Imaginary dialogue between Cicéron (Marcus Tullius Cicero) and Julius Caesar
by Charactorium · Julius Caesar (99 av. J.-C. — 43 av. J.-C.) · Military · Politics · 6 min read
It is in the horti of Caesar, on the right bank of the Tiber, that Cicero has himself taken this autumn of 46 BCE, shortly after the four triumphs that filled Rome with trumpets and booty. The light is fading over the boxwood avenues; a secretary is still putting away wax tablets on a marble table. The two men have known each other for thirty years — the orator who saved the Republic from Catiline and the dictator who now holds it in his hand. Cicero comes as a worried friend, determined to understand where the man he admires and fears is heading.
—Gaius, when you crossed the Rubicon in 49, I was writing to Atticus that the Senate was trembling and that no one knew what you wanted. Did you yourself know?
You who watched every dispatch, Marcus, you know how Rome held its breath. I will answer you frankly, since it is you: yes, I knew. One does not cross a river on a whim. The Senate ordered me to disband my legions and come deliver myself to my enemies, unarmed, after ten years of serving Rome in Gaul. I was offered the choice between exile and death. I chose the only path left to me. Once the river was behind us, there was no return — the die was cast. It was not audacity, it was arithmetic: retreat would ruin me, advance gave me a chance. I have always preferred a calculated risk to the slow certainty of my ruin.
It was not audacity, it was arithmetic: retreat would ruin me, advance gave me a chance.
—They say that at Alesia, in 52, you built two walls, one to trap Vercingetorix, another to protect yourself from his relief forces. Was that really it?
That was exactly it, and that is the whole craft. The Gallic oppidum was impregnable from the front: a height, a rampart of wood and stone, thousands of warriors. I could neither assault it nor leave it. So we dug. One line of fortifications facing the stronghold, a second facing the plain, for I knew a relief army would come. My legions lived with the shovel as much as the sword. When the Gallic coalition crashed upon our backs, we held on both sides at once. Vercingetorix starved inside, his allies broken outside. The discipline of a legion that knows how to dig is worth more than the courage of a people that only knows how to charge.
The discipline of a legion that knows how to dig is worth more than the courage of a people that only knows how to charge.
—I, who plead with words, marvel at your soldiery. What, in your eyes, makes the strength of a legionary against the Gaul?
You plead, I maneuver, but we both work with human material, Marcus. The strength of a legionary is not in his arm, it is in order. The Gaul is brave, huge, terrible at the first shock — then he tires. Mine first hurls his pilum, that javelin whose iron tip twists in the enemy's shield and renders it useless. Then he draws the gladius, that short sword, and kills up close, shoulder to shoulder, without breaking ranks. I myself see to their equipment, I share their bread and their mud, I sometimes sleep among them. A soldier who knows his general knows his name will let himself be killed for him. The rest is only a matter of entrenchments and patience.
—I have read your Commentaries on the Gallic War, and I must confess: the purity of that Latin stirred envy in me. Why write your campaigns yourself?
Coming from you, the first orator of Rome, the compliment touches me more than you think. I write because a victory that is not told, others tell in your place — and always badly. When my enemies in the Senate painted me as a plunderer greedy for Gaul, my books spoke for me in Rome, soberly, without useless adjectives. I state facts: how many legions, what terrain, what decision. The reader concludes for himself that I could not have acted otherwise. That is the whole ruse: to seem not to plead. Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres — a clean sentence opens a narrative that one believes impartial. One wins a war by arms; one wins it a second time by the account one leaves of it.
One wins a war by arms; one wins it a second time by the account one leaves of it.
—It is reported that you dictate several letters at once, to several scribes. I find it hard to believe, I who exhaust myself over a single period. Is it true?
It is true, and it is not a marvel, only a habit. On campaign, time is the swiftest enemy. While one secretary engraves on wax a letter to a legate, I dictate to another orders for logistics, and I read a third scroll with my own hand. The mind, like a legion, arranges itself in separate lines that advance together. When the messenger waits and night falls on the camp, one quickly learns not to waste a moment. My contemporaries see it as a wonder; I see only the necessity of a man who has too much to do and too few years. Laziness, you see, is the only luxury I have never allowed myself.
—You have just overhauled the entire calendar, with your Greek from Alexandria. Reforming time itself, is that not arrogating what belongs to the gods?
The gods gave us the sun; it is up to us to count its days without error. Our old lunar calendar drifted so badly that harvest festivals fell in winter and the pontiffs added months according to their political interests. That, Marcus, was impiety: a time distorted by men. Sosigenes of Alexandria showed me how to align the year with the sun: three hundred sixty-five days, and one extra day every four years to catch up. I had to lengthen one year by eighty days to set everything straight — that year of confusion was cursed. But now the farmer will know when to sow and the priest when to sacrifice. To govern is first to make the world legible.
To govern is first to make the world legible.
—Remember, in 63, during the conspiracy of Catiline, you pleaded for clemency when I demanded firmness. Today dictator, will you use that clemency or my sword?
I remember that day, and your voice filling the Curia — you had saved the fatherland, I never denied it, even when I opposed you. Yes, I then argued that citizens should not be killed without judgment, and I still think so. Sulla's proscription poisoned my youth; I saw Rome tremble under the posted lists. I do not want to rule by fear. I restored the statues of Pompey that the crowd had thrown down. I recalled exiles, remitted debts, enlarged the Senate. You think me drunk with power, Marcus; I tell you I am weary of vengeance. Clemency is not weakness — it is the only cement that holds after a civil war.
Clemency is not weakness — it is the only cement that holds after a civil war.
—They tell of your youth among the pirates of Cilicia, and that you laughed at your own ransom. Were you already that man, or has legend embellished you?
Legend has added nothing, except perhaps a touch of my insolence. They demanded twenty talents for my release; I laughed in their faces and swore I was worth fifty. I lived among them as among companions, reading them my verses, jokingly telling them I would come back and hang them. They laughed too. Once free and the ransom paid, I armed ships, recaptured them to the last man, and had them crucified — out of regard for our friendship in captivity, I first had their throats cut. One does not threaten idly when one is called Caesar. Even as a youth, I knew a man is worth only as much as the word he keeps, even if it is a word of the gallows.
—Between us, Gaius, it is whispered that the 'sacred disease' sometimes strikes you down in the middle of council. How do you bear this shadow the gods have placed in you?
You touch where few dare, and I am grateful rather than offended. Yes, this malady takes me by surprise, a sudden collapse, a veil, and I fall. The Greeks call it sacred; I see nothing divine in it, only a weakness of the body that must be tamed like a restive horse. I have led marches that exhausted men twenty years younger, I have slept in the saddle to gain a day on the enemy. The more my body betrays me, the more I drive it. My soldiers respect me all the more for it, for they know I ask no hardship of them that I do not first impose on myself. A leader who hides his pain turns it into authority.
The more my body betrays me, the more I drive it.
—One last, lighter: you are always seen wearing the laurel wreath, even outside a triumph. A victor's coquetry, or something else, my friend?
Ah, so you have become an observer of my hairstyle! I will not lie to you: the Senate granted me the right to wear the laurel at all times, and I gladly use it. Military glory is the avowed reason. But between us, who have known each other so long, I confess a more human vanity: this forehead is balding, and the wreath conceals quite well what the years take away. A public man is judged even on his skull; the laurel might as well serve two purposes at once. You see, Marcus, even he who subdued Gaul keeps his little coquetries. True strength is not having no weakness — it is knowing which ones to show and which ones to crown.
True strength is not having no weakness — it is knowing which ones to show and which ones to crown.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Julius Caesar's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.