Overview
Clementia, or clemency, became central to Caesar’s self-presentation after civil war. Unlike Sulla, Caesar often spared defeated opponents and restored them to public life.
Importance
Clemency may be moral, strategic, theatrical, or all three. Livarva treats Caesar’s clemency as one of the clearest contrasts with Sulla’s politics of fear.
In the Livarva Trilogy
The contrast between Sulla’s vengeance and Caesar’s clemency runs through The Dictatorship and The First Breach.
Ancient Sources
Caesar, Bellum Civile; Cicero, letters and speeches from the civil-war period; Plutarch, Life of Caesar; Suetonius, Divus Julius.
Modern Scholarship
Studies of Caesar’s dictatorship, civil-war politics and the political language of clemency, including work by Matthias Gelzer and Christian Meier.