‘It’s Caesar [Kaiser/Tsar], Not Mr. King.’ (Mis)understanding a Caesarian Pun (Suet. Iul. 79.2) and Its Ironies

Abstract

Caesar’s ambiguous riposte Caesarem se, non Regem esse allowed for various interpretations at the time but was most likely intended and received as a name pun—or so the comparison with Caesar Strabo’s discourse on iocus et facetiae suggests (Cic. De or. 2.216–91); Caesar may even have hoped for his words to take wing. Even if—just as humorously, but now rather ironically—he momentarily turned his name into a title, to interpret such an irony as the declaration that his cognomen was a title superior to rex represents just another instance of the teleological fallacy; then again, that an ironic joke should anticipate the name’s later titular function is itself a historical irony.