Ancient Rome: The Murder of Julius Caesar

On March 15, 44 BC, Julius Caesar walked into the Theatre of Pompey for a meeting of the Roman Senate. He had been warned. His wife Calpurnia had dreamed of his death. A soothsayer had warned him to beware the Ides of March. He dismissed the warnings. By midday, he lay dead on the Senate floor, stabbed 23 times by a group of senators who believed they were saving the Roman Republic.

They were wrong. The assassination of Caesar did not restore the Republic. It ended it. The civil wars that followed led directly to the principate of Augustus and the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. The conspirators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, had miscalculated almost everything about what would happen after the killing.

How Caesar Became a Target

Caesar had been appointed dictator perpetuo, dictator in perpetuity, in February 44 BC. This was not an emergency measure with a time limit but a permanent concentration of power in one man. For senators who believed in the Roman tradition of shared power among the aristocratic class, this was intolerable. The Republic had survived for nearly five centuries on the principle that no single man should hold unchecked authority. Caesar had broken that principle openly.

The conspirators numbered around 60 senators, though only a fraction participated in the actual killing. Their motives were mixed. Some genuinely believed in republican ideals. Others had personal grievances against Caesar. Some had benefited from Caesar's patronage and still joined the plot. Brutus was particularly important as a symbolic figure: his ancestor had been credited with expelling Rome's last king centuries earlier. His participation gave the conspiracy a veneer of principled legitimacy.

The Ides of March

The killing was planned for a Senate meeting in the Curia of Pompey. As Caesar entered and sat down, the conspirators surrounded him under the pretense of presenting a petition. One senator grabbed Caesar's toga and pulled it from his shoulder as the signal. The first blow struck Caesar in the neck. He grabbed the man's arm. Then the others rushed in. Caesar reportedly tried to fight back with a stylus. When he saw Brutus among the attackers, ancient sources claim he said "kai su, teknon" in Greek, meaning "you too, child." Historians dispute whether he said this at all.

The attack was chaotic. In their rush to strike, the conspirators wounded each other. Caesar was stabbed 23 times. A later autopsy by the physician Antistius found that only one wound was fatal, a thrust to the chest between the second and third ribs.

The Aftermath

The conspirators had no plan beyond the killing. They expected the Senate and the Roman people to embrace the restoration of republican government. Instead, the city went silent with fear. Mark Antony, Caesar's ally and co-consul, gave a funeral oration that inflamed public opinion against the conspirators. Caesar's will revealed he had left money to every Roman citizen and bequeathed his gardens to the public. The people turned on the assassins.

Within two years, Brutus and Cassius were dead, defeated in battle by Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian. Within thirteen years, Octavian had maneuvered his way to sole power and renamed himself Augustus. The Republic the conspirators died to defend never recovered.