I suspect the pardons inevitably carried an implication Caesar was the better man, which of course he was. He excelled far beyond any of his contemporaries at everything he did. He even contended head to head with Cicero in eloquence.
What the aristos who killed Caesar probably resented more than anything was that he truly was the superior man, which is what aristo means. They were jealous more than anything.
I’m reading a book about the various civil wars that followed his murder. Really, really bloody. Not a lot of clemency going on.
There’s an old saying that he who strikes the King had better kill him. Caesar learned that the King had better kill those who strike him, or they’ll take another try.
But the author is right that the Republic was dead. Killed by the very aristos who were supposedly trying to save it. The last 100 years of the Republic reads like nothing so much as an empire ruled by competing mafia dons.
Oh I get it. You hate the republic - long live the empire. Figured as a Lincoln Cultist you’d think like that.