'Beware the Ides of March' — a warning from a haruspex, and the date itself
The soothsayer Spurinna; the Ides of March is the 15th.
History · Ancient world
The Assassination of Julius Caesar
15 March 44 BC
The end of the Roman Republic
A conspiracy of some sixty senators, calling themselves the Liberators, stabbed the newly appointed dictator perpetuo to death at a meeting of the Senate in Rome. Far from restoring the Republic, the killing triggered thirteen more years of civil war that ended with Caesar's heir as the first Roman emperor.
How to spot them
- ▸Clue patterns: a date in the middle of a month, 23 wounds, a soothsayer's warning, a theatre built by a defeated rival
- ▸The killers called themselves the Liberators
- ▸The most famous line about it was written some sixteen centuries later, in English
- ▸It happened at the foot of a statue of the man Caesar had beaten in civil war
What happened
Not the Senate House at all, but a portico attached to a theatre built by a defeated rival
The Curia of Pompey in the Theatre of Pompey on the Campus Martius; the Senate House in the Forum had been burned down.
Twenty-three wounds, of which a doctor later said only one was fatal
The physician Antistius, according to Suetonius.
'You too, child?' in Greek — or, according to Suetonius, nothing at all
Kai su, teknon. 'Et tu, Brute' is Shakespeare's invention, not an ancient source.
A funeral speech and a will leaving money to every citizen, which turned the mob against the killers
Mark Antony's oration; Caesar left 300 sesterces to each Roman citizen and his gardens to the public.
A great-nephew adopted in the will, who was eighteen and in Illyricum at the time
Gaius Octavius, the future Augustus.
A comet at the games that July, taken as the dead man's soul ascending
The sidus Iulium; Caesar was formally deified in 42 BC.
Quick-fire facts
- •Caesar was killed on 15 March 44 BC — the Ides of March — at a meeting of the Senate in the Curia of Pompey, part of the Theatre of Pompey.
- •He had recently been made dictator perpetuo, dictator for life.
- •The leading conspirators were Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus; about sixty were involved.
- •Suetonius records 23 stab wounds and says Caesar fell at the base of Pompey's statue.
- •'Et tu, Brute?' is from Shakespeare; ancient sources give either silence or the Greek 'kai su, teknon' ('you too, child?').
- •Mark Antony's funeral oration and the reading of Caesar's will turned the Roman crowd against the assassins.
- •Caesar's will adopted his great-nephew Gaius Octavius, later Augustus, as his son and principal heir.
- •Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Antony and Octavian at Philippi in 42 BC and both killed themselves.
- •A comet seen during games in July 44 BC was interpreted as Caesar's soul; he was deified as Divus Iulius in 42 BC.
- •Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (c. 1599) draws on Plutarch's Lives in Sir Thomas North's translation.
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Sources
- Suetonius — The Twelve Caesars: Life of Julius Caesar
- Plutarch — Life of Caesar; Life of Brutus
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Ides of March