Napoleon vs Julius Caesar: What's the Difference?

Start hereOn Saint Helena, Napoleon spent long sleepless nights dictating notes on Caesar's wars. He condemned Caesar's treatment of the Veneti, and called his authority legitimate. What does each man's own account tell us, and what does it leave out?

Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte were both generals who rose to rule their countries. Caesar was never a Roman emperor; the first was his adopted heir, Augustus. Napoleon took power in France in 1799 and was crowned Emperor in 1804.

Caesar was killed in office. Napoleon lost his throne and died in exile. In that exile, Napoleon dictated a book about Caesar’s wars.

This page sets the two side by side, using the sources each one left.

011. At a glance

	Julius Caesar	Napoleon Bonaparte
Born	July 100 BC, in Rome (102 BC has also been argued)	15 August 1769, Ajaccio, Corsica
How he rose	Consul in 59 BC, in a pact with Pompey and Crassus	The coup of 18 Brumaire, 9 November 1799
Highest title	Dictator for life, by 15 February 44 BC	Emperor of the French, crowned on 2 December 1804
Main wars	Conquered the rest of Gaul, 58–50 BC, then won a civil war	Italy and Egypt, then wars across Europe until Waterloo in 1815
Battles, as counted	Fifty-two pitched battles, in Pliny’s Latin	Sixty, in the count of Las Cases, a companion in exile
A reform that lasted	A year of 365 days, with a day added every fourth year	The Civil Code of 21 March 1804
His own account	His Commentaries, which speak of him as “Caesar”	Memoirs dictated on Saint Helena, after his fall
How it ended	Stabbed to death at a meeting of the senate, 15 March 44 BC	Died in exile on Saint Helena, 5 May 1821, aged fifty-one

022. How each one rose

Caesar

Caesar was born in July 100 BC in Rome. The 1911 Britannica, following the historian Theodor Mommsen, preferred 102 BC.

He was consul in 59 BC, in a pact with Pompey and Crassus that modern books call the First Triumvirate.

Between 58 and 50 BC Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul up to the left bank of the Rhine. He crossed the Rubicon in January 49 BC, and won the civil war that followed. Our page on crossing the Rubicon tells that night in detail.

After he won, the Romans appointed him dictator for life, Plutarch says. He held the title by 15 February 44 BC. He was never a Roman emperor: Rome was still a republic, and the first emperor was his adopted heir, Augustus.

Napoleon

He took power in the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799). Under the constitution of 13 December 1799 he became First Consul, and in 1802 he was made Consul for life.

On 2 December 1804 he was crowned at Notre-Dame in Paris. He picked up the crown from the altar and put it on his own head, “following the agreed order of service”, the Fondation Napoléon writes.

Our reading: the biggest difference is the title. Caesar stopped at “dictator for life” inside a republic; Napoleon had himself crowned emperor.

033. Their wars, and how far the numbers can be trusted

Caesar’s numbers

The ancient totals for Caesar’s wars do not agree.

• Velleius Paterculus: more than 400,000 of the enemy killed by Caesar, and a greater number taken prisoner. He wrote in AD 30, for the consulship of his friend Marcus Vinicius.
• Plutarch: in not quite ten years in Gaul, three million fought, one million killed and as many taken prisoner. He lived about AD 45 to 120.
• Pliny the Elder: 1,192,000 killed in all Caesar’s battles outside the civil wars, not only in Gaul. He dedicated his Natural History to Titus in AD 77.

David Henige points out that Caesar’s own book has been “unchallenged by rival accounts”. Our page on the Gallic Wars goes through them year by year.

Napoleon’s numbers

For Napoleon there are registers to count from, and the counts still move. The Fondation Napoléon gives 900,000 to 1,000,000 French soldiers killed over 15 years of conflict. The historian Thierry Lentz reports a wider range: 600,000 to 1.3 million French dead from 1792 to 1815.

For the other armies of Europe, his enemies and his allies alike, the Fondation’s page gives estimates from 1 million to over 2.5 million.

A man-by-man count reduced the French dead at Austerlitz from the traditional 3,000 to 5,000 to about 1,600. Our page on Napoleon’s battles gives each battle with who counted it.

Counting battles

Las Cases wrote: “Napoleon, during his military career, fought sixty battles; Cæsar fought but fifty.” Las Cases writes it in his own voice; he does not give it as Napoleon’s words.

Pliny’s Latin says Caesar fought fifty-two pitched battles. The 1855 English translation prints “fifty”. Our reading: a battle count depends on what you call a battle, so neither number works as a score.

044. What each one changed

Caesar’s calendar

He made the year three hundred and sixty-five days, with one day added every fourth year, Suetonius says. The 1911 Britannica says he did it “with the advice and assistance of Sosigenes”, whom Pliny calls an expert in that science, astronomy.

The year he set was slightly too long. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII had ten days dropped from the calendar, and changed the leap-year rule for century years.

Napoleon’s Civil Code

Promulgated on 21 March 1804, the Code civil ran to 2,281 articles.

Its property laws swept away feudal traditions. In France and across continental Europe, it fixed ideas such as equality, citizenship, freedom of conscience and the protection of property. It also restored the authority of the husband.

The same years brought a reversal.

A law of 20 May 1802 kept slavery in the colonies returned to France under the Treaty of Amiens. Slavery was re-established in Guadeloupe and Guyana. In Saint-Domingue the attempt led to a new revolt, and to independence. Our page on Napoleon’s reforms covers what lasted and what did not.

055. How each one wrote about himself

Caesar, during his wars

He wrote his own account of the campaigns, the Commentaries on the Gallic War. The text speaks of Caesar in the third person: lists found in an enemy camp, for example, were brought to Caesar.

The 1911 Britannica judged that its publication was timed to impress the Roman people with Caesar’s services to Rome. Suetonius reports that Asinius Pollio thought the memoirs were put together “somewhat carelessly and without strict regard for truth”.

Napoleon, before and after his fall

On Saint Helena his days were built around meals, riding and dictating his memoirs to his companions. The Fondation says Las Cases’s Memorial of St Helena (1823) can be considered “a work of propaganda that would nourish the cult of Napoleon”.

Our reading: both men shaped how they would be remembered. Caesar did it while he was winning. Napoleon kept doing it after he had lost.

066. Napoleon’s book on Caesar’s wars

How it was made

The book is the Précis des guerres de César. Its title page reads “by Napoleon, written by M. Marchand on the island of Saint Helena, under the Emperor’s dictation” (Paris, 1836; our translation). Louis Marchand was Napoleon’s valet from 1814 on and one of his closest servants, by the Fondation’s account.

Marchand’s preface, dated Paris, 1 June 1835, says the notes were dictated to him “entirely and almost constantly during long sleepless nights” (our translation).

He says the manuscript had been with General Bertrand, and with him for eighteen months. Bertrand kept the right to clarify some passages. Marchand says he prints it as it was dictated, “without allowing the slightest alteration” (our translation).

Our reading: it is Napoleon’s view as Marchand took it down, not a text Napoleon revised for print.

Where he faults Caesar

• The Veneti of Brittany. After defeating them at sea, Caesar “put to death all their senate” and sold the rest as slaves. Napoleon: “One can only detest the conduct Caesar held against the senate of Vannes” (our translation). He adds that it was not just, and still less politic.
• The peoples Caesar calls the Usipetes and Tencteri. Napoleon calls them “the peoples of Berg and Zutphen”, after places of his own day. Our reading: they are the same people. His account of 55 BC matches Caesar’s book 4: driven out by the Suebi, crossing near the mouth of the Rhine, and 800 of their horsemen routing 5,000. He says Caesar’s conduct towards them “is contrary to the law of nations” (our translation). He says Caesar tries in vain to colour the injustice in his memoirs, and that Cato reproached him for it.
• The numbers. Even if 450,000 people had really crossed the Rhine, he writes, they could have had no more than 80,000 fighting men. Caesar’s own book gives 430,000 as the number of the enemy.

Where he defends him

In the chapter on Caesar’s death, he calls the killing “a cowardly and impolitic assassination” (our translation). He calls the claim that Caesar wanted to make himself king “evidently absurd and slanderous” (our translation). He judges Caesar’s authority “legitimate”. He sums up: “Caesar did not want to be king, because he could not have wanted it” (our translation).

The ancient sources are less sure. In his Second Philippic, Cicero says Antony had the calendar record that at the Lupercalia he offered the kingship to “Gaius Caesar, dictator for life”. The same entry says Caesar refused it (our translation).

Suetonius says Caesar could not rid himself of the odium of having aspired to the title of monarch. Suetonius seems to have written mostly under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian (AD 98–138), and was for a time Hadrian’s secretary.

Our reading: here a deposed emperor is defending another ruler’s power. The ancient reports point both ways: Caesar refused the crown in public, and many still believed he wanted it. Napoleon’s view is his opinion, and those reports are the evidence to weigh it against.

077. How each one ended

Caesar

On 15 March 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the senate in Rome. Suetonius counts twenty-three wounds. Our page on the Ides of March sets the ancient accounts side by side, and our page on “Et tu, Brute?” looks at his reported last words.

Napoleon

After Waterloo, he abdicated on 22 June 1815 and gave himself up to the British navy. He died on Saint Helena on 5 May 1821, aged fifty-one.

In 2021 a group of pathologists concluded that he died of an advanced stomach cancer with bleeding.

A systematic review of the same year classed the death as “unnatural”: massive stomach bleeding in which toxic substances may have set off or worsened an underlying disease. It adds that this “does not imply criminal intent”. The pathologists call the medicine calomel “just a trigger”. How large a part toxic substances played is still argued. Our page on his exile and death goes further.

088. How each one is judged

Caesar

Ancient writers already disagreed. Appian, who says he wrote in the time of the emperor Trajan, called him fit to be compared with Alexander. Cicero was alive when Caesar was killed. In On Duties he calls Caesar a man “who was ambitious to be king of the Roman People and master of the whole world” (3.83). Suetonius reports the view that he abused his power and was justly slain.

Much later, Las Cases’s memoir of Napoleon’s exile reports that Napoleon thought him one of the most amiable characters in history. Napoleon added: “Cæsar overcame the Gauls, and the laws of his country.”

Napoleon

He began to create an image of invincibility in Italy, the Fondation says. The opposite picture, the “Corsican Ogre”, took hold across Europe from 1813, as opposition to the Empire grew. The Fondation Napoléon calls the re-establishment of slavery, and the repression that followed, a stain on the posterity of the consular regime.

Which was greater?

Our reading: which was greater is a question of values, not of fact. The facts for both are on this page and on the pages linked from it. The weighing is yours.

099. A common mix-up

“Napoleon’s history of Julius Caesar”

There are two Napoleons here. Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I, published his own Histoire de Jules César in two volumes, in 1865 and 1866. It is a different book from the Précis.

1010. How to read a leader’s account of himself

These are ideas to try, not rules. Take what fits.

1. Ask when it was written. Caesar’s seven books appear to have been written in 51 BC, while he still held Gaul; Napoleon dictated his on Saint Helena. Our reading: each moment pulls a story in its own direction.
2. Ask who else saw it. When only one side wrote, as with Caesar’s Gallic War (section 3), read it as one side.
3. Line up the numbers. Put each writer’s total next to the others, as in section 3.
4. Notice the voice. A book that says “Caesar” instead of “I” can still be a book about the author.
5. Watch what he forgives. Napoleon condemns Caesar’s conduct towards the Veneti but defends his authority in Rome. Our reading: what a leader excuses in others can tell you what he excuses in himself.
6. Read some of it yourself. Start with the free texts below.

1111. Where to read them

• Caesar’s own books. The Gallic War and the Civil War in English are free on Project Gutenberg.
• Napoleon’s Précis des guerres de César. The 1836 Paris edition, in French, scanned on the Internet Archive.
• The Fondation Napoléon. Napoleon.org, the foundation’s history site, with timelines and articles.
• Our pages. Start with our Caesar summary and Napoleon’s must-know facts. Our checks of Caesar’s quotes and Napoleon’s quotes cover the famous lines.

12Quick answers

13Use this

14Quick quiz

How we checked this · Last checked October 2026

• We read Napoleon's Précis des guerres de César in the 1836 Paris edition on the page images of the Internet Archive scan, not only the machine-read text. Translations of it are ours.
• We read Las Cases's memoir in the 1836 English edition and Caesar's own books in the Project Gutenberg translation.
• Ancient totals for Caesar's wars and modern counts for Napoleon's are given side by side, with who gives each.
• Napoleon's view that Caesar did not want to be king is given as his opinion, beside the ancient reports he set aside.
• Our wording on shared facts matches our other pages on Caesar and Napoleon.

How we check every article →

15Sources