Most scholars have followed the senators' arguments about Julius Caesar, arguing that he was a power-hungry tyrant who wanted to destroy the Roman Republic.  However, few scholars have questioned their clearly biased and dubious opinions, and virtually all of the older sources - Plutarch, Suetonius, Dio, Gibbon, and others - share the same aristocratic, or upper class, biases.  Use the following sources to investigate the claim that Julius Caesar was "ambitious," "immodest," "intent on war with the senate," and caused the downfall of the Roman Republic. 

Con: Julius Caesar was, actually, "a dictatorship for the proletariat" - or a leader of the common people (Plebeians).
Harvard Scholar Michael J. Parenti studied the history and biases of the scholars on Roman Republic and claimed that in fact, Julius Caesar was far from a tyrant hell-bent on war with the senate and putting an end to the Roman Republic, and that despite perhaps taking single-handed power & control of the government, his numerous actions and seizing of power were always for the common people.  He was a generous man - with flaws, for sure, and who took actions we would today consider inexcusable - that practiced clemency and possessed empathy for the people.   Read from Chapters 6 and especially chapter 8 to identify both corrupt, greedy actions of the Roman senate, and the numerous political actions for the common people (Plebs) Julius Caesar took to balance society and help the cause(s) of various common people in Rome and other countries.  What, Parenti asks, were the true motives of the corrupt senate Optimates such as Marcus Tullius Cicero, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Marcus Junius Brutus?