On March 15th of 44 BC, the term “The Ides of March” would become forever changed. Its modern meaning?  The date that Julius Caesar was assassinated.

Although a seer continued to warn Caesar that harm would befall him no later that the Ides of March, Caesar failed to listen. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, “The ides of March have come,” meaning to say that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied “Aye, Caesar; but not gone.”

Caesar was stabbed to death while leading a meeting of the Roman Senate. The successful conspirators were led by Marcus Junius Brutus, and instigated by Gaius Cassius Longinus.

Caesar was not a lovable man, but a strong and remarkable leader. He won his soldiers’ devotion by the victories that his intellectual ability, applied to warfare, brought them. Yet, though not lovable, Caesar was attractive and, indeed fascinating. His political achievement required ability, in effect amounting to genius, in several different fields.

Brutus was worried that Caesar was aspiring to dictatorship. The assassin loved Caesar as a friend, but he opposed the ascension of any single man to the position of dictator. Brutus’s inflexible sense of honor made it easy for Caesar’s enemies to manipulate him into believing that Caesar must die in order to preserve the republic. While the other conspirators acted out of envy and rivalry, only Brutus truly believed that Caesar’s death would benefit Rome.

Longinus, would never be a strong leader. He was witty and charming and was only interested in making money so he could have status and be accepted good society. Although Cassius was “the moving spirit” in the plot against Caesar, winning over the chief assassins to the cause of tyrannicide, he was no leader.

While successful in their assassination, the unexpected result was that Caesar’s death precipitated the end of the Roman Republic. CC

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Caesar_________________________________________

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