Would Caesar have tried to crown himself king had he not been assassinated?

I don't know much about this time period, but I have heard of the event during which Marc Antony three times offered a crown to Caesar, and Caesar three times refused. I've seen it interpreted as Caesar gauging the crowd's reaction to see whether they could accept a king or not. Would he have gone for it had it not been for the Ides of March?
 
Caesar was on his way out of town

He had more real power than a Roman King would have had, but not the title. The Romans as a rule had an aversion to someone holding that particular office, and we have no reason to suspect that Caesar was any different. Most importantly, Caesar was already scheduled to leave Rome and Italy in order to subdue the Balkans and fight the Parthians. There would have been no real opportunity for him to proclaim himself king as he was not staying to consolidate that claim.
The claim by his assassins that he was about to proclaim himself king has always seemed a bit threadbare to me.
 
He had more real power than a Roman King would have had, but not the title. The Romans as a rule had an aversion to someone holding that particular office, and we have no reason to suspect that Caesar was any different. Most importantly, Caesar was already scheduled to leave Rome and Italy in order to subdue the Balkans and fight the Parthians. There would have been no real opportunity for him to proclaim himself king as he was not staying to consolidate that claim.
The claim by his assassins that he was about to proclaim himself king has always seemed a bit threadbare to me.

Ja. Caesar was smart guy, with very good political instincts. "Rex" was a poisoned title for Rome, and I really, really doubt he'd have been foolish enough to take it.

All the power? yes. 'Dictator for Life'? yes. 'First Citizen' (or some such)? Yes. King? nope.
 
I'd be a bit less definitive : Roman elites were certainly much opposed to an hellenistic-like kingship in Rome, both for ideological reasons as well than for political ones, and had forces to show their discontent efficiently.

Monarchism was seen at this time, nevertheless, (even if it blossomed only later, blostered by the new wave of civil wars), as a modern and relativly popular ideal, critically among stoicians : the idea was that a man, raised and full of virtuous ideas could topple a gathering of corrupt or not so virtuous man. Basically a charismatic regime.

It was less important than it was during first emperors' reign (and it's clear that not only the population didn't mind the principate, but generally it was more democratic than the late republic) but the idea was already there and the huge reaction against the plotters points that Romans weren't epidermically opposed to a charismatical regime, quite at the contrary.

Be careful then to not confuse the reaction of Roman senatorial elites, and the deep tendencies : I could see Caesar amorcing slowly a change towards what we knew being the classical patriciate of Julio-Claudians, towards a more monarchical/charismatical Roman Republic, while being extremely cautious when it would come to the less "Roman" aspects.

He seems indeed to have avoided the title of "Rex", but it may have been avoided for Romans mostly as with the preparation of a campaign against Parthians, he could have assumed functions of an hellenistic king in order to gather around him (and interestingly, that could have been a real problem with Romans : as for Marc Antony, a too great collusion with oriental despots would have been cakewalk for his opposers to discredit him)

Don't take Romans for more formal than they were : opposed to a "Rex" they would have been opposed to someone having the same powers but as "Dux" or "Imperator". (Heck, if "Rex" was anti-nomic with the Roman Republic, so was "Dictator for life"). Already at this time, toughts about how personal power could be preferable to the rule of elites over the people were blossoming and title would have little mattered either for the people than for the Senate.
 
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TinyTartar

Banned
Once he does that, he formally marks himself as ambitious, which was widely known but not looked down upon by everyone.

He can no longer hide behind the façade of reforming the Republic, and that puts his support at serious risk among the people. Tiberius Gracchus learned this the hard way based on malicious rumors; had Caesar actually given substance to the rumors, he would be in big trouble.
 
I don't know much about this time period, but I have heard of the event during which Marc Antony three times offered a crown to Caesar, and Caesar three times refused. I've seen it interpreted as Caesar gauging the crowd's reaction to see whether they could accept a king or not. Would he have gone for it had it not been for the Ides of March?
Definitely no.

You see, nobody knows if Caesar was going to get crowned as a king. It might be that even Caesar himself did not know it.
But it did not matter as Caesar was assassinated for giving this idea a thought. He was not murdered for his intentions to become a rex, he was killed just for contemplating this possibility.

So Ides of March were not unavoidable.
But the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar was inevitable.
So if the conspiracy does not succeed, Caesar will get to know how many people he pissed off while considering his kingship.
He will cry out: "What the f..ck !"
And he will not go for it.
 
I have heard of the event during which Marc Antony three times offered a crown to Caesar, and Caesar three times refused.

That was just political theatricality, to show the people that he had no wish to become king.

He would never tried to crown himself king, he would do just like augustus, he would wait for the senate to "offer" the crown, and after he rejected the first times, he would accept and he would probably say this : "After refusing the crown that the Senate and the People of Rome, thought wise to offer me, i now accepted it, only because you demanded it from me, and despise having no desire to accepted it, i has a son and servant of our mighty republic must bow to the wishes of the people."
 
Forget about the titre of king of Rome. It was a political insult. Who things that queen Elizabeth II, présidents Obama or Xi Jinping would ever consider changing their current titre for dictator, tyrant or fuhrer ?

What mattered was power. Nobody thought Augustus wanted to take the titre of king. How ever their were plots against Augustus' Life.

Same for Caesar. His huge powers, whatever the names, were the reason for murder attempts, the last of which was successful because of Caesar's neglegt.
 
First you would have to ask why? He had all the power he possibly could have wanted, and conveniently cloaked in Republican institutions to boot. For all the fuss made about the differences between Augustus and Caesar, they were more same politically than people might give them credit for. They both aimed for the same goal-to acquire as much power as possible for what they saw as the betterment of the state, cloaked in traditionalism and perfectly legal.

The circumstances and personalities required different ways of achieving that, however, the goal was the same. Caesar was assassinated because he was never in Rome-he was never there long enough to ingratiate himself with the ruling elites or to build a rappoport or to watch over everything. He was an alien to the city, more away on campaigns than in it, and so never had the chance to consolidate his grip on power there. Contrast this with Augustus, who immediately made Italy his base of operations and between 42-30 BCE, he almost never left the peninsula. Being a constant presence there meant he had more than a decade to carefully consolidate power and gain control of the politics of the city and ingratiate himself with the people and the elites, allowing them to come to terms in accepting his power as a reality they had to live with and adapt to. The Romans were not stupid, the elites all knew that Augustus had absolute power and absolute control of the army, and that they realistically had no power, just like under Caesar. This wasn't changed by the fact that he chose to cloak it in constitutionalism and republicanism, and it didn't make the fact any less blatant than it was under Caesar.

TL;DR, Caesar had no reason to declare himself Rex. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so.
 

jahenders

Banned
The Roman Imperator and Senate played out a fiction for many years that allowed them to believe (against all evidence) that they were still a Republic -- everyone just had to play their part and not reveal the truth
 

scholar

Banned
I don't know much about this time period, but I have heard of the event during which Marc Antony three times offered a crown to Caesar, and Caesar three times refused. I've seen it interpreted as Caesar gauging the crowd's reaction to see whether they could accept a king or not. Would he have gone for it had it not been for the Ides of March?
Well, he was off to go conquer Parthia. I think any attempt to crown himself would have to follow off of another resounding success, along the lines of his decisive victories in Gaul, the Roman Civil War, and Anatolia where he said his famous words "I came, I saw, I conquered."

However, most scholars are split on the issue. About equal parts say yes and no, with a majority saying it might have happened, but there are reasons to say that Caesar may not do so. Caesar often seemed to view himself as something separate and above other men, a direct descendant of Venus and Aeneas. "I am not a King, I am Caesar" was his response to being prompted by Mark Antony.
 

fi11222

Banned
I don't know much about this time period, but I have heard of the event during which Marc Antony three times offered a crown to Caesar, and Caesar three times refused. I've seen it interpreted as Caesar gauging the crowd's reaction to see whether they could accept a king or not. Would he have gone for it had it not been for the Ides of March?
I think it is hard not to imagine that he at least toyed with the idea and was even fascinated by it.

Of course, it was extremely risky politically because the roman senatorial elite was terrified by the possibility that one of them (which Ceasar was) might be tempted to crown himself king. But why were they so terrified? Precisely because it was such a big temptation. Romans had been fascinated for several centuries by the allure of eastern Greek monarchies (the Ptolemies, the Seleucid, the memory of Alexander ...).

When Caesar became involved with Cleopatra, he was associating himself with one of the last living heirs of those dynasties. Also he had, and very publicly, a child with her and he named him "Cesarion", which ominously sounds like the name of a possible successor.

The biggest issue here is as much religious as it is "political" (these things were not then as separate as we think of them now). An eastern Greek monarch was a semi-divine being and what Caesar was toying with was precisely this kind of quasi-god status. By the way, this is precisely the position he was awarded by his heir, Augustus, after his death. This was the origin of the compromise the Romans finally settled on for the duration of the so-called "principate" : divine Emperors but only after their death, and only if they were "good" (the "bad" ones were erased through damnatio memoriae).

At the time of Caesar, things were still in flux and the possibility of a "living God" ruling Rome was seen as a possibility or at least a big temptation in the eyes of many. For one thing, it seems that a large section of the populace was all too ready to worship such a divine ruler. Hence the optimates' terror at such a prospect.
 
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