Julius Caesar was assassinated to bring back the Roman Republic but paradoxically it ended up, quite unexpectedly, in the birth of the Roman or more correctly the Greco-Roman empire spreading through Europe upto Egypt. His adopted son and hier, Augustus Caesar regarded as a divine being by many, expanded the fortunes of Caesar, united Europe in a common composite culture and ushered an era of Peace by uniting the different factions. Augustus Caesar was possibly a Vibhuti of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo wrote this in reply to a pointed question.
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- A disciple once put this question to Sri Aurobindo: “is it true that the same consciousness that took the form of Leonardo da Vinci had previously manifested as AugustusĀ Caesar the first emperor of Rome? If so, will you please tell me what exactly Augustus CaesarĀ stood for in the history of Europe and how Leonardo’s work was connected with his?” Sri Aurobindo replied: “AugustusĀ CaesarĀ organised the life of the Roman Empire and it was this that made the framework of the first transmission of the Graeco-Roman civilisation to Europeāhe came for that work and the writings of Virgil and Horace and others helped greatly towards the success of his mission. After the interlude of the Middle Ages, this civilisation was reborn in a new mould in what is called the Renaissance, not in its life-aspects but in its intellectual aspects. It was therefore a supreme intellectual, Leonardo da Vinci, who took up again the work and summarised in himself the seeds of modern Europe.”(Life, Literature and Yoga, p. 6, July 29, 1937)’
Of course the death of Caesar refers here to Julius Caesar. Later the adopted hier if Augustus, emperor Tiberius along with governor Pilate was behind the crucifixion of Christ, hence the contrast between the two deaths, – one gave birth to an outer empire while the other to an inner empire of the kingdom of Christ which eventually far outlasted the Roman empire established after the death of Caesar.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
