ABSTRACT

This chapter explores a neglected backdrop to Max Weber's analysis of "Caesarism". Most sociological accounts of Weber's writings on Herrschaft in general, and on Caesarism in particular, are flat and unhistorical. From the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, Julius Caesar's name was repeatedly invoked by European and American "republican" thinkers as an object of vilification. Adapted by Montesquieu and Rousseau in the eighteenth century, republicanism became, in a plurality of mediations, an integral element in the discourse of the American revolutionaries and constitution-builders, and of their counterparts in France. Caesar's name was recurrently employed to dramatize the contrast between his actions and those motivated by republican values. Caesar's command of language- as orator-advocate and as the author of the Commentaries- often found commendation even among those who in other respects were his enemies or critics.