By rejecting the two dominant teleologies that have traditionally shaped Caesar's story (his alleged lifelong pursuit of sole domination, the "inevitability" of the collapse of the Roman Republic), turning a skeptical eye toward Cicero's ideological assumptions which shape our conception of this period and the character of the Republic itself, and embracing the major revelation of the last several decades that the Roman People played an important participatory role in the political life of the Republic, it now becomes possible to construct a substantially new interpretation of the political impact of Julius Caesar.