This monograph is designed to introduce undergraduates to historical problems pertaining to the life of Julius Caesar and his times. As such it largely succeeds, setting out the problems and debates in a way that is useful both for more advanced students and, with additional guidance, students with minimal prior preparation in Roman history. Avoiding the potential pitfalls of devoting too much time to any one issue, the author builds to a conclusion in which the reader is invited to reflect on larger questions regarding the transformation of the Republic. Looming large at the outset is the shadow of Mommsen's legacy, which has shaped subsequent discussion of Caesar in such a way that the issue of monarchy — enlightened or otherwise — has played an outsized rôle. This point is crucial for students to recognize as they embark on a closer study of Caesar for the first time, since it helps them understand why they might be inclined to hold certain assumptions and favour certain lines of inquiry.

One of the most attractive attributes of the book is an organizational schema that is well designed for pedagogy. The author signposts clearly to let the reader know precisely which issues are central to the author's argument at the beginning of each chapter and at critical junctures in the narrative. A clever but not uniformly successful aspect of that schema, depending on one's point of view, is the adoption of key ideological concepts of the Republican élite as chapter rubrics. The period of Caesar's birth and youth are covered under the rubric of nobilis (ch. 3), signalling the students’ introduction to the relationship between ideology and the workings of Roman society and politics as illustrated through the example of Caesar, whose path in life was shaped to no small degree by his family's legacy and circumstances as marginal and relatively poor patricians. The rubric pietas (ch. 5), applied to the period from 63 to 59 b.c., may strike experienced readers as somewhat tendentious. It opens with the enigmatic trial of Rabirius and ends with Caesar's controversial brushing aside of his colleague Bibulus’ obstructionary augural tactics, but is dominated by Stevenson's emphasis on Caesar's election to the supreme pontificate.

It is important to understand that S.’s choice of characterizing this period by Caesar's pietas depends on his view of Caesar's religiosity, for it is in the religious sense that S. here employs the term. S. views Caesar not as a religious sceptic but instead as one who undertook religious activities and rôles devotedly. This arguably leads the author to reach a little in attributing religious motives to certain of Caesar's actions in this period. One is to understand that Caesar sought the supreme pontificate partly because he was genuinely invested in the idea that his unique inheritance, as articulated in his laudatio funebris for his aunt Julia, carried with it a special relationship with Rome's sacra and caerimoniae. When Caesar later divorced Pompeia in connection with the Bona Dea affair, a possible underlying reason, S. further suggests, was to protect the sanctity of his priesthood (71).

Of course, Caesar is quoted, or at least the quotation is usually interpreted, as offering the safeguarding of Caesar's personal reputation as his sole defence of the decision to divorce Pompeia: ‘quoniam meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere’ (Suet., Iul. 74; see also Plut., Caes. 10). One cannot, however, exclude the possibility that, in the circumstances of the celebration of these rites, their sanctity, that of the Domus Publica, and also his special duty as pontifex maximus were weighing on his mind as well, whether or not he voiced such concerns during Clodius’ trial. One is also justified in being suspicious of the later use of this brief, fragmentary quotation in assessments of Caesar's attitudes and rôle in the Bona Dea affair. Particularly in Suetonius’ account, Caesar is depicted as placing his personal image before his priestly responsibility for the caerimoniae. One might argue that Suetonius, by prominently featuring caerimoniae in both the laudatio funebris and the Clodian episode, has deliberately contrived to make Caesar appear hypocritical in his religiosity. The complexity of the issue, covered only briefly, prompts one to wish S. had further developed the theme of the evolving image of Caesar as a religious actor — as he did the problematic tradition of the young Caesar as incipient monarchist.

One would be hard pressed to find a more pedagogically effective account of Caesar's life that also succeeds at providing generous coverage of key issues and summaries of the pertinent Anglophone scholarship (up to 2010). Its even-handedness does not devolve into intellectual aporia or stall in coyness. S. argues for his own view as he situates it within the scholarly discussion so that students are able to grasp the relationship between the different arguments and, one would hope, venture upon the process of engaging with them. Pedagogical efficacy is not sacrificed for the sake of dominating the podium. This feature is especially manifest in the final chapter of the book, which takes up the arguments regarding Caesar's rôle in the transformation of the Republic at greater length. There, S. summarizes different scholarly views, focusing particularly on the relative weight given to individual deeds and personalities as opposed to structures and processes in the diagnosis of the Republic's demise. S. concludes dramatically with an appeal to retain consideration of personal responsibility in forming historical judgements lest anarchy ensue (179). Although somewhat jarring, this gesture could spark lively discussion in the classroom. Careful reading and judicious use of S.’s book in a course on Caesar promise to be of great benefit to student and instructor alike. Scholars looking for a general reintroduction to Caesar and the period will be induced to pursue the study of both topics more intensely.