and ribbons and pedals fell during the ceremony. The execution of the king of the Gauls was very gruesome. As the crowd cheered I felt that the public excecution sparked support for Cesar's so called triumph and his domination. In the second episode it became more apparent to me the role of the women in the series. Servilla, the mother of Brutus was in my opinion one of the major roles influencing the murder of ceasar.  Lastly, I felt the series strayed a little from Plutarch when it came to the murder of ceasar and how Antony and Brutus responded. Did anyone else almost feel bad for ceasar as he was getting killed? I did. I felt like he wasn't portrayed as that bad in the two episodes that I watched.

Frustrating but Rewarding

Before class yesterday, I definitely didn’t know what I should write about for this blog post.  I found the reading to be difficult to get through and I just wanted to give up.  As I continued to read, I wish I could say that it got better, but it didn’t for me.  Like we discussed in class, I would have preferred for the reading to be separated into chapters or sections.  I felt like I was getting nowhere even after a couple of hours of trying. 

I guess I was pretty surprised when we learned that Plutarch’s Lives used to be a very popular book.  It’s not that I found the information or material boring, I just wouldn’t have expected it.  Today, most of us have a difficult time focusing or reading any kind of book for a long period of time.  This is due to the constant distractions surrounding us.  It seems that reading in general (not just Plutarch’s book) has become less and less popular because people would rather be scrolling through the internet or watching Netflix.  I’m even having a hard time focusing while writing this blog post. 

Even after the struggle of getting through the reading, I did manage to get something out of it.  As I approached the end of it, I was actually glad that I read it.  I didn’t know much of the details about Caesar’s life before, but it was pretty interesting.  It’s not really something to brag about, but how often do you hear true stories about people who were captured by pirates? I definitely haven’t heard many before.  Plus, Caesar didn’t react to this situation in the way that the average person probably would.  He actually stood up for himself when his life was in the pirates’ hands.  I think that Plutarch was trying to teach us the valuable things we can learn from how Caesar lived his life. 

After the Plutarch reading and the Goldsworthy reading, I feel like I have a better understanding of who Caesar really was.  This will definitely help as we begin to read Shakespeare’s version of Julius Caesar.  I have read this play already in high school, but I think I will be able to understand it better this time around.  

Who does he think he is? - By Alex Graham

After reading the story of Julius Caesar, I was shocked at his personality and his confidence in his reputation! This story truly amazed me and it was unlike anything else I've ever read. It's crazy how someone who is captured and who's life is in the hands of pirates is able to have such confidence and arrogance to make demands to his captors! Its insane how he wasn't even concerned with his own safety when he was making his remarks. Caesar surprised me because he put his pride in front of his safety as he taunted his captors with his ego and reputation.

Personally, I like Caesar and his personality. I am a firm believer in accepting your mistakes and being quick to apologize. In the PDF I learned that Caesar was someone who made mistakes and he was quick to admit that. But at the same time, he made a lot of brilliant decisions and he used those to feed his ego.

I also liked the way Plutarch presented Caesar. He didn't represent him as a god or like how Shakespeare represented Richard iii with some extra personality qualities that he may not have had. I like how he was humble about his writings.

I personally felt as if the Caesar that was described in Plutarch was different and came off as more arrogant than as he was described in Goldsworthy. I feel like Goldsworthy portrayed more of the importance and the power of Caesar than Plutarch did. I feel as if Plutarch wasn't wrong in doing so, but he wanted to give us a perspective of exactly who Caesar was.

To be honest, I found this reading to be very challenging and difficult to comprehend (especially because I have been pressed for time lately). As mentioned in class, I thought this text got easier to read as I progressed in the text: similar to the cold swimming pool reference. I believe humans have become more direct and straightforward readers. In the time of Shakespeare or Plutarch, people read because it was one of the only ways of self-entertainment; as compared to today, people are more often reading to learn something and they want to get just the facts without any "fluff".

Complaints of a 21st Century College Student

For me, reading Plutarch’s Lives was like reading fine print for several hours; both literally and metaphorically. Although bulky and somewhat dry in my opinion, Plutarch succeeded in captivating me at times. For instance, the pirate ordeal at the beginning of the biography was an effective way to both grab the reader’s attention and introduce the reader to Caesar as an entertaining character. I believe Plutarch was strategic in introducing the reader to Caesar with this story. Caesar’s actions upon being captured by pirates as a child evidence his perseverance, motivation, narcissism, and general attitude towards resolving conflicts. Moreover, this introduction provides a framework and foreshadows how Caesar gains his power throughout his life.

Literally me last night while trying to read the introduction before bed. Bad idea.

I think it’s important to keep context in mind when reading Plutarch’s Lives. Written at the beginning of the second century A.D., I can imagine the story of Caesar to be much more entertaining and relevant back then. For me, Caesar has always be presented as such a fictional and distant character so I find it hard to be fascinated by him; however, I can understand how his life and legacy could be much more enthralling to someone living closer to that time and context.

Throughout reading the text I found it increasingly hard to stay focused and motivated to finish the content. As mentioned in class, I agree that this is likely largely due to the plethora of distractions in the 21^st century as well as shifts and developments in media. It’s no secret that print media is losing its popularity with the steady rise of electronic media. TV shows, movies, music, radio, the Internet, cell phones, etc.…. all seem to dominate print media in regards to entertainment in the 21^st century. It only seems inevitable that this trend will play into socializing future generations and thus perpetuate the disconnect with print media. With that being said, this concept is not prescriptive and just a thought I would like to explore more sometime.

Caesar the Merciful

I have to admit, while reading Plutarch’s take on Caesar’s life, the beginning was absolutely boring. I think I’ve read about more interesting things in a National Geographic magazine. Yikes! I kept reading though because, ya know, Dr. MB told us to.

For the past couple of classes, we’ve talked about what we can take from media and in the midst of reading, I came to realize that I love how Plutarch painted Caesar’s image. He presented Caesar as both an honorable man and a great leader although some would paint him as arrogant. I thought his response to be captured was very fitting of his character. He told his pirate captures that he was worth far more than a ransom and if that isn’t bravery, tell me what is. I know that if I was captured by pirates, I wouldn’t be telling them my worth because I feel like I wouldn’t even get out a full sentence without a sword through my neck. Although the pirates caught my attention for a little bit, I am not a huge fan of them.

My favorite part of reading about Caesar’s love life. I absolutely LIVE for these stories because I just want to grab a bowl of popcorn and see what goes down! Some label Caesar as an arrogant man but when he finds out that his brother and his wife had an affair, the only words I could stumble across were compassionate and merciful. I could only imagine his face at first would look a little like this: 

 

DIVORCE HER! DIVORCE HER! Thank God he did. I thought I was going to read about how he was going to see revenge and order her head on a silver platter but instead, he showed mercy towards his ex-wife and his brother. “Why?!,” is all I could think. They both betrayed him and he remained an honorable man and remained the bigger person and didn’t ruin them. Think about what usually happens to a convicted cheater . . . nothing good, right? He saved their asses and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what compartment of his heart he dug this kindness from because most people would jump at the opportunity to ruin the cheater’s lives.

I think Goldworthy’s portrayal of Caesar and the Caesar that we meet in Plutarch could be great friends. Yes, I know it is one person (haha) but what I mean is that if Goldworthy’s Caesar and Plutarch’s Caesar were made into little cartoon characters, it’d be like meeting your twin after not knowing them for some years. What's up, twin! 

Although I wanted some juicy divorce stories, I am also happy that Caesar remained the honorable man he was and didn’t stoop to his ex-wife’s and his brother’s level. Kudos to him.  

Caesar's Life vs. Today's Society

I going to be completely on honest, before reading to I knew little to no information about the life of Caesar, and by look at the book of Plutarch’s Lives, I was apprehensive on what I was going to read. However, like everyone say don’t judge a book by its cover I came to found out the Caesar was a very interesting, and great noble leader. After reading Goldsworthy’s and Plutarch’s view on Caesars life, I had developed to like Caesar. Throughout my whole course of my career in school, I have always heard many people discuss the importance of Caesar; however, I honestly did not know what made him so famous. The information for the social history of the ancient world was very interesting and very eye opening, from all the different wars he was part of and the many family members he had through his life span. Since I am being completely honest about my knowledge of Caesar, if it was not for this class I probably would have never read this about Caesar’s life.

That being said I think that as a  society our attention spans and media engagements have changed over the centuries. As focused in the last blog we all have different preferred forms of medias that we use in our every day live. Therefore, as a I am personally a sound and visual type of person for me to sit down and read about Caesar took a lot of self discipline (but I did it!). Therefore, I would day that this book was challenging for me to read, I think what was the most hard for me was just all the different names and cities that I was unaware of so at time I had to reread parts to get a better understanding of what was going on. The difference of readers of back then to readers back in the day of Plutarch is how society is viewing forms of media. For example, I am really excited to watch the Rome episodes for class. This is where I think the difference is from most people are only relying on visual forms of media to gain information on historical figures, instead of reading older texts such as Plutarch’s Lives. Therefore, I think theses new forms of media being made to share these aspects of the past are informing those who would not read Plutarch’s Lives; however, I do think that reading these works of literature  such as Plutarch’s Lives is extremely important in understand the true events that took place. 

Caesar seriously needs to clean out his friends list...

As I read the assignment, in the back of my mind I just kept thinking, "Why does Caesar's life require so many dang names?"  It was ridiculously hard to follow Ceasar's life because Plutarch was forever dropping names.  Seriously, clean up that Friends List dude, it's not how many people you know that defines you... Duh, everyone knows that!








I also took away that Caesar had a sense of humor.  He kind of reminded me of Flynn Rider from Disney's Tangled.  He was a bad guy, but not a baaaaaad guy.  His wanted poster was the bane of his existence because it asked for a paltry sum as well as distorted his face.  In the same way, Ceasar took that pirate ransom and was all, "Do you know who I am!"  Takes a pretty cocky SOB to double his own ransom.

And hey Plutarch, thanks for the Pirates, I friggen love pirates.  Arrrrrrrrr!

I was impressed by his tactical prowess when moving his army about and collecting men and loyalties like it was NBD... Generally he's a pretty legit General.  It would appear he lead not by the power granted in position, but rather the power compelled and enforced by respect.

But that Claudius disaster...what in the heck was that all about? Not gonna lie, I'd have ended that beardless bastard's life for that nonsense.

Caesar: The Man.... And Other Things

As I was reading the texts for this class, I took some notes on my thoughts and, since this is a blog post, thought I would share them.

Before reading the PDF and Plutarch, I had already known a lil' somethin' somethin' about our guy, Caesar. Cleopatra holds a huge place in my heart and her interactions with both Caesar and Antony made me develop an interest in them, as well. I have also watched HBO's Rome a million times and have a ton of non fiction on Ancient Rome (Read SPQR by Mary Beard. It's amazing!)

One thing I kept thinking of while reading about him for this class is that everyone knows this guy's name. Throughout these past couple of thousand years, we have made him immortal. Sure, he's a brilliant man and an excellent politician. But what I think gets lost in translation along the way, is that Caesar was just a man. He was a father, a husband (a couple of times), a womanizer, and a fierce friend. He was extremely ambitious and made it to the top and stayed there for quite some time. He made mistakes but also did great things. Now, I'm not saying everything he did was admirable but as someone who is human, I can see some areas where he made decisions for survival and some for politics.

Another thing that blows me away every time I think about it is that only a small percentage of ancient texts have survived. We may think we know everything about the ancient world, but the fact is that we don't. So much gets lost through years and years of war, fires, weather issues, etc. Every television show and movie portraying ancient Athens or ancient Rome may only be getting a small idea of what really went on. Could you imagine what the world would be like if we didn't have to study just the couple of ancient texts we have? What if we had a plethora of works that were still available to pour over instead of just guessing over ancient life like we do when read Homer? It seriously blows me away how much we don't have and what pieces of history we are missing as we move forward with our own history.

Lastly, since I'm a huge speculator on back stories (Come on guys, I mention this like every blog post), I can't help but think that either Caesar has got shitty friends or he was clueless about the people he surrounded himself with. I know he's not perfect and that there were some huge disagreements between him and Pompey even after Caesar gave him his daughter to marry. I mean, these best buddies went to war! Like, whaaat? And let's not even get me started about Brutus. Anyone else feel not a twinge of sadness when Brutus off'd himself after battle? No? Just me then? But I wish I could get a glimpse at Caesar's, the man not the ruler, mind as all this was going on. Did he feel betrayal? Or did he have a growing sense of impending doom? Or was he just "la-dee-da"-ing all over the place and was just focusing on the next best thing?

We'll never know but it's fun to speculate about!

We Should Totally Just Stab Caesar (But Not Really 'Cause I Kinda Like Him)

So what I have gathered from these readings is that Plutarch did not write history. What he wanted to get across was importance, greatness, and legacy. He was not so much concerned about readers knowing facts about these people, he just wanted them to be remembered.

I started these readings knowing three things about Julius Caesar

(1) He was born via cesarean-section
(2) This allowed him to...do something great that I can't remember because I read it in high school...because the rule of "only a man born from a woman can do...(the thing I can't remember)" technically did not apply to him
(3) He is briefly mentioned in the forever-lovable Mean Girls

Having read Plutarch's and Goldsworthy's individual takes on Caesar and his life, I've grown to like the guy. Both depict him as a great and noble leader. While some may say that telling his pirate captures that his is worth far more than his ransom was foolish or cocky, I think it was a great strategy and survival tactic. If his captures thought he was so incredibly valuable, they were guaranteed to keep him alive so that they could get their proper reward. He was also kindhearted and merciful. His brother and wife had had an affair, and it was only discovered because his brother disrupted a sacred, all-female celebration and was put on trial. Caesar divorced his wife, and when asked for information for the trail, he did not admit to knowing about the affair, therefore saving his brother's and wife's lives. A blood-thirsty, arrogant, tyrant would not willing spare the lives of people who have betrayed him. He was also, the leader of the rebels in a war to take down the Roman empire, standing for what he believed the people deserved.

This is the kind of man I would want to lead my country, my people. A man who stood up for the little people and spare the lives of those close to him, but was not afraid to fight for what he believed in, even though it may have meant blood. I can understand why Plutarch wanted to write about him. As I said, Plutarch clearly explained that he did not write history, he wrote about the "lives" of people. But here's where we have to stop and think, relating novels and class discussions.

We learned in "The Daughter of Time" that what we believe to be history, may not always be correct. I'm sure that many of you read these passages and interpreted Caesar very differently than I did. So who's to say you're right and I'm wrong? That Caesar was arrogant and wanted nothing more than to rule all of Rome? We don't even know the details of his birth (aside from the cesarean-section)! This also makes me think of the candidate that came in and talked with us about Shakespeare because we don't know a lot about him but there are many things we can assume in order to "fill in the blanks," but that's something we can talk about in class.

I'm glad that Plutarch decided to write about these people the way he did. Not with textbook jargon or specific dates, facts, and names, but with "memories". He painted a picture of the man he wanted us to see and behold. I think Caesar would be thankful that people know him now as more than just a salad dressing.