The Anticato (sometimes Anti-Cato; Latin: Anticatones) is a lost polemic written by Julius Caesar in hostile reply to Cicero's pamphlet praising Cato the Younger. The text is lost and survives only in fragments. Brutus, dissatisfied with Cicero's work, wrote a second pamphlet in praise of Cato and called, simply, "Cato", which provoked a reply from Octavian. [1] Octavian's work is not known to have been called "Anticato", but must have been modeled on Caesar's reply to Cicero.
Caesar famously crossed the Rubicon and came to Rome, sparking a civil war. When Caesar prevailed in the war and looked to seize power in Rome, Cato committed suicide. Several leading Romans wrote works in posthumous praise or criticism of Cato. A famous panegyric by Cicero titled simply Cato led to Caesar writing his Anticato in response. [2]
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire. He reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult, as well as an era of imperial peace in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled Ab Urbe Condita, ''From the Founding of the City'', covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on good terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was a friend of Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he encouraged to take up the writing of history.
Marcus Antonius, commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire.
Marcus Junius Brutus was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. He is often referred to simply as Brutus.
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was a general and politician of ancient Rome in the 1st century BC.
Gaius Cassius Longinus was a Roman senator and general best known as a leading instigator of the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC. He was the brother-in-law of Brutus, another leader of the conspiracy. He commanded troops with Brutus during the Battle of Philippi against the combined forces of Mark Antony and Octavian, Caesar's former supporters, and committed suicide after being defeated by Mark Antony.
Aulus Hirtius was consul of the Roman Republic in 43 BC and a writer on military subjects. He was killed during his consulship in battle against Mark Antony at the Battle of Mutina.
Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius, also known in English as Sextus Pompey, was a Roman military leader who, throughout his life, upheld the cause of his father, Pompey the Great, against Julius Caesar and his supporters during the last civil wars of the Roman Republic.
Tiberius Claudius Nero was a Roman politician, senator, and praetor who lived in the last century of the Roman Republic.
Julia was the daughter of Julius Caesar and his first or second wife Cornelia, and his only child from his marriages. Julia became the fourth wife of Pompey the Great and was renowned for her beauty and virtue.
Junia, called Junia Secunda by modern historians to distinguish her from her sisters, was an ancient Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the sister of Marcus Brutus, and was married to the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.
Roman historiography stretches back to at least the 3rd century BC and was indebted to earlier Greek historiography. The Romans relied on previous models in the Greek tradition such as the works of Herodotus and Thucydides. Roman historiographical forms are usually different from their Greek counterparts, however, and often emphasize Roman concerns. The Roman style of history was based on the way that the Annals of the Pontifex Maximus, or the Annales Maximi, were recorded. The Annales Maximi include a wide array of information, including religious documents, names of consuls, deaths of priests, and various disasters throughout history. Also part of the Annales Maximi are the White Tablets, or the "Tabulae Albatae", which consist of information on the origin of the Roman Republic.
Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators on the Ides of March of 44 BC during a meeting of the Senate at the Curia of Pompey of the Theatre of Pompey in Rome where the senators stabbed Caesar 23 times. They claimed to be acting over fears that Caesar's unprecedented concentration of power during his dictatorship was undermining the Roman Republic. At least 60 to 70 senators were party to the conspiracy, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. Despite the death of Caesar, the conspirators were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic. The ramifications of the assassination led to his martyrdom, the Liberators' civil war and ultimately to the Principate period of the Roman Empire.
The Philippics are a series of 14 speeches composed by Cicero in 44 and 43 BC, condemning Mark Antony. Cicero likened these speeches to those of Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon; both Demosthenes' and Cicero's speeches became known as Philippics. Cicero's Second Philippic is styled after Demosthenes' On the Crown.
Marcus Favonius was a Roman politician during the period of the fall of the Roman Republic. He is noted for his imitation of Cato the Younger, his espousal of the Cynic philosophy, and for his appearance as the Poet in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.
The career of Julius Caesar before his consulship in 59 BC was characterized by military adventurism and political persecution. Julius Caesar was born on 12 July 100 BC into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. His father died when he was just 16, leaving Caesar as the head of the household. His family status put him at odds with the Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who almost had him executed.
The military campaigns of Julius Caesar were a series of wars that reshaped the political landscape of the Roman Republic, expanded its territories, and ultimately paved the way for the transition from republic to empire. The wars constituted both the Gallic Wars and Caesar's civil war.
The Life of Caesar is a biography of Julius Caesar written in Ancient Greek in the beginning of the 2nd century AD by the Greek moralist Plutarch, as part of his Parallel Lives. In this book comparing Greek and Roman statesmen, Plutarch paired Caesar with Alexander the Great, the other grand victor of classical antiquity. Unlike most of the other Parallel Lives, Caesar's Life is more historical and secular, lacking the main features of Plutarch's works: moral judgement and relationship with the divine. Plutarch moved these elements of Caesar's personality to the lives of the other Roman contemporaries he wrote about, such as Pompey, Cicero, or Brutus.
Tanusius Geminus was an ancient Roman historian from the 1st century BCE. Very little is known of him and none of his work survives. The German classical scholar Friedrich Münzer believed he was a senator. This perspective has been criticized for lacking supporting evidence.
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