Adrian Goldsworthy wrote: “Few fictional heroes have ever done as much as Gaius Julius Caesar”. I think that’s a great way to describe Julius Caesar (ENTP), he was a: fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, general, legal advocate, rebel, dictator, adulterer, historian, poet, lover, father, husband, something like a priest and maybe you could even call him a discoverer. And, he did an outstanding job in all those area's (maybe not a good husband and a good adulterer at the same time though). You could surely say, that Caesar got the maximum out of his 56 years of life. Therefore, let’s explore these extraordinary years, lived by this extraordinary man, and the influence these years had on history.
Julius Caesar began his life as a young roman noble, born around 100 BC. His story starts about 12 years later when the democratic roman republic was taken over by a dictator for the first time, the dictator named Sulla tried to force the teenage Caesar to divorce the daughter of his political enemy. Caesar refused, and he got the death penalty for it, but he escaped and was a high priority fugitive for the next months. Eventually the dictator was persuaded to excuse the boy but the situation already showed the immense character he had, and Sulla warned that Caesar would one day cause a lot of trouble.
About ten years later, Caesar was caught by pirates while traveling. They asked for a ransom but Caesar disagreed and argued that he was worth way more than they asked. So the pirates raised the sum and Caesar sent a slave to get it. While he was a prisoner he had a rather strange relation with his capturers. Not only did he joke around with them, he asked them feedback on his poetry and he assured them that he would kill them all after he was free. The pirates didn't take him serious but when the ransom was paid he went to the nearest village, illegally raised an army from the villagers using his status as roman noble and he caught and killed the pirates that had captured him.
A few years later he got into politics were he was speaking for the average man, he believed more Italians should be given Roman citizenship and he wanted more farmers to own their own land. He was a mix of crafty Machiavellian style politics and having real issue's. He quickly got famous for being a leader in fashion, for spending huge amounts of borrowed money and for sleeping with the wives of his political enemies. Yet, he was more than this popular image, he was a great speaker who had the ability to influence other senators, and he was smart in making alliances. Like this he made it to consul (something like a prime minister of Rome). After that position he became proconsul (something like governor) of the South of France.
As proconsul you get an army to keep your province under control, but you’re not allowed to start a war without the approval of the senate. Therefore Caesar didn’t start a war in legal terms, yet in his eyes everything the surrounding tribes did was a treat to Rome. Like that he soon started to intervene in politics all around Gaul (modern day France, Belgium and parts of Germany and the Netherlands). According to his opinion, everything that happened in Gaul could possibly threat the peace in his tiny province. This peace keeping strategy of course didn’t work and soon Caesar was fighting huge battles all around Western Europe, all to keep the peace in his little province, at least that’s what he claimed. He was fighting the battles smart, he always made sure he had alliances with local tribes and he was always winning the battles he got into. Soon he became the most important man in all of Gaul using this divide and conquer strategy.
Now he had a new plan, he would be the first Roman to go to a mysterious island called Britain. With a small army he set out to land on the British coast. He had some small fights and returned to Gaul. Even though he conquered nothing the mission was a great success. Because no roman before had entered the island and there were many stories in Rome about the island being some kind of magical wonderland. Now Julius Caesar had entered it and this had a great influence on his popularity back in Rome. All his time in Gaul he took very careful control over this popularity by writing detailed accounts / propaganda about his adventures in Western Europe, and he made sure these were well read all around Rome. To this day these accounts are the most important source about pre-roman Gaul historians have. So you could say Caesar literally wrote history.
Caesar went back to Rome and declared all Gaul to be conquered. Around that same time the tribes of Gaul started to wake up. They were fighting each other all the time while the real enemy was Caesar. They had 100 000s of soldiers together and Caesar had only about 20 000 men. All of Gaul united and started to kick the Romans out. Caesar had a problem, this could become a new super power next to Rome and he directly went back to his province to fight the toughest war so far. After a few small battles, Vercingetorix the leader of all the Gaul’s succeeded in getting 300 000 warriors together on one place to fight Caesar and his 20 000 roman veterans. So a huge battle took place near the town of Alesia. But the Gaul’s couldn’t beat the Caesar's army and they surrendered after heavy losses. Almost the entire population of Gaul was at this point either dead or put into slavery by Caesar, and for the next centuries Gaul would be a Roman province.
Caesar was immensely popular in Rome by this time and the senate started to fear him. So they decided that fighting huge battles 1000 km outside your province has nothing to do with defense. And they said that Caesar was to lose his province and his army because of illegal warfare. Caesar camped not to too far away from Rome had been expecting news like that. And when he heard it he was ready to march on Rome with his army, because the senate had only some young recruits stationed in Rome. To these young recruits Caesar wasn’t an outlaw but a hero and this hero was promising them better times. So they had no motivation to defend a few rich senators against the hero of the common people. So whenn Caesar marched on Rome in full speed, none of the other Roman armies could be there in time to defend it, so the senate turned to a retired war hero; Pompey the great. This general. who had won many great victories for Rome came to the conclusion that they had no change in defending Rome against Caesar. So the senate and Pompey left the city and they retreated to the Roman province of Greece. In Greece Caesar wasn’t popular and the armies were loyal to Pompey. Caesar took control over Rome and made himself dictator.
Yet the Civil war still had to be fought. And Caesar took his time. He first went after every other Roman army still loyal to Pompey and defeated them one by one. Now he turned into Greece and the two great Roman generals would fight. The first battle seemed to be Caesars first defeat, he had to retreat into the mainland of Greece and was out of food supplies. His army was starving and was eating anything they could get their hands on. Now Pompey outnumbering Caesar 2:1 chased after Caesar to finish the job. In a last battle things turned out different than expected. Caesar could totally destroy Pompey using superior tactics in the battle of Pharsalus.
Pompey fled to Egypt and a new chapter in Caesars extraordinary life would begin as he followed him there as dictator of almost all of Europe. Egypt was being ruled by a Greek family and was very rich. Yet the family had a dispute about who was the leader. A perfect prey for the ambitious Caesar. The child king was scared of Caesar and had Pompey killed thinking to please Caesar. Yet Caesar used that as an excuse to single handedly kick the young king out of his throne to replace him by the king’s older sister Cleopatra, a smart, seductive girl in her late teens. Caesar fell in love with her and at the same time he was getting into trouble in Egypt. Because the Egyptian army didn’t approve with Caesar's arrogant decision to replace the king. Caesar hadn’t expected to have to fight a battle in Egypt. So he had only his personal guard to fight the Egyptian army with. So he kidnapped the royal family in the royal palace and fought the army with guerilla attacks from the palace. After a few weeks of fighting reinforcements arrived from Rome and he won the battle. He made his lover Cleopatra queen of Egypt and he safely returned to Rome.
Back in Rome he started to reform. He named the month July after himself (Julius) and he introduced a new and improved calendar (the calander we still use today). He also gave more people roman citizenship and his puppet senate was now full with people from all around the empire. He also forgave all the old senators who had turned against him and gave them important government positions. But Caesar wasn’t ready yet with his life, he had new plans, bigger than any before. He would conquer Asia just like Alexander the Great had done and on his way back he would conquer northern Europe and like that rule the entire known world. He had made all the preparations and his armies were ready to leave.
Yet Caesar never left for this huge mission because he got killed a few days before the day he had planned to leave. He was murdered by a group of nobles from who the most famous is Brutus. The son of Caesar’s oldest lover and some people even think that he could have been a son of Caesar himself. With Caesar dead he left a huge power vacuum which would be fought over for many years by the second in charge of his army Mark Anthony, his adopted son Augustus Caesar and the man who murdered him Brutus. After many years of civil war and Rome going back to being a republic several times, Augustus Caesar rose up as the first real Roman emperor.
Caesar’s influence on history:
Julius Caesar was very talented in many different fields. He knew how to manipulate the public opinion like no other, he was one of the greatest generals in history and he was a great writer. Yet his influence on history wasn’t as big as that of some less famous Romans. That he is the most famous Roman today is mainly because his adopted son Augustus declared Julius Caesar a god, so he could be the son of a god. He used the name Caesar to promote himself and he did many other things to make Julius Caesar look more important than he was, so he would be more important being Julius Caesar’s son.
Julius Caesar’s influence on history was his military achievement and his role in setting the stage for the later civil war (he had a special connection with every player in that civil war). But it’s not true that Julius Caesar changed Rome from a republic into an empire. He wasn’t the first to declare himself dictator of Rome and after his dictatorship Rome went back to being a republic several times. It was his adopted son Augustus Caesar who finally changed Rome into an empire and who made far more reforms than Julius Caesar. Yet Augustus wasn’t as talented as his father but he had a long time vision. He wasn’t an extraordinary person but he was a planner and a smart politician, who stole power bit by bit. So Julius Caesar is the story, Augustus Caesar is the mark on history and Caesar is the legend.
Turning Julius Caesar back to life using modern psychology
To gain more insight into the character of Julius Caesar I used the Myers Briggs personality type indicator to determine his personality type. In the next paragraphs I have my argument for assigning him to the ENTP personality group.
Extrovert or Introvert
Julius Caesar was often the middle point of attention during parties and he had many friends. He was close to many of his assistants and was known for buying many smart slaves just because he liked to have many smart people around him. Introverts don´t like to be in the spotlight too much and Caesar was in the spotlight all the time with his fashion and wild lifestyle. His life was public and even though this was part of his job, his life was public on a different way than an introvert would do. For example his adopted son (Augustus Caesar) was an introvert and was a master of propaganda too, but lived a very different kind of public life than Julius Caesar. Augustus Caesar was private and still lived a public life by calculating and filtering exactly what he was making public. Julius Caesar just was the middle point of attention all the time with his charm, charisma and extravagant life style. So Julius Caesar was clearly an extrovert.
Sensing or iNtuition
Julius Caesar thought ahead, he had a vision and he liked intellectual conversations these are all clear signs that he preferred to use his intuition. Other signs of his iNtuition are the bold and unrealistic goals he kept setting for himself.
Thinking or Feeling
Caesar was cold in his decisions and there are almost no records of Julius Caesar ever making irrational decisions except from when he was in love. Also the stategic way in which he used his These are clear signs that he was a thinker..
Perceiving or Judging
This one is hard to determine for Julius Caesar, the only real clue I have for perceiving is that he was lazy in his later teens. But since I’m sure about the other letters I can change the question into ENTP or ENTJ. And this one is easy to answer because Caesar had a lot of very clear ENTP traits like: His charm, his communication skill, his extreme risk taking and his extravagant life style. So it’s clear that Julius Caesar was an ENTP.
Read more about ENTP people
Learn more about the Myers Briggs personality type indicator
Do you have the same personality as Julius Caesar?
