[Curiosities] Julius Caesar Assassinated

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Death of Caesar

Julius Caesar was assassinated by about 40 Roman senators on the "ides of March" (March 15) 44 B.C.E. Caesar's death resulted in a long series of civil wars that ended in the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire.

On March 15, 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in Rome, Italy. Caesar was the dictator of the Roman Republic, and his assassins were Roman senators, fellow politicians who helped shape Roman policy and government.

Julius Caesar was immensely po[CENSORED]r with the people of Rome. He was a successful military leader who expanded the republic to include parts of what are now Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. Caesar was also a po[CENSORED]r author who wrote about his travels, theories, and political views.

Many members of the Senate, a group of appointed (not elected) political leaders, resented Caesar’s po[CENSORED]rity and arrogance. After Caesar attained the status of dictator for life in 44 B.C.E., these officials decided to strike the ultimate blow against his power. A group of as many as 60 conspirators decided to assassinate Caesar at the meeting of the Senate on March 15, the ides of March. Collectively, the group stabbed Caesar a reported 23 times, killing the Roman leader.

The death of Julius Caesar ultimately had the opposite impact of what his assassins hoped. Much of the Roman public hated the senators for the assassination, and a series of civil wars ensued. In the end, Caesar’s grandnephew and adoptive son Octavian emerged as Rome’s leader. He renamed himself Augustus Caesar. The reign of Augustus marked the end of the Roman Republic and the start of the Roman Empire.

‘Caesar’s is the only death that still reverberates’

Emma Southon, Author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Oneworld, 2021) and A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women (published in September 2023)

The Ides of March was a bottleneck in Roman history. Before it was the Republic and after it came the Principate, under the rule of a single emperor. Julius Caesar was neither the first nor the last leader to be assassinated in Roman history, but his is the only death that still reverberates. The Ides of March left an immediate impact on the Roman historical landscape not just because of Caesar’s unique position as Perpetual Dictator, but because it opened the door for his astonishing grand-nephew Octavian (who later renamed himself Augustus) to reshape the entire political world and to look reasonable while doing it.

Caesar adopted Octavian as his son in his will, written just six months before he died. No assassin considered the 18-year-old to be a political or military threat, and indeed he was treated as a nuisance and a joke by both Mark Antony and Cicero when he appeared in Rome two months after 15 March 44 BC to take up his place as Caesar’s heir. Over the months that followed, however, Octavian used the manner of Caesar’s death as an unimpeachable foundation on which he could build power, influence and an army. While the adults in the city were attempting to come to a very uneasy truce with Antony as consul and the assassins in safe positions abroad, Octavian refused to play along. He claimed to want vengeance against his ‘father’s’ murderers and he upended every due process to pursue this claim. Octavian’s early career raising private armies, turning Caesar into a divinity and creating his own political career outside of official structures was guided entirely by the manner of Caesar’s death.

The Ides of March is still remembered because of Octavian, because the violence allowed him to start two civil wars on the pretext of avenging his father, to ‘restore liberty to the Republic’ through better planned violence. He was able to learn from his father’s mistakes and carve out the Principate over the course of decades instead of years. Without Octavian, Caesar’s death may have been just one in an ongoing series of tyrannicides and wars, a comma in Roman history. Octavian made it a full stop.

 

‘The assassination was a public act by Roman grandees against one of their own class’

Peter Stothard Author of The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020) and Crassus: The First Tycoon (Yale University Press, 2022)

First, there was fear of the new.  The assassination was a public act by Roman grandees against one of their own class who had become a populist dictator. Few in Rome knew how many killers there were, or who their next target might be. Maybe the plotters were merely aristocrat reactionaries who wanted back what Caesar had taken away? But lesser reactionaries in recent history had murdered thousands of their enemies. For as long as history might repeat itself, it was safer to take cover.

Secondly, there was pretence. In the days after the wielding of the daggers it suited both Caesar’s killers and his loyal lieutenants to pretend that the dictatorship had been a blip, an aberration, and that, with Caesar gone, normal life could resume. The assassins were not revolutionaries. They preferred to take command of the top jobs in the provinces that Caesar had already promised them.

The third impact was the realisation of a new reality. Caesar’s teenage adopted son took over where his father had left off. The power of a po[CENSORED]r name to motivate soldiers and the poor left his killers amazed. Their attempt to fight under the banner of ‘Liberty’ and ‘Death to Tyrants’ ended in defeat. Caesar’s people had much less interest in these concepts than the intellectual aristocrats did.

The fourth impact combined the first three. There was a terror, but not of the kind feared on the afternoon of the Ides of March. Caesar’s son initiated a revolutionary terror of populists against those alleged to be reactionaries. There was pretence by the newly named Augustus that his rise to be more powerful than any mere dictator was a peaceful continuation of the best old ways – a ploy followed by Party General Secretaries far into the future. Rome’s first emperor, who preferred to style himself Rome’s First Citizen, took all Caesar’s centralised power that the assassins had feared, and more. The man who felt the clearest impact of the assassination did not give up power till AD 14, and then only at his peaceful death and a handover to his own adopted son. The law of unintended consequences would never be better proved.

 

‘The murder of Caesar marked the beginning of a long and protracted civil war’

Valentina Arena, Professor of Ancient History, University College London

Along with 9/11 and 14 July, the Ides of March is arguably one of the most famous dates in history. When the conspirators murdered Julius Caesar under the battle-cry of liberty for the Republic, they did not realise that their action would produce an outcome diametrically opposed to their aim.

Far from ending civil unrest and restoring the res publica, the murder of Caesar marked the beginning of a long and protracted civil war and social turmoil, with the formal establishment of the second triumvirate (Mark Antony, Octavian and Lepidus) by the lex Titia in November 43 BC, which gave legal legitimacy to its members’ powers and inflicted a powerful blow to an already fractured community.

When this period came to an end and the self-proclaimed liberators were defeated, the two heirs of Caesar, Octavian and Mark Antony, fought one another, with the ultimate victory of Octavian and the establishment of peace (pax).

This concept, very different from the harmony sought after previous internecine conflicts, gained a new saliency. The civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian could no longer be masked as an attempt to remove an hostis (an external enemy of the Roman Republic) from the state and to recompose the state’s harmony. Rather, it created a split in Republican society that, thereafter, could no longer be recomposed: the two sides strove for the annihilation of the other. The resulting peace, born out of victory of one group of citizens over the other, was a state of non-violence, in effect a blank canvas, open to the design of the victor.

At the end of all previous internecine conflicts, the Romans seemed to search for the recomposition of the harmony among Roman social groups as well as their institutional representations. Octavian, instead, created peace under a new political order where the old institutions, although formally preserved, were now under the authority of a new role, the princeps (Octavian/Augustus).

The assassination of Caesar thus marked the definitive end of the Republican dream and any plan to reform the Republican system was halted: the people no longer had an institutional voice of any kind and the senate’s liberty, for which the killers of Caesar fought, was never restored again.

 

‘The death of Caesar did not provoke the end of the Republic’

Anthony Smart, Lecturer in Ancient and Medieval History at York St John University

When Julius Caesar died it appeared for a brief moment that the old oligarchy had at last triumphed. His death was meant to free the Republic from one-man rule; to unfetter the ancient structures of governance from unnatural and unprecedented control, and return the Republic to what it had once been.

But the death of Caesar did not provoke the end of the Republic. Caesar’s power came not only from the legions, but from the urban po[CENSORED]ce of Rome itself. When campaigning in Gaul, he took care to speak to people across the city, to provide his version of events, but also to create in their minds an image of himself that was for the people. His Commentaries were never just dispatches from the front, but a point of political communication with the city and with the people who championed him.

When the conspirators headed to the Capitoline Hill to proclaim the death of the dictator the reaction was muted. The city strangely silent. When the voice of the people did at last emerge, it was not what the oligarchic elite had anticipated. The speech against Caesar delivered by one of the conspirators in the Forum resulted in anger and violence. The conspirators were forced to flee for their own safety.

This is the crucial moment that tells us about Caesar’s death and its importance. Some believed his body should be cast into the Tiber, the resting place of those criminals and malcontents who had turned against the Republic. Instead, his corpse was abandoned so it could be returned to his home later in the day, to be used by Antony to build his own political support among the Roman people, and then in turn to create the image of Octavian/Augustus.

This was no year zero. It did not mark the end of the Republic. Caesar’s death reminds us not just of the danger of narratives, but that the political and social realities of Rome were never going to disappear. It was the Roman people, with their voice and in their silence, who dictated the realities of power. It is the senate and the people who brought about the fall of the Republic, not Caesar.

Julius Caesar was one of the most influential and important figures in Roman history. As supreme dictator of Rome, he enforced a series of changes that impacted the lives of many Romans.

 

However, his time as dictator was not without controversy. In 44 BC, a group of angry senators killed Caesar. This article will explain the events leading up to Julius Caesar's assassination and what happened afterwards.

The First Triumvirate and Civil War

Julius Caesar had come to power through a political alliance with Pompey the Great, and Crassus, which was called the First Triumvirate. This alliance, which was formed in 60 BC, allowed them to effectively control Rome. However, it was not without its problems. Pompey and Crassus were constantly vying for power, which led to tension between the two men. In 53 BC, Crassus was killed in battle and Pompey became the most powerful leader of Rome.

 

Caesar, who was military governor of Gaul at the time, decided to take advantage of the situation and marched on Rome at the start of 49 BC. This led to a civil war between Caesar and Pompey. Even though Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC and killed in Egypt soon after, his supporters continued to resist Caesar in both north Africa and Spain.

 

The civil war lasted for several more years and eventually ended with Caesar's victory over the last Pompeiian troops at the Battle of Munda in March of 45 BC. With this victory, Julius Caesar was the undisputed ruler of Rome. However, years of civil war had scarred the Roman republic both physically, in the immense loss of life, but also socially, as deep resentments and suspicions ran deep.

 

The problems facing Caesar

With the war over, Caesar took stock of the problems facing Rome after years of devastation and war. People's lives had been overturned for five years. Many people had either fought in the armies on either side or had lost family members who had.

 

The economy had also been devastated, as farmers were not able to hire enough men to work their fields, or safely transport their goods for sale. As a result, poverty became a widespread issue, with crowds of war-weary and displaced Romans filling the streets of Rome looking for relief from their situation.

 

The normal political life of the republic had been severely disrupted since Caesar's invasion of 49 BC. Regular elections had been absent, and any positions of power were subordinate to Caesar himself, as he retained most powers due to his role as dictator.

 

Since war was no longer a threat, some Romans considered it inappropriate that Caesar should continue to hold the position. They encouraged him to move quickly to reinstate annual elections.

 

However, Caesar was cautious about returning to full political operations, because it could open up opportunities for his enemies to regain power. Even though he had beaten the Pompeiians on the battlefield, Caesar had offered pardons to many of them in order to achieve peace.

 

If these disaffected enemies should work together, they could once more undermine Caesar's authority. Therefore, Caesar made sure the retained the dictatorship as a way of retaining control over the new elections.

 

Dismissing the soldiers

The significant number of soldiers who had participated on both sides of the civil war needed to be dealt with before they could become a political or military problem for Caesar. Many of Caesar’s own men were due to retire and they were promised gifts of farmland for their time in service.

 

Unfortunately, free land was limited in Italy, so Caesar had to build new colonies in the provinces to fulfil his promises to his men. Caesar ordered the rebuilding of the cities of Carthage and Corinth, both of which were destroyed back in 146 BC. Retired soldiers were sent to settle in these colonies, along with some of the poor citizens from Rome.

 

These new settlements not only provided new land, but also reduced the po[CENSORED]tion pressure in the city of Rome. The creation of new cities and farms also allowed the economy to recover from the wartime devastation. These decisions appear to show that Caesar was an able administrator: being capable of finding multiple solutions to ongoing problems.

Reforms of the Senate

After finding locations for the soldiers, Caesar turned his attention to the Senate. His first course of action was to increase the number of senators from 600 to 900. Those already in the Senate had been placed their by Caesar himself and they were generally supportive of him.

 

However, to fill up the extra number of new senators, Caesar offered positions to people he had forgiven during the wars. In this way, he not only tried to ensure that he had a loyal base of supporters, but also have people who were morally indebted to him.

 

However, the increase in the number of senators would mean that there would be fiercer competition in annual elections. To counter-act this, Caesar also increased the number of political positions available each year.

 

It appears that these changes were generally well received by the political class of Rome. This was because that it meant that more people had the chance of entering a career in republican politics. 

 

Debt relief

Caesar had to deal with one of the first crises he encountered: widespread debt in Rome, especially after the outbreak of civil war, when creditors called in loans and real estate values dropped.

 

In order to this, he passed a law that allowed people to repay their debts using cheaper, government-issued coins. He also limited the amount of cash an individual could hold. Caesar's innovative response to the problem, while it did not fully remove the debt, helped alleviate the strain in a way that pleased both creditors and debtors.

Economic reforms

One of the largest monetary pressures on the city or Rome was the free grain dole. This had been an initiative introduced by Gaius Gracchus almost 100 years earlier which sought to guarantee food to the citizens of Rome. Every day, each citizen was given enough grain for bread to support themselves.

 

However, the number of people who had flooded into the city during the turbulent war years, and the decreasing money being made at the same time, meant that a significant amount of money was being spent every day just feeding poor people.

 

This expense was not sustainable. So, Caesar slashed the grain rations in half, by limiting the number of people who were receiving it to 150,000. The relocation of many of the people to overseas colonies contributed to this reduction, as well as better record-keeping to truly identify who the legitimate citizens were. 

 

For those who still depended on the grain dole, Caesar tried to improve the importation and distribution of the grain by building a new harbour at Ostia and digging a new canal from Tarracina.

 

New building projects

Caesar also oversaw a number of new building projects in Rome. He built a new forum, which was the center of Roman public life. He also built a number of temples and other public buildings. Since the Senate house had been destroyed when it was used as Clodius's funeral pyre in 52 BC, Caesar had a new one erected.

 

The suburbs of Rome had become overcrowded and large areas of the city had fallen into disrepair and even slums. Caesar ordered that entire sections of the city be torn down and rebuilt with new housing. This provided new accommodation for the poor citizens who were living on the streets. Combined with the relocation of many of them to the new colonies overseas, the pressure on Rome was significantly reduced.

 

Also, Caesar rebuilt the streets and roadways in Rome to allow easier access to public places. He invested money on building new meeting places which could provide a space where the people of Rome could meet to trade their goods. The most famous of these was called the Forum Julium, which was named after Caesar himself.

 

The construction of these new public buildings had the additional benefit of requiring a lot of manual labour. As a result, many of the poor Romans were hired as builders, which helped alleviate unemployment

 

There was another purpose for constructing major projects throughout Rome: Caesar wanted to improve the city's appearance after comparing Rome to Alexandria, which he considered the finest city of the Mediterranean.

Changes to the calendar

In 46 BC, Julius Caesar revamped the calendar system. By the 1st century BC, the traditional Roman calendar had many problems. The main cause of these problems was that it was a lunar calendar, rather than a solar one. This meant that a year was around 360 days long, rather than 365 days. The five-day difference would accumulate over time.

 

This meant that after ten years, the calendar was 50 days out of sync with the seasons. This was almost two-months difference. For the people of Rome, this meant that they were celebrated winter festivals before winter had begun. As time went on, the problem only became great. By the 40s BC, the traditional Roman calendar was about three months, or an entire season, out of sync.

 

To resolve the problem, Caesar created a new calendar, called the Julian calendar, based on ideas supplied by astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria. It was a solar calendar which also required an extra day (a 'leap day') every four years to compensate for the fact that an Earth year is just a little over 365 days long. This new innovation allowed the civil life of the Republic to run in a much more regulated manner than it had done before.

 

In his new calendar, the fifth month of the year, known as Quinctilis, was given a new name: Iulius. In English, we pronounce it as July.

 

Caesar's growing powers

Following the departure of the Senate following Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon River in January of 49 BC, Caesar's newly appointed replacement Senate had given him the power of dictator for a brief period in order to oversee the election of the consuls for 47 BC. Caesar had used these powers to elect himself as one of these consuls.

 

Then, after his victory at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, Caesar had been declared dictator by the Senate for a year. In the years 47 and 46 BC, Caesar was elected to his second third consulships while the war raged on.

 

Then, in 46 BC, the Senate made him dictator for a period of ten years: something that was unprecedented in Roman history. Then, finally, in 44 BC, the Senate declared that Caesar was now 'dictator forever' (dictator in perpetuum).

 

In addition to the supreme authority the dictatorship gave Caesar, he was also given additional powers by the Senate. For example, he was declared sacrosanct, just like the Plebeian Tribunes, which made his body a holy object. Also, on special religious occasions, was permitted to wear a band of laurel leaves on his head, which resembled a victory crown.

 

The Senate also announced that they were setting up a temple dedicated to the personification of his mercy (clementia), and recruited priests to staff it, which were called the Julian Luperci. Finally, Caesar was allowed to make his own coins bearing his face. In the Roman mind, having a face on a coin was the equivalent of declaring Caesar to be either a king or a god.

 

By 44 BC, Julius Caesar possessed more power, influence, and honours than any other Roman had held since the time of the nine mythical kings of Rome almost four hundred years before. But since the expulsion of the last king of Rome, the republic had prided itself on never again allowing one person to hold monarchical power.

 

Caesar's unlimited power became a problem to many of his fellow Romans. There really was no clear difference between the absolute and unprecedented powers that Caesar possessed and a king. The only difference remained was that Caesar didn't use the term king (rex). In fact, when someone asked Caesar if he intended to become king, he was meant to have replied with, "I am not king, but Caesar".

 

Claims of kingship

The list of honours and powers that Caesar held in the last year of his life were technically offered to him by the Senate. However, it is not clear how many of them were given freely by the Senate or how many were subtly demanded by Caesar himself.

 

If they were given freely, it might have been a way to thank Caesar for his mercy and generosity. However, if Caesar had mani[CENSORED]ted the Senate to give upon request, it may be evidence that he was genuinely seeking the powers and authority of a king.

 

We may never know which of the two options really happened, as the surviving sources offer conflicting information about how the events occurred.

 

Regardless, by 44 BC, many senators were becoming critical of Caesar's extended time as dictator, and they feared that he intended to be made king. This would have put an end to the Roman Republic and made Caesar an autocrat. These worries were realized when Caesar was named 'dictator for life' in February 44 BC. This caused a great uproar among the senators, who felt that their power was being usurped.

The plot against Caesar

As the year of 44 BC began, many members of the Senate were secretly critical of Caesar actions as dictator. They feared that Caesar was on the way to genuinely becoming a king. They met together and convinced each other that if they allowed this to occur, it would bring an end to the Roman republic.

 

Their concerns seemed to be confirmed when, in early 44 BC, Caesar was named "dictator for life". There appeared to be little difference between this announcement and the title of 'king'.

 

This was followed by Caesar's preparations for his next military campaign: this time to the far east, against the Parthian Empire. The senators saw that if they let Caesar out of their sight, at the head of another army, that he would return from the East one day and officially become king. 

 

So, 60 senators decided that it was the time to act and attempt to kill Caesar. Among these men were former Pompeiians who had accepted Caesar’s pardon after the Battle of Pharsalus. The leader of the assassins was Gaius Cassius Longinus, and a young Marcus Junius Brutus. Brutus was the descendent of the ancient Lucius Brutus who had helped expel the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, in 509 BC. 

 

Assassination of Julius Caesar

The conspirators decided to act at one of the final meetings that Caesar had called before he departed for his Parthian campaign. The meeting, to be held on the Ides of March (15th March) 44 BC, was believed to be their best chance of successfully ambushing him.

 

The meeting was to be held at the theatre of Pompey. When Caesar arrived, the senators approached him, pretending to greet him. However, they revealed hidden daggers and stabbed Caesar over twenty times. Julius Caesar died at age 56, finally collapsing to the floor at the base of a statue of Pompey.

 

The killing of Caesar was a chaotic and messy affair. In the confusion, Gaius Cassius Longinus accidentally stabbed Brutus. Other members of the conspiracy suffered similar wounds from each other. As the killers ran into the streets, they thought they would be greeted with cheers from the citizens of Rome. However, they were met with confusion and concern.

 

Many of the people in the city appeared to have genuinely liked what Caesar had achieved and were nervous about the implications of the killing. Many of the people in the crowded streets rushed to the safety of their homes, afraid of potential reprisal killings. The conspirators themselves seemed to have been at a loss about what they should do now, and also returned to their homes.

Aftermath

Julius Caesar's time as dictator of Rome was a period of great reform for the city of Rome. Caesar lowered taxes, improved public services, and created jobs for the unemployed. He also oversaw a number of new building projects in Rome, including a new forum and a number of temples and other public buildings. 

 

However, his time as dictator was also marked by controversy, as many senators felt that Caesar was becoming too powerful, and they sought to limit his power. This ultimately led to his assassination in 44 BC. After Julius Caesar's death, Rome descended into another civil war.

 

Caesar's legacy in Rome continued even after his death, with the sti[CENSORED]tion in his will that his home, surrounding gardens, and art gallery be opened to the public. He also gave money to Romans, gifting 300,000 sesterces to each and every Roman citizen.

 

The assassination of Julius Caesar had far-reaching consequences for Rome and its empire. It ushered in a period of instability and turmoil that would last for years. It also put an end to the Roman Republic and paved the way for the Roman Empire.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/what-was-impact-julius-caesars-murder

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