ABSTRACT
When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in January 49 BC, he inaugurated the autocracy of the Caesars.1 With great candour, the opening chapters of his account of the civil war between his forces and those of Pompeius Magnus reveal stark personal motives alongside a more respectable concern for the Roman Republic. Typically writing of himself in the third person, he gives his motives for fighting in a speech made to his troops:
‘As for myself,’ he said, ‘I have always reckoned the dignity of the Republic of first importance and preferable to life. I was indignant that a benefit conferred on me by the Roman people was being insolently wrested from me by my enemies.’
