Ambition and Its Perils in Plutarch's Life of Caesar

Abstract

What is Plutarch’s teaching on Caesar’s ambition? This paper argues that Plutarch’s Caesar was motivated by both the desire to serve as his people’s hero—to benefit them, even and especially at his own risk—and the conviction that he deserved unparalleled honor and absolute power for doing so. Caesar’s failure as a leader, Plutarch suggests, lay in his refusal to reflect on two difficult truths: that his heroism did not guarantee future rewards and that his consolidation of power could not always coincide with his people’s good. This refusal gave him an unwarranted confidence, as well as a tendency to ignore the harm his victories often caused his people. With its nuanced picture of a towering political ambition, Plutarch’s Caesar shows itself worthy of study not only by classicists but also by political theorists.