Julius Caesar Assassinated
On March 15, 44 BCE, known in the Roman calendar as the Ides of March, Julius Caesar was killed by a group of Roman senators in a meeting hall in Rome. He had recently been named dictator for life, and his death was meant to save the Roman Republic from one-man rule. Instead, it helped push Rome toward the very thing the killers feared: an emperor.
Caesar had risen to power through military success and political skill. After conquering Gaul, he clashed with the Senate, and in 49 BCE he led his army across the Rubicon River into Italy, starting a civil war against his rival Pompey. He won, and by 45 BCE he held more authority than any Roman before him. He launched reforms, including a new calendar that became the basis for the one we use today, and he gave land and honors to his soldiers and supporters. But he also accepted extraordinary titles, and many senators felt the old traditions of shared government were being swept aside.
A group of conspirators, perhaps sixty or more, plotted against him. The best known were Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Some were former enemies Caesar had pardoned, while others were close allies. Their motives mixed principle with personal ambition and resentment. On the Ides of March, Caesar went to a meeting of the Senate held in a hall attached to Pompey's theater. The conspirators crowded around him and attacked with daggers. Ancient writers say he was stabbed around twenty-three times, and that he died at the foot of a statue of Pompey. The famous line "Et tu, Brute?" comes from Shakespeare, not from a reliable ancient record, and what Caesar actually said, if anything, is uncertain.
The assassins expected public support, but Rome did not rally behind them. Caesar was popular with ordinary people and soldiers, and his funeral stirred strong emotion. His friend Mark Antony and his adopted heir, the young Octavian, soon took up his cause. The conspirators fled the city, and a new round of civil wars followed. Brutus and Cassius were defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE.
Octavian eventually defeated Antony as well and became Rome's first emperor, taking the name Augustus. The Republic, which the assassins had tried to protect, effectively ended. Caesar's name even became a title, giving us words like "Kaiser" and "tsar." Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, written around 1599, helped make the assassination one of history's best-known stories, and it still raises questions about whether killing a powerful leader can ever protect a republic.