….this should be common knowledge.

They should hire Shakespeare to write a play about it or something.

Caesar's wife nearly saved his life on the Ides of March

>The senators waited for Caesar's arrival, but he did not come. The reason for this is that early that morning, Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, was awoken from a nightmare. She had dreamt that she was holding a murdered Caesar in her arms and mourning him. Other versions have Calpurnia dream that the front pediment of their house had collapsed and that Caesar had died; yet another shows Caesar's body streaming with blood. Around 5 a.m., Calpurnia begged Caesar not to go to the senate meeting that day. After some hesitation, Caesar acquiesced. Caesar sent Mark Antony to dismiss the Senate. When the conspirators heard of this dismissal, Decimus went to Caesar's home to try to talk him into coming to the Senate meeting. "What do you say, Caesar?" Decimus said. "Will someone of your stature pay attention to a woman's dreams and the omens of foolish men?" Caesar eventually decided to go.

>Caesar was walking to the senate house when he caught sight of the priest, Spurinna. Caesar called out playfully. "Well, the Ides of March have come!" Spurinna replied mysteriously, "Aye, the Ides have come, but they are not yet gone."

Sure 60 were a part of the conspiracy but out of those 60 only about 20 to 22 (the accounts vary) actually did the stabbing. And the majority of the 23 stabs, like more than 10, were after Caesar was already dead. It's believed the fatal wound was one of the first. So most senators stabbed him just to claim they were a part of it

Probably less about the claim and more about making them share the blood on their hands so no one betrays the conspiracy later.

"You too, Brutus?"

"You too, Marcellus?"

"You too, Felix?"

Later...

"You too, Titus?"

"You too, Albus?"

"You too, Caecilius?"

"For fucks sake! Give me the damn thing. I'll do the job myself."

Notably only the two leaders crassus and brutus were optimates. Pretty much all the other known assassins were caesarean, including notably Ceasers most trusted protégé Decimus who he viewed as a son.

Unfortunately, I lost track of where I heard this, but someone used that 60 senators / 23 stabs fact to prove that even back in the Roman Era, no one in a group project did their damn job.

And at least 1-2 conspirators accidentally stabbed one another.

And maybe he could reference Suetonius or something.

Caesar definitely was not a good person by modern standards but I have always consider him the good guy in all this because he was truly interested in helping the average Roman vs the Senate which didn't give a fuck about them. Ya Caesar was corrupt but he used it to pass legislation that helped poor and working class Romans. The Senate was corrupt and only helped themselves.

One tidbit that gets left out of the discussion about Caesar marching on Rome is the fact that the Senate had illegally appointed Pompey Consul. A Roman at that time could only be Consul once every ten years and Pompey only waited a few years to become Consul again. He was also required by law to give up his Governorship and his military command and the Senate let him not do that as well. There were also supposed to be two Consuls but Pompey was granted it alone and given extensive powers by the Senate.

To top it all off the Senate was waiting for Caesar's Governorship of Gaul (and immunity) to end so they could charge him with bullshit crimes to do away with him because he was a Populares who worked for the people. Caesar requested to run for Consul without giving up his Governorship and military command but the Senate refused. Caesar kept saying but what about Pompey, you let him do it. Caesar wasn't stupid enough to give up his troops and criminal immunity when Pompey held absolute power and the Senate wanted him dead. He crossed the Rubicon when they declared him enemy of the state and I really don't blame him.

This is a great documentary about the Civil War

Tony Robinson said the location was not at the base of Pompey's statue as that area was temporarily closed due to damage and it was instead in a more humble location nearby.

I'd say any stabs that came before his heart/brain stopped working were all fatal

I also really like Historia Civilis’s story on Julius Caesar. It has pretty rudimentary art but it explains really well how he took power, conquered Gaul, and ultimately ended up becoming dictator for life before being executed killed.

Honestly, watching the series I came to the conclusion that Caesar was not a good person and perhaps even needed to die if the republic was to keep going, but nevertheless his death was disturbing and he deserved better than blatant betrayal.

Ehh I'm not so sure about that. He actively worked with one of the greediest capitalists of all time. His partner for many years, Crassus, started a fire dept that would respond to fires by offering to put it out if you sold him the property at a dirt rate price. And if you refused, he'd go to your neighbor and do the same knowing the fire would spread. Better to get something than nothing if it burnt down. Caesar just seized on the power of the masses. Promise people everything and they'll vote for you. And when he was in power, he didn't really do a whole lot of what he said. He did basically the minimum.

In fact, how Caesar acted was exactly why the electoral college exists. Populism as an idea is often brought back to him. I'm as progressive as it gets, but he used progressive ideals and promises to earn power and renown and by all appearances didn't really intend on fully going through with it.

I've watched Historia Civilis videos on Caesar and Augustus. I won't say Caesar was a great guy all around and he definitely was a tyrant but I feel he did more good than the entire Senate combined when it comes to the people of Rome. How many people have left a significant amount of their fortune to be distributed amongst the people when they die thru history, very few. Caesar also spent vast fortunes of his own money improving Rome's infrastructure. I think it was really the lesser of two evils situation and the Senate in my view was far more evil.

This is one of those things where bc of the play and my glancing knowledge of it, I often got confused if it really happened or not.

Crassus was a bastard, no arguments about that. Caesar too.

With that said, I would argue that even Caesar's minimum was a damn site more than the senate would have done had he not seized power. As an example, this was a senate that was so calcified that they refused to consider the matter of confirming Pompei's conquests- conquests that had already happened, mind you- because they were afraid Pompei would gain too much power. The senatorial faction that he faced had- multiple times- eschewed public order and common decency to kill agents acting for the people of Rome. Who had refused to consider the idea of Italian citizenship until the rest of the peninsula was literally in revolt.

The lesson most people take from Caesar is the one you are saying, 'beware of populists', and I get it. That is a reasonable lesson to take away. But I think there is a second lesson. Because the 'Republic', at that time, was anything but. The way the voting worked, lower class Romans had little say, and yet less once you account for the votes sold under Roman Patronage (sell your vote to a senator for a stipend, because slaves were doing all the work they would normally do). The tribune of the plebs, the office meant to ensure the lower classes had some say, had effectively been gutted. Income inequality was insane, and the senate was inactive.

So yes, people listened to someone who told them what they wanted to hear and followed him into proto-empire. But what, exactly, did they give up? A political voice they had already sold to keep food on the table? This, to me, is that second lesson- at a certain level of political malaise, the people will begin looking for someone- anyone- who can offer them a better way.

I don't disagree with that, but I think intentions matter. And from what I can see, the intention was to trick the masses into giving him power personally. I think what he did caused damage to progressive movements for literal millennia.

I can see where you are coming from, but I'm afraid I don't agree with your conclusion.

I can't see the republic lasting more than another generation, with or without Caesar. Given that, and given that he did do the bare minimum and was a capable administrator, I do give him a modicum of credit.

Besides which, I think conservatives are always going to find someone to blame. If not Caesar, then it would have been those dastardly Gracchi, nothing but populist rabble rousers with their proto-commie ideals. People are always going to use/pervert history to fit their agenda. As an example, the third Riche literally held up Frederic the Great as the idea Aryan man, despite him being a homosexual Francophile. (And yes, I know I just Godwin'd myself)

I'm not trying to pretend he was some great altruist, or paragon of virtue- god knows he wasn't. And I think your reading of history is valid. Just that I am far more sympathetic to his position, given the realities of the roman Senate in his day, and the way that the established order has always presented the version of history that is most favorable to them.

"For the watch"

And how would we ever know this? Are we just trusting the word of some random ancient Roman forensic scientist? Would they really have the technology to determine this?

Fuck Olly.

Fuck Olly.

I call shenanigans on the entire story...how could we possibly know any of this with even the tiniest bit of certainty? Absolute horseshit.

You ask 5 people, just minutes after a car crash or other incident what they saw and you'll get 5 wildly different stories. We're being asked to believe one person's account of the story, which we can't say for sure that he was even present for and saw with his own eyes, nor do we know what kind of biases this person may or may not have had that might alter the story one way or another. Further, we're being asked to take into account the medical opinion of this untrained person living in the 1st century BC as to what may or may not have been a fatal stab wound, surrounded by 22 other stab wounds.

Bullllshit.

great comment and thanks for the documentary link! i'll be checking that out. 👍

Antifa

Just chiming in to say this was a very interesting thread to read :)

Not really? This is quite poetic (which should be enough to make you question it in classical sources), and the specific circumstances of Caesar's aren't that significant in studying it's impact.

Well, actually 🤓

[removed]

So Caesar, this great soldier/general didn't see danger coming and was overwhelmed by a bunch of senators? Very convincing.

😶

Julius is very glorified if not the most glorified ruler in history, the guy was absolute dickhead, I will never forgive him for burning the Alexandria Library which was one of many significant steps into plunging the world into stupid dark ages.

It also takes a lot for the actual senators to do the stabbing as the act usually given to a more professional assassins. The prick did get under their skins enough to provoke the stabbing of this scale.

Well, he crossed a line.

Mike Duncans “History of Rome” podcast, and book “The Storm Before the Storm”, imo, paints a pretty explicit picture of a dying republic that had begun with the murder of the grachii brothers and was escalated by Marius and Sullu… Caesar was the natural evolution of a process already inevitable.

Also, you misspelled assassinated* big difference from an execution

Considering the end result of it all, that doesn't surprise me in the least.

> Would they really have the technology to determine this?

… counting?

Telling which of the wounds were fatal. Was it just a bunch of scratches and then one good stab? 22 paper cuts and one deep poke?

Noice

rotfl

The comment above yours seems to make out that the Republic was fucked anyway.

But let's say he'd done everything he said he'd do, and still became dictator for life, and then he died. Now Rome's lost its enlightened despot and its Republic. If the senate sucks, you can elect different senators easier than killing an emperor you don't like.

I mean, this was 2000 years ago, I'm impressed there was ever any kind of Republic at all, the poor getting fucked over was standard for that time, wasn't it?

They knew which wounds are fatal from experience in wars....

Roman citizens: well take care of that for ya

Are you a freshman in high school?? Because they teach this in school…

Yeah, Caesar was honestly just another nail in the coffin, not the first and not the last. If he had died in a more regal and honorable way earlier on there probably would have been someone else to replace him, as the main issue was the more to do with the senate than any tyrant.

My statement was more of a hypothetical for if everything else went right. If the senate had fixed itself, and truly wanted to help the people, and taken power away from generals, and had reorganized itself, then Caesar would still have had to have his dictatorial powers taken even if through force.

Its funny how I knew the exact amount of times he was stabbed, and yet I didn't know he literally died on the base of Pompey's statue. I think I need to get my priorities straight when learning history

Check out Historia Civilis on YouTube as well, he makes some great little square videos that go thru Roman history and battles really well. His history lessons are enjoyable to watch and easily understood.

He did loads to help the people and Roman soldiers as well. Sure mainly did it to gain broad appeal and power but I'd rather someone help me in their own self interest when I'm poor and starving than not help me it all. If you study Caesar's military and political campaigns you quickly begin to see he was a straight up genius. The Senate tried to quash anyone who gained too much popularity and power because it threatened their stranglehold on grift from the state. I personally thing Caesar would have kept the Senate and Rome in many ways if he wasn't killed. I also wish he could have finished his Parthia campaign, world history would be better for it.

will do, thanks again!!

I just wanna echo this sentiment! Great discussion.

His final words were in Greek, but not Latin.