Whatever his motives, once he turned on Caesar, Decimus was indispensable. Decimus meanwhile had to stay behind and govern Italian Gaul. Or perhaps it was Caesar’s appointment of his grandnephew Octavian (as Augustus was then known) as his second-in-command in a new war in 44 BC against Parthia (roughly, ancient Iran), Rome’s rival in the eastern Mediterranean. Caesar did not, however, grant a similar privilege to Decimus for his victory over a fierce Gallic tribe. Perhaps what moved Decimus was the sight of the two triumphal parades in Rome in autumn 45 BC that Caesar allowed his lieutenants in Spain to celebrate, against all custom. Decimus’s letters to Cicero reveal a polite if terse man of action with a keen sense of honour, a nose for betrayal, and a thirst for vengeance. We don’t know why but it probably had more to do with power than principle. Between September 45 BC and March 44 BC Decimus changed his mind about Caesar. At the war’s end in 45 BC, Decimus left Gaul and returned to Italy with Caesar. During the conflict, Caesar appointed Decimus as his lieutenant to govern Gaul in his absence. By contrast, Decimus backed Caesar from start to finish. In the civil war between Caesar and the Roman general Pompey (49–45 BC), Brutus and Cassius both supported Pompey and then later changed sides. Unlike Brutus and Cassius, Decimus was Caesar’s man. A series of letters between Decimus and Cicero, all written after the assassination, also shed light on the plot, but they too have been neglected. But recent work suggests that Nicolaus was a brilliant student of human nature who deserves more attention. Until recently, scholars have tended to dismiss Nicolaus because he worked for Augustus and so had a motive to attack the conspirators. A later abridgment of this work survives and it focuses on the assassination. Sometime within a few decades of the Ides of March, Nicolaus of Damascus, a scholar and bureaucrat, wrote a Life of Caesar Augustus – that is, of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor (reigned 27 BC–AD 14). The earliest surviving, detailed source for Caesar’s assassination makes Decimus the leader of the conspiracy. His challenge now was to reconcile his surviving enemies and to convince staunch republicans to accept his power as dictator. He went on to total victory in a civil war (49–45 BC) that ranged across the Mediterranean. When his enemies, the old guard in the Senate, removed him from command, Caesar invaded Italy. A populist political star and great writer, he excelled in the military realm as well, pulling off a lightning conquest of Gaul – roughly, France and Belgium – as well as invading Britain and Germany (58–50 BC). By 44 BC Gaius Julius Caesar was the most famous and controversial man in Rome.
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