Assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BC): The Ides of March

The assassination of Julius Caesar took place on 15 March 44 BC, the Ides of March, when a group of senators stabbed the Roman dictator to death at a Senate meeting in Rome. The conspirators believed they were saving the Roman Republic from one-man rule. Instead, the killing set off more than a decade of civil war that ended with the Republic replaced by the rule of emperors.

Background: Caesar’s rise to sole power

Gaius Julius Caesar, born in 100 BC into an old but not especially powerful patrician family, rose through Roman politics with the help of popular causes and heavy borrowing. In 60 BC he formed an informal alliance, later called the First Triumvirate, with the general Pompey the Great and the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus. It carried him to the consulship in 59 BC.

He then won fame by conquering Gaul (roughly modern France and Belgium) between 58 and 50 BC. By the end of the 50s the alliance had broken down: Crassus was killed fighting the Parthians in 53 BC, and Pompey drew closer to Caesar’s enemies in the Senate. When the Senate ordered Caesar to give up his army, he crossed the Rubicon river into Italy with his troops in January 49 BC. Crossing that boundary under arms was an act of war against the state.

In the civil war that followed, Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalus in Greece in 48 BC; Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered. Caesar then crushed the remaining Pompeian forces in North Africa in 46 BC and in Spain in 45 BC. Back in Rome he held the office of dictator, an emergency post that was traditionally limited to six months. In early 44 BC he was named dictator for life (dictator perpetuo).

Caesar pardoned many former enemies and pushed through reforms, including the Julian calendar. But his honours alarmed many senators. At the Lupercalia festival in February 44 BC, Mark Antony publicly offered him a royal diadem. Caesar refused it, yet the episode deepened fears that he wanted to become king, a title Romans had rejected for centuries.

Other incidents added to the resentment. Suetonius reports that Caesar remained seated when a delegation of senators came to him with honours, which many took as an insult. When two tribunes removed a diadem placed on one of his statues, Caesar had them stripped of office. His statue stood among those of Rome’s ancient kings, and his portrait appeared on coins, something no living Roman had done before.

The conspiracy

The plot was led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, both of whom had fought against Caesar and been pardoned by him. Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, one of Caesar’s trusted officers, also joined. According to Suetonius, more than sixty men were involved.

Brutus was especially important to the plotters. He claimed descent from the Lucius Junius Brutus who, according to tradition, had expelled Rome’s last king. His involvement gave the conspiracy an air of principle rather than personal ambition. His mother Servilia had been Caesar’s lover for many years, and Caesar had treated Brutus with conspicuous favour, which made his part in the plot all the more striking.

The motives of the plotters were mixed. Some, like Brutus, appear to have acted from a belief in Republican liberty (libertas) and the authority of the Senate. Others had personal grievances, felt their careers blocked, or resented owing everything to Caesar’s mercy. The plotters decided to kill Caesar alone; Brutus is said to have rejected a proposal to kill Mark Antony as well.

Time was short. Caesar planned to leave Rome on 18 March for a long campaign against the Parthian Empire in the east. The conspirators chose a Senate meeting on the Ides of March, three days earlier.

What happened on the Ides of March

Ancient writers describe warnings that Caesar ignored. Suetonius reports that a soothsayer named Spurinna had told him to beware of danger lasting until the Ides of March, and that his wife Calpurnia had disturbing dreams the night before. Decimus Brutus is said to have persuaded him to attend the meeting anyway.

The Senate met that day in the Curia of Pompey, a hall in the theatre complex built by Caesar’s old rival. Gaius Trebonius kept Mark Antony, Caesar’s loyal colleague as consul, talking outside. Inside, Lucius Tillius Cimber approached Caesar with a petition and pulled at his toga, which was the signal to attack. Publius Servilius Casca struck the first blow.

Caesar was stabbed 23 times, according to Suetonius, and fell at the foot of a statue of Pompey. Suetonius says that when he saw daggers drawn on every side, he pulled his toga over his head. The same writer records a physician’s view that only one of the wounds, to the chest, was fatal. Several of the attackers were wounded by each other in the confusion.

The senators who were not part of the plot fled in panic. Brutus had intended to address them, but the chamber emptied. The conspirators marched to the Capitol, proclaiming that Rome was free, while frightened citizens shut themselves in their homes. Caesar’s body was left where it fell until three slaves carried it home on a litter.

Aftermath: from murder to civil war

The conspirators called themselves liberators, but they had no clear plan for what came next. On 17 March the Senate agreed a compromise: the killers received an amnesty, while Caesar’s laws and appointments stayed in force.

The mood in Rome changed at Caesar’s funeral. Mark Antony’s speech and the reading of Caesar’s will, which left money to every citizen, stirred the crowd. People burned the body in the Forum, and the leading conspirators soon left the city.

Caesar’s will also adopted his great-nephew Gaius Octavius, known to history as Octavian, who was only 18 years old. He hurried to Rome, claimed his inheritance and used Caesar’s name to win the loyalty of his veterans. At first he and Antony were rivals, and in 43 BC fighting broke out around Mutina (modern Modena) in northern Italy.

The rivals soon made peace. In 43 BC Octavian, Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate, given legal powers to restore the state. Their purges, known as proscriptions, condemned hundreds of senators and wealthy men, including the orator Cicero, killed in December 43 BC. In October 42 BC their armies defeated Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi in Macedonia, fought in two engagements, and both men took their own lives. Within a few years almost all the leading conspirators were dead.

Timeline

• 49 BC, January: Caesar crosses the Rubicon, starting a civil war against Pompey and the Senate.
• 44 BC, early in the year: Caesar is named dictator for life.
• 44 BC, 15 February: At the Lupercalia, Caesar refuses a royal diadem offered by Mark Antony.
• 44 BC, 15 March: Caesar is assassinated at a Senate meeting in the Curia of Pompey.
• 44 BC, 17 March: The Senate grants the conspirators an amnesty while keeping Caesar’s acts in force.
• 43 BC, November: Octavian, Antony and Lepidus form the Second Triumvirate.
• 42 BC, October: Brutus and Cassius are defeated at Philippi and die by suicide.
• 27 BC, January: The Senate grants Octavian the name Augustus; he becomes Rome’s first emperor.

Myths and facts

Myth: Caesar was killed in the Senate House in the Roman Forum. The Senate’s usual meeting place, the Curia, had burned down in 52 BC and its replacement was still being built. The meeting on the Ides of March was held in the Curia of Pompey on the Campus Martius, outside the old city centre.

Myth: the Ides of March was an unlucky day. For Romans the Ides was simply the middle of the month, and in March it was also a traditional deadline for settling debts. Its ominous reputation comes from the murder itself.

Myth: Julius Caesar was the first Roman emperor. Caesar ruled as dictator, never as emperor. The first emperor was his adopted heir, Octavian, who took the name Augustus in 27 BC, although later emperors used “Caesar” as part of their title.

Myth: Brutus was Caesar’s son. Ancient gossip suggested it because of Caesar’s affair with Brutus’s mother, but Caesar was only about 15 when Brutus was born, and historians generally reject the idea.

By the numbers

Legacy

The assassination failed in its aim. After defeating the conspirators, Octavian and Antony turned on each other, and Octavian’s victory at Actium in 31 BC left him in sole control. In 27 BC he became Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The system he built kept the forms of the Republic but placed real power in the hands of one man. The Roman Empire that followed lasted for centuries, and its eastern half survived until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Caesar himself became a symbol. The Senate declared him a god in 42 BC, the month of his birth was renamed July in his honour, and his name became a title for later rulers, echoed in the words “Kaiser” and “Tsar”. The story of the Ides of March has been retold ever since, most famously in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, which supplied the line “Et tu, Brute?” that no ancient source records.

Why it matters

The killing of Julius Caesar is one of the best-known political murders in history. It marks the turning point between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and it remains a lasting example of how violence meant to defend a political system can end up destroying it.