Julius Caesar

Conrad Black adheres firmly to the ‘great man’ view of history

27 January 2024 9:00 am

The movers and shakers of Volume I of his projected history of the world are Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Hannibal rather than any socio-economic forces

What we could learn from the classical courts

4 November 2023 9:00 am

This year, in its annual Supreme Court moot trial of a famous ancient figure, the charity Classics for All charged…

Enthralling: BBC4’s Colosseum reviewed

26 August 2023 9:00 am

In the year 2023, the Neo-Roman Empire was at the height of its powers. A potentially restive populace was kept…

Newcomers will need to read the play in advance: Julius Caesar, at the Globe, reviewed

4 June 2022 9:00 am

Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed…

How to tell your Roman emperors apart

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Rising professors do well to be controversial if they wish to be invited to contribute to mainstream media. But the…

qasem

Eliminating Qasem Soleimani was Donald Trump’s Middle East farewell letter

10 January 2020 6:23 am

In July 55 BC, in the midst of his campaigns to civilize Gaul, Julius Caesar was troubled by the Germans.…

Women’s suffrage was just part of a huge shift in the idea of who should vote

10 February 2018 9:00 am

A reader writes: ‘In my last letter, I called you a numbskull. However I should have qualified this with “sometimes you…

Togas, sandals, breastplates, ketchup and daggers, not guns: Julius Caesar at the Barbican

It’s impossible to muff the role of Scrooge – yet Rhys Ifans manages: A Christmas Carol reviewed

9 December 2017 9:00 am

Maximum Victoriana at the Old Vic for Matthew Warchus’s A Christmas Carol. Even before we reach our seats we’re accosted…

Soap opera

14 October 2017 9:00 am

Previously on Giulio Cesare… English Touring Opera’s new season caters cannily to the box-set generation by chopping Handel’s Egyptian power-and-politics…

Mary Beard minds her S, P, Q and R

17 October 2015 8:00 am

Having rattled and routed Mark Antony and his bewitching Egyptian at the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian was…

Nero and Agrippina by Antonio Rizzi

Rid of their enemies, the Caesars set about murdering family and friends

12 September 2015 9:00 am

According to Francis Bacon, the House of York was ‘a race often dipped in its own blood’. That being so,…

Statue of Augustus in Orange, southern France

Augustus: here was a Caesar! Or at least his great-nephew

5 September 2015 9:00 am

It’s strange that tourists rarely visit the most famous site in Roman history. The spot in Pompey’s assembly hall where…

The fall of the Roman republic and the rise of Alex Salmond

4 April 2015 8:00 am

Alex Salmond, the ex-first minister who proved incapable of making Scotland independent, has assured the world that he and his…

Decent and enjoyable production: Tom McKay (Brutus) and Anthony Howell (Cassius)

The sweating, dust-glazed saints at the Hampstead Theatre tells us nothing new about the miners’ strike

12 July 2014 9:00 am

Hampstead’s new play about the 1984 miners’ strike was nearly defeated by technical glitches. Centre stage in Ed Hall’s production…

What Julius Caesar would have done about Nigel Farage

7 June 2014 9:00 am

Our politicians are desperately keen to turn the toast of the people, Nigel Farage, into toast himself. But is that…

The Vikings arrive in England during the second wave of migration (Scandinavian school, 10th century)

Civilisation’s watery superhighway

29 March 2014 9:00 am

The clue is in the title: this is not about the blue-grey-green wet stuff that covers 70 per cent of…

Marble portrait of Augustus, c.40 BC

What Emperor Augustus left us

15 February 2014 9:00 am

Roderick Conway Morris on the influence and legacy of Augustus