Gaius Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln are certainly two of the most famous men in history. Although they were born on different continents and nearly 2,000 years apart, the two did share some common traits. Both men were brilliant, lovers of books and gifted public speakers. Each man led his country during a period of civil war. Finally, each man died at the hands of assassins. However, there are many more difference between Caesar and Lincoln than there are similarities, and these differences are what made each man a legend—or in Caesar’s case, a god.

The differences between the two men started with their families. Born in 100 B.C., Julius Caesar was a member of one of Rome’s most prominent families, the Julian tribe. They believed that they were descended from the Roman goddess of love, Venus, and a prince who had escaped Troy after it was conquered (Julius Caesar Biography, n.d.).

In contrast, Abraham Lincoln was born to a poor and humble farmer with no social standing. While Julius Caesar was getting an excellent education, including philosophy classes on the island of Rhodes (Julius Caesar Biography, n.d.), Lincoln only had a few months’ formal schooling. Indeed, in an autobiography written when he was running for President, Lincoln noted that all of his schooling combined “did not amount to one year (Autobiography, 1860).”

Both Caesar and Lincoln lost a parent when they were very young. Caesar’s father died when his son was fifteen (Julius Caesar Background, n.d.). Lincoln’s mother died when he was only nine (Autobiography, 1860).

Caesar became a solder, like his father before him. He knew how to command men. Lincoln, on the other hand, didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and become a farmer. Instead, he headed to Springfield, Illinois, where he eventually became a lawyer (Autobiography, 1860).

Both Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln had another trait in common—each became a politician. Caesar was always maneuvering for power. Like Lincoln, he understood how politics worked. Other men from noble families also wanted to run things in Rome. Caesar, however, was a masterful politician, but he also had enemies who wanted to ruin him. In order to save his career and keep from going into exile, Caesar took his loyal troops and marched on Rome in 49 BCE. He won the civil war and was named Dictator, supreme ruler of Rome (Julius Caesar Background, n.d.). However, that infuriated his rivals, who were convinced that Caesar was becoming a tyrant. On March 15, 44 BCE, Caesar’s wife supposedly tried to persuade him not to attend the Senate meeting that day; she’d had a bad dream about him getting killed (Julius Caesar Background, n.d.). Caesar laughed off her fears and went to the meeting, where a group of conspirators surrounded Caesar on the Senate floor and stabbed him to death. At the age of 56, his career was over. However, they killed Caesar the man, but his legacy would not die. Two years after his death, his great-nephew Octavian became the Emperor Augustus, and Caesar was officially deified, made a God by order of the very Senate that had been the scene of his death (Caesar Biography, n.d.).

Lincoln’s path to power was very different. He served briefly in the Illinois state militia (Lincoln Autobiography, 1860), but he never became a professional solider like Caesar. Lincoln later became a lawyer and then a Congressman for one term. However, it was the question of slavery and the 1860 Presidential election that changed Lincoln’s life. After a series of highly publicized debates on the subject of slavery and the Union, Lincoln became the improbable Republican candidate for President and then even more amazing, he was actually elected (Burlingame, 2014).

Unfortunately, Lincoln had very little time to get used to being President. In April of 1861, the Civil War began. For the next four years, although Lincoln didn’t actually fight on the battlefield as Caesar had, he was still totally responsible for the Union troops, and each dead soldier haunted him. Caesar never seemed to worry about the high human cost of his triumphs; however, Lincoln did.

Finally, in April of 1865, the Civil War ended with the Union’s victory. Lincoln had been re-elected as President, and it seemed as if his life would be easier now (Burlingame, 2014). However, like Caesar, Lincoln was warned by a dream—a dream he himself had—that he would die at the hands of an assassin (Lamon, 1994). Three days later, on April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre by a Southern actor named John Wilkes Booth who, like the conspirators who killed Caesar, believed that Lincoln was a tyrant (Burlingame, 2014).

Caesar had one of the largest funerals history of Rome (Caesar Biography, n.d), while Lincoln’s funeral train from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois drew more than one million mourners (Burlingame, 2014).

Today, both men are still famous, but Lincoln is better-loved. He was never made a god, but his face is on Mount Rushmore, and his memorial in Washington, D.C. is as large as any Roman temple. While Julius Caesar has become just another historical figure, Americans still rank Abraham Lincoln as the greatest President in the country’s history (Larkin, 2013). It would appear that in the end The Great Emancipator wins out over the Roman aristocrat.