The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Great Caesar's Ghost

Julius Caesar

The Ides approach.

Reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Cassius is a true republican who personally resents autocracy and opposes it per se.

Brutus opposes it like an ancient Acton, fearing what the corrupted Caesar could and might do with impunity.

Some have seen the drama of Caesar versus the Republic as rather a clash between plebs and optimates.

In the end it was just a conflict between cosmopolitan, Imperial armies and the hereditary, parochial oligarchs of one city.

Was the American constitution the first design for a republic much bigger than a city-state?

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