Plans to assassinate Caesar are attested as early as the summer of 45 BC but the conspiracy that struck on the Ides of March did not gel until February 44 BC. At least 60 men joined it of whom we can identify just 20 today — and some of them are little more than names. As for Brutus, he was hardly the friend of Caesar whom Shakespeare depicts. However, Brutus supported Pompey until the latter lost to Caesar on the battlefield in 48 BC, at which point Brutus switched sides.
He promptly betrayed his ex-chief by providing Caesar intelligence about the likely whereabouts of Pompey, who had escaped after the battle. Afterwards, Caesar rewarded Brutus with high office. In the summer of 45 BC, Brutus divorced his wife and remarried. And so, through a combination of pride, principle — and, perhaps, love for his wife — Brutus turned on Caesar.
On the History Extra podcast: Emma Southon explores the extraordinary life of Agrippina the Younger, who was the wife of Claudius, the mother of Nero and the sister of Caligula.
The plot to assassinate Caesar succeeded because it was meticulously planned, and flawlessly executed. And by striking at a Senate meeting they made it a public act rather than a private vendetta — an assassination and not a murder.
The latter were too big to sneak into the Senate House and too unwieldy for use in close quarters. In particular, the killers used a military dagger the pugio , which was becoming standard issue for legionaries.
Military daggers were not only practical weapons but also honourable ones. Again, he wanted to show that the assassins were no mere murderers.
The Roman Senate House still stands in the Roman Forum and most visitors assume that Caesar was killed there — but he was not, nor on the Capitoline Hill, as Shakespeare states. It was part of a huge complex including a theatre, a park, a covered portico, and shops and offices. Their real purpose was as a backup security force.
As a general, Caesar had a bodyguard but he made a point of dismissing it after returning to civilian life in Rome. He wanted to seem accessible and fearless. This made the dictator uniquely vulnerable inside the Senate House. Still, Caesar had appointed many of the senators personally, and they included military men.
Even before Caesar took his seat on the tribunal, several assassins stood behind the chair while others surrounded him as if trying to grab his attention. The truth is that they were forming a perimeter. A lot of those myths come from Shakespeare, who relied exclusively on Plutarch to paint his picture of Rome.
But Strauss uses Plutarch in concert with other ancient sources like Nicolaus of Damascus, Suetonius, Appian, and Cassius Dio, as well as the work of other scholars. Weighed against one another, together they form a more complete picture of Rome at the time — and one that happens to bust a lot of myths.
An illustration of the soothsayer from an edition of Shakespeare's play. The Ides of March comes from the ides , a term the Romans used to note the middle of a month. Every month has an ides around the middle as well as a calends at the beginning of the month and nones eight days before the ides. The Ides of March feels special for a couple of reasons: it's the day Caesar was murdered, and it's the subject of a soothsayer's spooky prophecy in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
For one, we know who the soothsayer was and what he really said: he was named Spurinna, and he was from Etruria. That's important, because Etruscans were known to specialize in divination. Cicero's letters , Plutarch, and Suetonius all confirm his high status. As notably, Spurinna's warning to Caesar was more complex — and more accurate — than the type of prophecy most modern skeptics would dismiss. Soothsayers could poll the elites, and the elites did not like Caesar. On February 15, Spurinna said he found a bad omen: a bull without a heart it's unclear if the bull was a genetic abnormality, a shocking sign, or a soothsayer's poetic license.
After that, Spurinna told Caesar to beware for the next 30 days, not just on the Ides of March. It wasn't a lucky prediction but rather a calculated assessment of Rome's political climate. The end date of the prophecy wasn't a coincidence, either — on March 18, Caesar was going to embark on a multiyear military campaign that would take him away from Rome.
The assassins had to kill him before he left. There was idealism involved: Caesar was turning the Roman republic into a dictatorship and making himself a king. But there were also deeply personal motives. The senators who joined the conspiracy against Caesar can sincerely say he was a threat to the republic and to them and their way of life. Before Caesar, Roman nobility and military were free to plunder the provinces they ruled. But under Caesar, Rome controlled the process and sent inspectors to check up on everything, so they could only exploit their provinces under Caesar's supervision.
That slight was compounded by Caesar's rebranding of political real estate in his name — he built statues in his image and renamed monuments for himself. He brought power to his family by giving them political appointments and honorifics, and drew allies outside the charmed circle of Roman nobility, like his soldiers and leaders in the provinces.
In addition to concern for the average Roman, self-interest drove the conspirators to kill Caesar. There weren't just political and financial grudges, either. Brutus' mother, Servilia, had once had an affair with Caesar, and there were even rumors that Brutus was Caesar's son for the record, Strauss thinks that's highly unlikely. Servilia was also co-conspirator Cassius' mother-in-law. An artist's depiction of Brutus. As far as epic betrayals go, we tend to imagine Brutus in the same league as Judas.
In reality, that infamy should be reserved for someone called Decimus. Caesar trusted Decimus much more than he trusted Brutus — and that made his betrayal more shocking. Misspelled in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as "Decius," Decimus was much more important than most of us realize. All of this was too much for Roman traditionalists. But ambition rather than political principle turned Decimus against Caesar. He wanted the distinction of a triumph or formal victory parade in Rome, but Caesar denied it, although he granted the privilege to lesser generals.
No doubt the dictator liked to dole out his favors slowly to keep his men on their toes. He rewarded Decimus in other ways, but the slight still smarted. Another possible influence on Decimus was his wife, who came from a family that was opposed to Caesar. In winter 44 B. Cassius originated the conspiracy to kill Caesar. Like Decimus and Brutus, Cassius belonged to the nobility.
He was a professional soldier, like Decimus, but also an intellectual like Brutus. A man of action, Cassius inspired Brutus to move. Brutus was no soldier but he was a philosopher and orator and much admired in Rome. Decimus joined the plot as well, as did more than 60 prominent Romans. As a past master at ambush, Cassius might have come up with the plan to surprise Caesar in the Senate. Decimus, however, made the wheels turn.
Caesar even had Decimus at his side at a dinner party the night before his assassination. On the morning of the Ides Caesar suddenly decided not to go to the senate meeting, probably because of rumors of conspiracy. In fact, the soothsayer warned Caesar a month earlier to beware a day period ending in the Ides of March , that is, the times from February 15 to March But the Ides had finally come.
Decimus did his job. Could he possibly have survived long enough to utter his famous last words? Afterwards Decimus provided security to the killers. He owned a troupe of gladiators who doubled as a private police force. They escorted the assassins to safety on the Capitoline Hill and guarded the perimeter during the tense days that followed. Decimus came in for particular criticism because his closeness to Caesar made his treachery seem all the worse. Decimus soon left Rome to lead an army in northern Italy and defend what he saw as the cause of the republic.
0コメント