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For information on the historical figure, see Julius Caesar on Wikipedia. |
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“Just as my namesake campaigned in Gaul before he crossed the Rubicon, so have I campaigned, and will cross the Colorado.”— Caesar, Fallout: New Vegas
Gaius Julius Caesar (13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), also known as Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician, military general, and historian who played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
Julius Caesar's rise to power would be the inspiration for Edward Sallow to rename himself Caesar and form Caesar's Legion, using Julius Caesar's own Commentarii de Bello Gallico and Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.[Non-game 1][Non-game 2]
Background[]
Julius Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through his accomplishments, such as his military victories in the Gallic Wars. Caesar's wars extended Rome's territory to Britain and past Gaul. These achievements granted him unmatched military power but also caused him to be seen as a threat by elites within the Roman Senate, who ordered for Caesar to give up his command and return to Rome. Refusing to do so, Caesar instead opted to take his army across the Rubicon to challenge the dominant Republican faction. This began Caesar's civil war, and his subsequent victory put him in an unrivaled position of power and influence.[1][2]
After assuming control of the government, Caesar began numerous social and governmental reform programs. He also centralized the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator for life" (Latin: "dictator perpetuo"), giving him additional authority. His populist and authoritarian reforms angered Roman elites, who began to conspire against him. On the Ides of March (15 March), 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of rebellious senators led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Decimus Junius Brutus, who stabbed him to death. These events directly led into the fall of the Roman Republic and its transition into an empire.
Notes[]
- Julius Caesar's life and accomplishments are referred to by both Edward Sallow, the man who took his name and deeds as inspiration, and by Arcade Gannon, who holds a different, negative view towards the connection.[1][2]
- Caesar (Edward Sallow) is described in-game and in supplementary materials as wishing to emulate the military and political success of Julius Caesar, and to become venerated as a god-emperor as he believes Julius Caesar was (which was instead part of the reason for his assassination), to the point of writing his own Commentarii like Julius Caesar did.[Non-game 3]
- Arcade brings up the namesake's life to refute Caesar's perspective, believing it a folly to try and recreate the past under entirely different conditions.[2]
- Julius Caesar's assassination can be alluded to by Arcade if he is brought to the Fort.[3]
- The challenge Historical Propriety tasks the player with recreating the assassination of Julius Caesar by stabbing Caesar to death with a knife.
- The eponymous Shakespeare play Julius Caesar, which covers the historical Julius Caesar's assassination and its aftermath, is quoted by Arcade Gannon, Doctor Mobius, the name of the quest Et Tumor, Brute?, and the description of the republic robes in Fallout Shelter.[3][4]
- The name of the quest Veni, Vidi, Vici, is a quote by Julius Caesar.
- The month of July is named after Julius Caesar, specifically named after him before his assassination in the Roman Senate for being the month of his birth.
- The Caesar shift cipher, a code created by Julius Caesar, is mentioned as an incorrect answer to a question in the Pioneer Scout codebreaker exam.[5] The raider punk also mentions using the cipher.[6]
Appearances[]
Gaius Julius Caesar is mentioned only in Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 76, introduced in the Wild Appalachia update.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Courier: "Surely, the NCR is a powerful foe?"
Caesar: "Of course. The most powerful my Legion has faced. Also the first to which I am ideologically opposed. Until now, every tribe I've conquered has been so backwards and stunted, enslavement has been a gift bestowed upon them. My conquest of the Mojave will be a glorious triumph, marking the transition of the Legion from a basically nomadic tribe to a genuine empire. Just as my namesake campaigned in Gaul before he crossed the Rubicon, so have I campaigned, and will cross the Colorado."
(Caesar's dialogue) - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Arcade Gannon: What a load of Brahmin shit! Can you believe that guy?"
The Courier: "He seemed pretty smart to me."
Arcade Gannon: "Being "smart" doesn't matter if you're insane. Everything makes sense to Caesar because he's twisted everything to his world view. He's Caesar reincarnated, the NCR is the corrupt Roman senate. I wouldn't be surprised if he thought the Colorado River were the new Rubicon. He abdicates responsibility to a myth of historical inevitability. But he's not Caesar. This isn't Rome. And he isn't going to get away with this."
(Arcade Gannon's dialogue) - ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Courier: "Once we get close to Caesar, we can strike."
Arcade Gannon: "Et tu, mi amice? I have to commend you on your sense of historical propriety, but have you given more than a passing thought to how we would escape? No disrespect intended, but you aren't the first person to dream up the idea. Just give me a sign when you're about to pull out the dagger so I know when to make a run for the cliffs."
(Arcade Gannon's dialogue) - ↑ Mobius: "Is this thing on? This is Mobius - Dr. Mobius. We're... initiating some kind of emergency test shutdown... in five... Four, as in Forbidden... Three, as in tree... Two, as in "Et Two, Brutus?"... One, as in none. Oh look, the emergency overload is initiating."
(Mobius' dialogue) - ↑ Pioneer Scout codebreaker exam question: How did the dirty Nazis encode their messages during World War II?
- ↑ Vault 76 dweller: "How did you learn about it?"
Raider punk: "Okay, right on. I deciphered this one with the Caesar shift. Simple stuff."
(Raider punk's dialogue)
Non-game
- ↑ Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.459: "Rebirth of the Son of Mars
The adolescence and young adulthood of the man who calls himself Caesar were spent as a scribe of the Followers of the Apocalypse. While this boy had a quick mind, he made for a scribe of uneven ability, for his success in academics was equal to his interest in the subject assigned. Nor was he a favorite among his fellows. Though athletic, handsome, and petulance held him back. He never felt that he belonged among the Followers, and blamed them for it. their rigorous devotion to scholarship was stifling, their mission to ensure that humanity would never repeat the mistakes of the Great War was ridiculously naive. The boy longed for something more.
When the time came for the boy to leave the Boneyard and trek the wastes as part of a nine-person expedition, wanderlust soon curdled into disappointment. The primitive conditions of the tribes the expedition encountered disgusted him. Inferior people all, wretched in their squalor. Still, he seemed to discern, amid the chaos of their petty struggles and everyday atrocities, the true order of the wastes-and it was one of anonymous, amoral liberty. The wastes called to the boy as a blank slate upon which a man of will could write his own destiny.
During the same period of the time that the boy was coming to these insights, the expedition uncovered a cache of well-preserved historical texts. Among with adventure fiction and comic books, history had always been his favorite subject, and so the task of cataloguing and studying the texts fell to him. Though the boy had long been aware of basic facts concerning many ancient empires, these new texts filled in many previously obscure details. Reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire rendered him a veritable hermit for two weeks. But even that could not have prepared him for the Commentarii, the account of the military campaigns of Gaius Julius Caesar, written by the man himself. Reading Commentarii changed the boy's life. Unfortunately, it was destined to change the lives of thousands more, and for the worse.
In Gaius Julius Caesar the boy found a man who seamed to have fulfilled the full measure of potential greatness allotted to him by fate, a man whose career spanned political accomplishment and military achievement in equal measure. Such adventure! And intrigue! And cool uniforms! The boy's frustrations with his lot in life gained sharp focus. In reading about Caesar, he was like an ant scurrying about the feet of a regal statue. He resolved that he would go to any lengths necessary to change the course of his life. The Commentarii would be his blueprint. In an illiterate, benighted world, who would ever know that Caesar was not his original creation?
That night, Caesar offered a different sort of assistance to a tribe his expedition had contacted recently: weapons, medical supplies, and tactical expertise. He led several tribal accomplices back to the expedition's camp and through its defenses, and there oversaw the murder of his eight fellows. Within a week he was leading the tribe on ever more ambitious raids against neighboring bands of raiders and tribals."
(Behind the Bright Lights & Big City) - ↑ "There are two sources Caesar (IIRC) refers to: Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War).
It is certainly possible that he read other primary sources. Based on Arcade’s education, it’s likely that the Followers of the Apocalypse had access to other Roman and Greek literature, including writings by Sallust and Lucan.
As Arcade and Caesar both know Latin, it is likely that the textbooks they used also contained snippets of Roman literature and quotes as sententiae antiquae (very common in Wheelock’s and many other books). Because the primary purpose of contemporary (i.e., 20th/21st century) Latin education is typically not conversation or writing, but comprehension of classic literature, the use of these quotes/references is common, though often without context.
E.g., a student may learn that “festina lente” means “hasten slowly,” but may not know that it came from Suetonious who was quoting Augustus who, in turn, had borrowed the adage from Greek in the first place. And even if they did learn all that, the Followers might not have access to Suetonious’ text, De vita Caesarium."
(J.E. Sawyer on Tumblr) - ↑ Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.460-461: "True to Caesar
Many years have passed, and by post-apocalyptic standards, Caesar's accomplishments have been prodigious. But the man's hunger for greatness has never been sated. Having assembled a loose nation of slavers and slaves, having won countless "wars" against inferior peoples, secretly he still feels like an upstart, an amateur-a barbaric King of the Gauls, instead of a lofty emperor of Rome.
To advance, he needs two things: a Carthage and a Rome. In the NCR he has at last found a great adversary, against which he can wage a military campaign worthy of history books. (Indeed, worth teaching his subordinates how to read and write, so that future generations can read his own Commentarii.) And in Vegas, powered and watered by its great dam, he has found a capital worthy of, well, a Caesar. Contrary to the old saw, Rome will be built in a day. With that out of the way, the next step will be to proclaim his apotheosis. All good Roman emperors became gods, although that was usually done posthumously..."
(Behind the Bright Lights & Big City)