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Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility. They have generally regarded Roman commoners as a parasitic mob interested only in bread and circuses, as Cicero’s “starving, contemptible rabble.” And they have cast Caesar, who took up the popular cause of the poor, as little better than an adventurer and a demagogue, presenting his murder as a personal feud or a constitutional struggle, devoid of social content. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the distinguished author Michael Parenti subjects these assertions of “gentlemen historians” to a bracing critique, and presents us with a story of popular resistance against entrenched power and wealth.

As he carefully weighs the evidence concerning the murder of Caesar, Parenti sketches in the background to the crime with fascinating detail about wider Roman society. In these pages we find reflections on the democratic struggle waged by Roman commoners, religious augury as an instrument of social control, the patriarchal oppression of women, and the political use of homophobic attacks. The Assassination of Julius Caesar offers a whole new perspective on an era we thought we knew well.