The bracketing of Caesar and Augustus in this chapter derives from Pausanias' own view of them as, effectively, the founders of the Roman Empire. He refers to both as basileus (e.g. 5.25.1, 2.17.3 respectively), a use of terminology which is discussed in the following pages, and which clearly places Caesar at the head of the line of sole rulers, the rest of whom belong to the Imperial period, rather than associating him with the earlier, Republican, rulers. Such categorization is more appropriate to the history of Roman Greece than would be a conventional Republican/imperial divide.

JULIUS CAESAR

Unlike Mummius and Sulla, Caesar appears to have been widely regarded as a cultured man: Pliny says that he ‘gave outstanding public importance to pictures by dedicating paintings of Ajax and Medea in front of the temple of Venus Genetrix’, the implication being that he was the first to do so and that he thereby set a fashion (NH 35.26, 7.126). The paintings referred to are by Timomachos of Byzantium, a contemporary of Caesar's (NH 35.136), so this does not represent a pursuit of antiquity. Suetonius refers to him as ‘a most enthusiastic collector of gems, carvings, statues, and pictures by early artists’ (Julius 47), the latter phrase indicating a discriminating preference for antiques. His practice of taking with him on campaign ‘tessellata et sectilia pavimenta’ (Suet. Julius 46) implies interest in art per se, although not necessarily the art of a previous era.