Caesar is one of my greatest heroes. Not the title, or the family line, but the
original. The man himself; Gaius Julius
Caesar.
Other great conquerors, scientists, and artists are people whom
I place on pedestals as well, but none quite as much as Gaius. Alexander the Great, Alan Turing, and Frédéric
Chopin all stand high within my personal sphere of delusional and likely
over-bearing reverence. There should be
some females in there as well, and my preference would be an all-female list of
all-stars such as that, but history and the writing thereof has not been kind
to the feminine aspect of our species.
Suffice that, for purposes of my own particular cause and style of
reverence, females do not stand high. Not for what I revere.
Revere isn’t even really the right word. Hero isn’t even appropriate if I'm going to be honest. I don’t have heroes in the standard sense of
idolization, imitation, and glorification.
Gaius Julius Caesar was a man of his time and, thus, he was a brutal
unforgiving mass-murderer that used the politics and wars of his era to make a
name for himself. Yet that, right there,
is what I find most powerful.
Every single human being from now back to the day the first and
earliest version of us ever thought the words “I am” has been searching for
some way to remain an “am” instead of becoming a “was.” We’re all going to die, and we all know
it. We pretend we’re not going to, or we
try to think about other stupid shit that lets us forget we’re going to die,
but it’s always there. Everyone has ways
of coping. For some people, the silly
little idea that they’ll get to live forever in some form of afterlife is
enough (though I’ll not get into the massive ego-fuck that entails). For others, they intend to live on through
the memories of their children and friends…which doesn’t last any longer than
their equally short lives.
Yet for just one man that I have ever read about, there came
the closest a human being has yet come to immortality. He didn’t just get himself written into
history books; many people have done that, some even with greater
accomplishments. No, Caesar made himself
unforgettable in practically every way possible, even if we don’t know who we’re
talking about. There’s a method of birth
that, if not actually named after him, bears the idea of having been named
after him. Those of us in the English
speaking world (and much of the western world in general) frequently refer to
the month of his name. The entire
western calendar is based off his own calendar.
His name is a fucking title.
Many people get their names written down in the history
books, but I don’t personally know of anyone else whose name became a
title. There was no one named Pharaoh,
or Tsar, or King. No John S. President
ever existed for whom the position was named.
Gaius Julius Caesar reigned for a very brief period and was murdered by
those who built their success on his…and then his successors took his name as
their own. They continued to do so,
until it became simply a matter of fact that anyone in that particular position
of power bore the name Caesar. Eventually,
it became a title. The name Caesar is
not viewed as a family name, lineage, or even a dynasty. It is a title on par with Pharaoh, Tsar,
King, President, Emperor, and more.
I don’t look up to Caesar because he was a conqueror; there
were greater warlords (though, in defense of my self-professed hero, there aren’t
many on that list). I don’t revere him
because he was a tremendous politician; that’s a dubious title at best, and one
claimed many times over throughout history.
No, I call Caesar my hero because he did what every human wants. We remember him, well over two thousand years
after his death. More importantly, since
we also remember other even older people, we still use his name in everyday
conversation, and he is still a figure that means something to Joe Fuckshmuck on
the street. You can name Genghis Khan, Mozart,
Hannibal, Einstein, or any other legendary historical figure, and the person on
the street will know who they are. How
many of their names are used in daily conversation?
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