Each war reflected the overwhelming problems that beset Rome, from poverty in Italy to oppression in the provinces, from the purblind selfishness and reactionary politics of the old nobility to the appeal of a charismatic dictator for getting things done.
It was in fact the second civil war to tear Rome apart in Caesar’s lifetime. But it was not easy to end the war, because its roots went deep. For the second time in little over a year, he was planning to enter the capital in triumph, proclaiming military victory and an end to the civil war that began four years earlier, at the start of 49 B.C.
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They took the Via Domitia, an old road full of doom and destiny-Hannibal’s invasion route and, according to myth, Hercules’ road to Spain.Ĭaesar was heading for Rome. The four men had met in southern Gaul and traveled together over the Alps. At the age of only seventeen, Caesar’s grandnephew Octavian was already a man to be reckoned with. Beside him was Gaius Octavius, better known as Octavian. Behind them came Caesar’s protégé, Decimus, fresh from a term as governor of Gaul (roughly, France). He was Caesar’s candidate to be one of Rome’s two consuls next year, the highest-ranking public officials after the dictator. In the position of honor beside Caesar was Marcus Antonius-better known today as Mark Antony. In the first stood Dictator Gaius Julius Caesar, glowing with his victory over rebel forces in Hispania (Spain). IN AUGUST 45 B.C., SEVEN months before the Ides of March, a procession entered the city of Mediolanum, modern Milan, in the hot and steamy northern Italian plain.
Brutus and Cassius raised an army in Greece but Antony and Octavian defeated them.Īn original, new perspective on an event that seems well known, The Death of Caesar is “one of the most riveting hour-by-hour accounts of Caesar’s final day I have read.An absolutely marvelous read” ( The Times, London). Mark Antony made a brilliant speech-not “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” as Shakespeare had it, but something inflammatory that caused a riot. The killers left the body in the Senate and Caesar’s allies held a public funeral. But after the assassination everything went wrong. The last was a leading general and close friend of Caesar’s who felt betrayed by the great man: He was the mole in Caesar’s camp. The principal plotters were Brutus, Cassius (both former allies of Pompey), and Decimus. The conspirators wanted to return Rome to the days when the Senate ruled, but Caesar hoped to pass along his new powers to his family, especially Octavian. Why was Caesar killed? For political reasons, mainly. “ The Death of Caesar provides a fresh look at a well-trodden event, with superb storytelling sure to inspire awe” ( The Philadelphia Inquirer). He was, says author Barry Strauss, the last casualty of one civil war and the first casualty of the next civil war, which would end the Roman Republic and inaugurate the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate on March 15, 44 BC-the Ides of March according to the Roman calendar. In this story of the most famous assassination in history, “the last bloody day of the Republic has never been painted so brilliantly” ( The Wall Street Journal).
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