To Gaius Julius Caesar; on bias, perspective and deification

Book 2, letter 18

Part 1 of 4

To Gaius Julius Caesar, on bias, perspective and deification

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Written: December, 2018CE

Dear Caesar,

It would be so much easier if I could just hate you. Being friends with Cicero makes me see you in a pretty bad light sometimes, but your story is far too complex to allow bias to dictate my feelings. Cicero seemed to have conflicting feelings about you, at times declaring your audacity tyrannical, at others he declared you to be a 'second self” to him, a true friend. The truth is never clear when studying history. All we have are stories, opinions, artifacts...

I've been listening to an audio recording of your Commentaries on the Gallic War. (Translated by Thomas Rice Holmes in 1908), I've been reading some of Cicero's letters to you, and about you, and I have been listening to my favourite history podcaster, Dan Carlin, he has a lot to say about you too, Caesar.

Anthony Trollope says in his biography of Cicero, that there is no better way to understand someone than through their own words, and certainly that seems to be the best way to learn about how you viewed the events of your own life. However, having read Plutarch's biography of your life, Caesar, having watched movies about you, and having read your story summarised by many historians, I have a set of assumptions which I must be aware of, a bias.

I guess that's a good way to open this letter to you, Julius Caesar.

Beware of bias

I should have those words engraved in bronze and put on my desk. But then I ask myself, what exactly is the difference between bias and perspective? Could we say that bias is an unconscious influence, while perspective is conscious? Or is it better to say that bias is prejudice, while perspective is...what?

The consequence of our whole life story?

My perspective is unique to my time and my culture, and though history shows me that people are pretty much the same all over the world, and throughout all time, I believe that my perspective is unique and I assume that my perspective has a relationship with facts and with truth. I also believe that objectivity, while not truly attainable, is approachable and a goal worthy of striving towards.

But subjectively, in my uneducated opinion, you Caesar, are:

heroic/homicidal

genocidal/thorough

power mad/perfectly confident

You seem to be self aware, you seem to know exactly what you are doing, every step of the way. Almost as if you walked to the senate on that day in March, knowing, having planned, having prepared yourself for death. I suspect you deliberately kindled the very idea of your own murder.

The ultimate in espionage, to arrange your own assassination.

Could you see the future? Did you know that the Republic was rotten to the core, and that nothing short of divine hubris could break it apart and rebuild it?

What sort of God were you, Julius? You led armies that crushed whole nations, were you are a God of war? At whose temple could you worship, once you became divine?

Who do the Gods bow to? If anyone might know, it seems prudent to ask you, Caesar.

I have a story to share with you. It is a little segment from my new novel.  This story is called 'The Raven and the Buddha'. The Buddha, is a human who became a god through the practice of meditation and the breaking of his karmic cycle. I thought you might like to hear a story about someone who, like you Julius, aspired to divinity, though with very different outcomes, and very different intentions.

The story is also about the Raven God, who was a human once, but that is a story for another day...

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The Raven and the Buddha

Sometime in the past, the Raven had to enter hell. It is not known why, but it is safe to assume that he had no other choice. The gates of hell are guarded, and the keeper asks a price. The First Demon - The Blackness, Despair - demanded the toll.

"What price now?" The Raven asked.

"The price is for later. One day we will ask for our due, and it will be paid. That is the price."

Having no other choice, the Raven paid the price, and shook hands with The Black.

In Hell, The Raven bore witness to the furthest reaches of life without boundaries, without reserve. Everything in Hell is an extreme of itself, there is no middle ground, no passive stance, no ceasefire. There he met with a Demon of Greed who asked him to deliver a message to the Buddha, inviting him to dinner. The Demon sat in a great feasting hall where every extinct species ever known upon the earth had been burned black in ovens too hot for clay, and served, smoking, upon broken plates. The Demon stared down with compound eyes, listened with compound ears, and spoke with a compound voice. His form was greedy for space, greedy for sound, consuming everything. The Raven felt his breath begin to leave his body as the Demon rasped in multiple mantras:

Take this invitation to the Buddha Take this invitation to the Buddha Take this invitation to the Buddha Take this invitation to the Buddha Take this invitation to the Buddha Take this invitation to the Buddha Take this invitation to the Buddha...

The Raven, with eyes averted, took the invitation from the Demon and left. Passing the gates of Hell again, the keeper nodded and reminded him of his debt.

The Raven delivered the invitation to the Buddha, who sat upon a Lotus Throne in the gentle uplands of heaven's great empire. The Buddha laughed, not touching the message.

"I dined with him last night, and he invites me to dine again tonight! Ha! He is greedy even for enlightenment."

"Will you go?"

"Of course I will."

So the Raven returned to Hell, and was told at the Gate that payment was not required a second time. The feasting hall was thick with the smoke of extinction, an obscuring haze preventing the Raven from having to look upon the Demon a second time. "The Buddha will dine with you tonight." Said the Raven.

You may leave, was the reply.

The Raven made to leave the hall, but, obscured by the smoke, he decided to hide himself in the cavernous ceiling, and folding himself between two shadows, he lay in wait. The smoke boiled thick from the endlessly burning meat, so thick, that when the Buddha arrived, the Raven could only see a blurry dark shape, and hear muffled voices as the Demon and the Buddha conversed. Gradually, the smoke began to clear and the feasting hall became visible. The tables and chairs were gone, the wretched, inedible death feast had vanished.

Upon the floor sat a solitary man dressed in heavy robes, staring into a mirror, and speaking to himself.

The Raven left hell.