Year 58 BC ‘Oppidum’ by Bibracte, fortified Celtic capital of the Aedui, then allies of the Romans. Dense beech forests in French Burgundy. Blood is about to be shed in the first war Gallic War, with a young man Julius Caesar before at the head of his legions Getting into a huge debt of 685 million euro at today’s exchange rate. This is not an Asterix and Obelix comic. is ‘Damn Rome’ (Edition B / Rosa dels Vents). There, surrounded by autumn fog, where Gallo-Roman ruins are excavated, Santiago PosteguilloHe recalls Caesar’s oratory skills, which he perfected during his exile in Asia with the tutor Apollonius. The philologist and linguist speak with the talent given to him. University professor for 31 years (now on leave), 900 pages (Be careful when going through airport control, don’t be surprised if they think it’s a brick…) from the second of six novels in which the future Roman emperor explains “the unknown from the known.”
rebuilding inside Caesar’s kidnapping by pirates From the Mare Internum (before Nostrum and Mediterráneo), from the ships “which in Asterix always end with the ship sunk by the Gauls” the author smiles in the Bibracte museum; Cleopatra’s “intense private life” after her birth or his love for his first wife, Cornelia; his involvement Fighting against Spartacus in the slave revolther epilepsy or ambitious rise to power.
There, in the political arena César was one of the populares (defenders of the people) and was dealing with the ‘optimal’ conservative senators defending their privileges. Two irreconcilable sides. “Though this did not prevent the first triumvirate, which was not actually a motion of confidence. Cicero and Cato controlled the Senate. And Caesar allied himself with his enemy. Pompey, nicknamed ‘The Butcher’ and with Crassus (who lent him money for his election campaign). These two hated each other. This shows that Even though they got along poorly, this did not stop them from forming a government.. We have not developed much, power is what it has,” says Posteguillo, leaving the guesses to journalists.
“His oratory is guaranteed to stand out among current politicians. We are used to those who break election promises or do so at the end of their terms of office. Caesar, on the other hand, promised agrarian reform; it was 130 years late, and he implemented it the day after he was elected, despite taking out a personal loan to do it. One councilor As such, he also financed entertainment for the public, “chariot races or the largest gladiatorial game involving more than 700 warriors”, which he knew made him popular, but he also paid for cultural and artistic activities or the maintenance of Appian. Way because “He believed it was good for people. “He wasn’t just a careerist seeking power.”
After 4,500,000 copies of his works were sold, no one could argue with the label of Posteguillo (1967). best-selling Spanish historical novel. The first of this series is ‘Rome is Mine’ Best seller in Spain in 2022 (Almost half a million copies in Spanish). Later Scipio Africanus and Trajan Trilogies and the biography of Julia Domna (she won the Planeta Prize for her first work), The Valencian published 8,500 pages on Ancient Rome.
Cleopatra spoke to Caesar face to face. I think he fell in love with it
It bears César’s “tremendous modernity”. “When Cicero says that one must apply death penalty In a speech against Catiline and the coup plotters, he defends permanent imprisonment with arguments that would be arguments today, with the courts dispersed so that they could not communicate with each other. : “Never in Rome Conversation about the death of a young woman, exceptionally by a respectable old woman. And he did it at his first wife’s funeral. He loved her very much. Then came marriage for interest Pompeii (grandson of rival and dictator Sulla) and later with Calpurnia”.
Humanity is driven by stupidity rather than evil
They were definitely not the only people in his life. “César cannot be understood without all these women. There is his mother, Aurelia, who is one of the ones who influenced him the most. Servilia, his married lover who has been with him throughout his life and who here introduced him to his love of 18 years – my ex-son Rude. dramatic irony: The reader knows more than the characters. “When Brutus kills Caesar, he also kills his mother’s lover,” he explains. At the same time, “he also kills Julia, the apple of his eye, whom he had to marry his greatest enemy, Pompey. She told him, ‘If I were your son, you would take him to war.’ ‘This is my fight, you can’t leave me behind.’”
“AND Cleopatra, clear. As a child, he had to cross paths with his father, Pharaoh Ptolemy, when he went to Rome. It’s been 30 years -emphasizes-. They still don’t know if they will get together. More dramatic irony to make the reader complicit. Cleopatra was the exception among the women who influenced him because she was the only one with real power. He talked to him from you to you. I think he fell in love with it.”.
The lack of culture and humanism in Congress and the Senate from those who have to make complex decisions about the country is painful.
His mother Aurelia tells him that power depends on a lot of blood. “Yes, there is an inertia in human nature that leads to this,” he laments, “although the rational part of humanity has sought imperfect formulas, such as the Bill of Rights or democracies, to avoid it; but the generations born in these phases of peace have the absolute risk of forgetting where they came from.” They become foolish and do not listen to the words of their elders, who, with their own experience, warn them that if they go in that direction they will fall into disaster. World War I After a period of relative peace, young people happily went to war, thinking it would be epic: it was a massacre. We act more foolishly than evil. “It is not possible for a person to learn or gain critical capacity through knowledge, reading, or education.”
I rebel against an education system that aims to diminish students’ efforts to produce graduates who are merely uneducated and manipulable.
He read Spartacus and Caesar and Caesar wrote ‘The Gallic War’. “Caesar was very clever, A great communicator. He knew that information and propaganda were necessary to give his view of the facts.. I used the social networks of that time. He had no Twitter or Instagram, but he wrote comments on military campaigns that reached both the public and the Senate.” Today, Posteguillo advises politicians to “read.” “The lack of culture and humanism in Congress and the Senate hurts.” among people who have to make complex decisions about the country. “This insistence on repeating situations that end very badly can only be understood through malice or lack of historical culture,” warns the professor, regretting that “knowledge is an untapped asset.” “I rebel against an education system that seeks to diminish students’ efforts to create uneducated graduates.” and is manipulated by governments that want puppets who are only interested in existing gladiators, i.e. football, mass entertainment, ‘bread and circuses’. “We have to wage a cultural struggle.”
The novel does not forget the possible Caesar’s epilepsy. “This was his own internal war. He had attacks in moments of anxiety and tension. We know that they had to take him out of some battles. Today there are those who argue that these were paralysis, but he never had the typical consequences such as a cerebral infarction. Everyone knew he had one, but like him Morbus divinus, divine diseaseThere was an air of mystery that did not come across as weakness. “It is debated whether Alexander the Great had it or not.”
Little is known what Caesar is One of many Romans kidnapped by Cilician pirates. Even less than when his boss, Demetrio, puts a price on the ransom, “he tells him, ‘I’m worth more,’ and increases the price two and a half times. That way he knows he’s preserving his life.” And little is known what it is Contemporary of Spartacus, The slaves who put Rome on the ropes and whose body was never found. “It would be nice to make a ‘spin-off’ about him by imagining him escaping – nod – Caesar valued the enemy’s bravery and intelligence in battle, so we can guess that he respected and admired Spartacus.” To put down the rebellion, Caesar hired Crassus It is believed that this is where the close relationship with the person under his command arose who would later lend him money for his political career.
Migrations and migrations
It all begins and ends in Bibracte, which Caesar mentioned 8 times in the ‘Gallic War’. It was here that Vercingetorix, as leader of all the Gallic peoples, rose up against Rome and betrayed the alliances of the Aedui. The first war was against the Helvetii, whose migration to Bibracte “responded to their need to improve living conditions by fleeing the Alps where crops were insufficient to feed their growing tribe.” “They encounter an army. Other exiles like Ptolemy and Cleopatra visit the Senates and palaces. Easy to draw parallels, isn’t it?”