Growing up in the public school system of the American South, I was given a portrait of Caesar in school that was bordering on demonic, the worst of all history's tyrants. It seems like most people (those that I've encountered in my cultural surroundings) have roughly this opinion about him. He seems to be kind of the standard against which tyrannical people are judged.

A while back I read Colleen McCullough Masters of Rome historical fiction series and while I certainly recognize that her version is awfully rosy, it got me wondering about our cultural assumptions around him. So my question for all you historians is not so much about how accurate her books were but more about the line between history and very old propaganda and how that affects cultural assumptions. In this one case, anyway.

Completely Made-up Example to illustrate my question more clearly: If Caesar had enacted Policy X which made life substantially better for 95% of Romans and people living in Roman territories, but the other 5% are the ones who wrote down the most things which have survived, couldn't we still have ended up telling each other of his villainy simply because those are the voices history can hear?

Corollary: How likely is it that the idea of Caesar as a figure of tyranny and sinister action is really just based on the opinion of a relatively small group of super wealthy Roman equivalent of PAC donors whom his policies did not benefit or actively harmed?

If it were possible to poll the entire population of Rome at the time asking if Caesar or the Wealthy Aristocracy were the sinister ones, do we have any good historical basis for guessing what they might say?

Is it possible that we treat Caesar inaccurately systemically (if we even do) based on the political motivations of people at the time and furthered by a series of people and cultures since who latched onto that version of the story for similar political reasons?

Do we see the systemic cultural assumptions about him change through history? Have some cultures or eras framed him as the good guys and the Optimates as the villains? Do we have reason to suspect that one version is more true than the other?

And, finally, do those views shift back and forth within the ancient historian community or is the opinion stable? Is it the case that currently most all subscribe to one side but that 50 years ago it was another way? And 75 years before that? Or do most historians more or less since he died feel that one side is more accurate than the other? Is there anything resembling a consensus opinion on things like this?