Memes of Production

Lord. This is not how it went down. WARNING: Romaboo pedantry ahead

The characterization of the conquest of Gaul as a genocide is extremely questionable, but I'll allow that I'm nitpicking and that as an imperialist atrocity it deserves condemnation. Nevertheless, I must emphasize that genocide was neither the intent nor the effect.

Caesar's position as Pontifex Maximus was an overwhelmingly political position to begin with, not one that afforded him special divine status - especially as Pontifex Maximus he was elected into the position by popular vote. His influence as Pontifex Maximus had much more to do with procedural elements in the Roman government than the faith of ordinary, everyday Romans.

The idea of religious fanaticism does not really hold any water in traditional Roman religio, which regarded superstitio - excessive obsession with the gods - as a negative trait, not a positive one. Core in Roman religio was the idea of do ut des - "I give that you may give", also a concept in Roman contract law. The Romans didn't think that the purpose of life was serving the gods, or that the gods as a whole decided their fate in the afterlife, but rather, that people gave sacrifices and thanks to the gods in exchange for the gods' help. When one side of the equation was lacking, so too would the other.

Caesar never claimed the status of 'god-emperor'; the notion of an 'emperor' as a unique position had not come about, and he did not claim to be a god, mentioning during his dictatorship, after being offered a crown, that the only king the Romans recognized was Jupiter.

Caesar was never elected People's Tribune, and was ineligible, as he was from a Patrician family, not a Plebeian family. He did hold a position as a military tribune in his youth, but this was not a politically influential position. When he was granted Tribunician powers, he was already dictator.

"Imperator", at this time, still means simply "Commander", and was a title often afforded to generals by their troops. It was nothing but an honorary title, and one that Caesar rarely used, as he wished to portray himself as a civilian politician - which, honestly, he mostly was. Gaul was his first time leading a real military force... at the age of 42, having spent the past ~25 years in civilian politics. "Imperator" would be adopted as a more prominent title by Augustus, ironically, because he had very little in the way of military credentials, and wished to portray himself as a STRONG DEFENDER of THE ROMAN PEOPLE instead of a civilian politician.

By the Late Republic, there were no checks and balances. The Senate, overwhelmingly filled with optimates, the supporters of the ultrawealthy, were Caesar's main opposition; his tool of choice before the civil war was to appeal directly to the People's Assemblies, which the Senate greatly disliked. Caesar generally convinced folk to vote with him - though considering he was generally pushing popular reformist measures, this may not be as big an accomplishment as it sounds. The Senate itself violated the Roman constitution with alarming regularity, and even violated its own decisions.

Caesar's unique concentration of power only came about because of the civil war - before that, he was just a charismatic governor with loyal troops. Not that unusual in the Late Republic. Only by forcing Caesar into the position of either accepting whatever fate the ultraconservatives in the Senate desired to inflict on him, most likely death as they had countless reformist politicians before Caesar, or war, did Caesar enter into a position where he disobeyed the Senate. A compromise was offered, and considered acceptable, by both Caesar and the moderates, wherein Caesar would lay down his command almost a year ahead of when it expired in exchange for being permitted to run for office. The ultraconservatives scuttled the compromise.

At the time of Caesar's death, there's no serious indication that he intended to institute a monarchy - nor even the institution of Emperors that would come into being, largely forged by Augustus, who was a much more conservative figure. For that matter, the Roman Emperors for the first ~200 years of existence were more like a mixture of political strongmen and military juntas, whose legitimacy was not inherent, but based on the continued acceptance of the Senate and Legions, and the people of the city of Rome, specifically.

The people demanded change of the sort Caesar offered - or rather, Caesar offered change of the sort the people had been demanding for nearly 100 years at that point. Caesar was a lifelong, if moderate, populare, a supporter of reform in favor of the poor, and that is what he derived most of his popularity from. Debt relief, work programs, extension of citizenship and Senate membership to the provinces, and land reform were all core parts of his political program - which were constantly undermined by the Senatorial aristocracy before his dictatorship, in the most insane ways. The Senate had unlawfully killed over a dozen major reformist politicians in the past 100 years - and countless numbers of their supporters - and praised the name of Sulla, the dictator who took power ~30 years before Caesar, because Sulla was a conservative who deliberately weakened the democratic elements of the Roman government with his reforms.

Roman slavery was not exceptional in scale, with the greatest period of slavery, the 2nd century BCE, already having ended by the time of Caesar. Roman slavery was also not unique - slavery was a common feature of contemporary societies of the region.

Caesar was a ruthless and ambitious man. He was not an ally of democracy, even if he was not necessarily an ideological enemy like the optimates were. And he certainly took power that was constitutionally unlawful, in spirit even if he could make an 'in-letter' argument.

But he also wasn't a figure who tore down a democracy and replaced it with a monarchy; he was a reformist politician who overthrew the existing oligarchy and seemed interested in cementing himself as the metaphorical 'kingmaker' in the Roman oligarchy from then-on. Hardly wholesome, but also not nearly the same as what his enemies accused him of.