True, but you could say similar things about his successor Augustus. He was outwardly modest and merely referred to himself as "First Citizen", not dictator. But for all practical purposes he was an emperor that ruled for decades.

There was a whole PR strategy related to this that went on for centuries. Many of the rulers after Julius Caesar talked about restoring power to senate and/or the citizens, and downplayed their own immense power, without actually doing much of anything to reduce it.

That said, it's certainly possible that Julius Caesar could have followed a similar path to Sulla. He very well might have had every intention of relinquishing power after a certain point.

From what I understand one big difference between Caesar and Augustus was that Caeser had a fairly sizable domestic agenda with a list of reforms that had been building up and getting frustrated for decades, so it's possible/plausible he was planning to retire once this was accomplished. As far as I know Augustus never had such firm plan aside from consolidating power.

But understanding the domestic politics of the time certainly isn't easy, it's hard enough to understand the internal politics of another country today but throw in a radically different set of political structures and issues.

Ah, thanks! I am a little embarrassed. I translated so much Caesar in Latin class. Oh well, it turns out you lose it if you don't use it.

Thanks for the correction and detail.