IX The Murder

Five authors have left us an account of Caesar’s murder. In chronological order these are Nicoalus of Damascus, Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian and Dio Cassius. In effect the ‘Murder of Caesar’ forms a detachable unit within Caesarian biography. There are places where the five accounts show an almost verbatim similarity. They are, moreover, peppered with details that seem designed to keep the reader on the edge of his or her seat. They also contain dialogue, which makes them extremely vivid.

Caesar’s death is not only one of the best documented murders of all time, but also the only day in the whole of Roman antiquity that we can re-construct on an almost hour-by-hour basis. In fact it reads very much like a modern suspense-story, stiff with ‘clues’ as to how the dastardly crime might have been averted. The seer Spurinna warned Caesar to beware of the Ides of March weeks before his death. Numerous portents were reported in the last twenty-four hours of his life which he either failed to notice or failed to heed. His wife Calpurnia sought to prevent him from attending the Senate. His friend Artemidorus tried to pass him a letter warning him of the conspiracy which he either overlooked or chose not to read. Plutarch sees all this as evidence of the working of a divine agency leading Caesar inexorably to his doom, as if fate overrode all the warnings of augury.
What kind of story are the ‘witnesses’ telling us? None, of course, was actually present at the crime. Should the ‘Murder of Caesar’ be interpreted in the style of a Greek tragedy, heavy with irony, intended to prove either that fate is inescapable or that Caesar was so over-confident that he wilfully ignored all warnings, believing himself to be immortal? Or is it a morality play, intended to show up the isolation and megalomania of autocracy? Either way is an early example of a crime thriller, with the emphasis, however, not upon the identity of the killer but rather upon the last moments of the victim's life. At least some of the details were invented post eventum either to justify or to explain the murder. Though the accounts present Caesar as wilfully ignoring all the signs of his impending murder, they are not wholly unsympathetic towards the victim. In addition, some elements of the narrative seems to have been invented after Caesar’s deification in 42, such as the dream he had the night before he died in which he imagined that he was flying above the clouds, clasping the hand of Jupiter.

It is highly probable that Caesar spent the day before his death on the Campus Martius in the company of Marcus Lepidus, Master of Horses, and that they both attended the Equirria, a horse-racing festival which marked the beginning of the campaigning season. Towards dusk Caesar returned to Lepidus’ house on the Esquiline Hill for dinner. He was accompanied by Decimus Brutus, who was probably charged with the task of determining whether Caesar suspected that his life was in danger and, if so, of warning his fellow co-conspirators. Caesar occupied himself most of the evening by signing letters, as was his custom when in company. However, when the topic of conversation turned to the question, ‘What is the best way to die?’, he suddenly looked up from his papers and without a moment’s hesitation replied, ‘Unexpectedly’. In the night there was a violent thunderstorm. Caesar was unwell. According to Plutarch, Calpurnia had a nightmare in which she dreamt that the pediment of their house collapsed and that she held her bleeding husband in her arms.
The Ides of March, which fell on the fifteenth day of the month, were not in themselves ill-fated. (In the old, lunar calendar the Ides were supposed to coincide with the full moon.) In fact this was the day when the festival of Anna Perenna, the personification of the year, was celebrated. The conspirators may have picked this date partly for this reason, since it meant that a sizeable proportion of the population would be out of Rome. It was customary on this day for the citizenry to gather at the first milestone outside the Flaminian Gate (near modern Porta del Popolo) on the north and to consume as many cups of wine as each of them hoped to attain in years.

5 a.m.
Well before dawn the conspirators assembled at Cassius’ house and accompanied him to the Forum where his son was due to assume the toga virilis (toga of manhood), which marked his rite of passage to adulthood. This done, they hurried to the Portico of Pompey, thinking that Caesar would be arriving immediately. Brutus and the other magistrates took their seats in the Portico and in their capacity as praetors began accepting petitions. Conveniently, a gladiatorial display, sponsored by Decimus Brutus, was being staged in the Theatre of Pompey. It could be expected to serve as a useful distraction when the crime was being committed. Fearing that their crime might meet with some resistance from the plebs, they had taken the precaution of posting some of his gladiators in the colonnades of the theatre adjoining the portico.

10 a.m.
At Caesar’s house, however, all was not well. Perhaps because of Calpurnia’s nightmare, the Dictator had sacrificed a number of victims and received unfavorable signs. The entrails of the victims were examined by haruspices, experts in the Etruscan art of prophecy who were permanently attached to his household. Caesar was on the point of sending Mark Antony to announce that he would not be attending the Senate when Decimus Brutus arrived. Discovering the cause of the delay, Decimus pleaded earnestly with Caesar to re-think his decision. In the end Caesar complied, conceding that his absence would cause considerable offence.

11 a.m.
Caesar departed from the Domus Publica around the fifth hour of the day (between ten and eleven a.m). As soon as he emerged, he was surrounded by a throng of petitioners, all eager to gain his attention, particularly since he was planning to leave Rome in three days’ time.
The Domus Publica lies about 1200m east of the Curia of Pompey. Perhaps because he was still feeling unwell, Caesar was conveyed there in a littter. He was accompaniedd by magistrates and a large crowd of citizens, foreigners, slaves and freedmen. In the course of his journey, which probably took about half-an-hour, he was handed a note revealing the plot, which he left unread.
Though they had initially remained calm during their long wait, by late morning the conspirators had become extremely agitated, fearing that Caesar’s delay meant that their plan had been discovered. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that the meeting had been scheduled for dawn, whereas Caesar did not arrive until close to noon. At one point someone grasped Casca by the hand and said, ‘You kept the secret from me although I am your friend, but Brutus told me about it.’ On another Popilius Laenas drew Brutus and Cassius aside and said that he was ‘praying for a favourable outcome to their plans’. To make matters worse, Brutus’ household slave arrived with the news that his wife Porcia had died, though it later turned out that she had only fainted. Being privy to the plot Porcia had probably worked herself up into a frenzy of anxiety. At some point in the course of the morning it was actually decided to cancel the meeting and Caesar’s golden curule chair was removed from the Curia.

12 a.m.
As soon as Caesar descended from his litter Popilius Laenas engaged him in private conversation. This so frightened the conspirators that they signalled their intentions to one another that they were prepared to take their own lives rather than be apprehended. However, once they realised that Laenas was merely petitioning Caesar about a private matter, they recovered their spirits. When the auspices were taken, it was discovered that one of the victims lacked a heart. Though other sacrifices were performed with a similarly unpropitious outcome, Caesar decided to enter the Curia none the less.

Catching sight of the soothsayer Spurinna who had warned him to beware of the Ides of March a month ago, Caesar jokingly declared him to be an imposter, whereupon Spurinna replied, ‘The Ides have indeed come but they have not yet gone.’ It is interesting that Spurinna turns up again in our narrative at this point. He is, of course, needed for dramatic closure. The seer who gave warning of the thirty days to come at the Lupercalia must be present to witness the fulfilment of his prophecy and to highlight the fact that the climactic moment in the narrative has arrived. He also points up Caesar’s scorn for religious observance and his disdain for any measures of self-protection. Yet the fact that his name is preserved lends credibillity to his reality as a historical figure.

Since Caesar was on the point of departure, the Curia is likely to have been packed. On the agenda were Mark Antony’s objections to Caesar’s nomination of Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who was desognated to replace him as consul for the rest of the year. As Caesar passed inside the chamber, C. Trebonius, who was standing at the door, stepped forward and engaged Antony in conversation in order to prevent him from entering.

As soon as the herald had called for silence, a number of conspirators rose from their benches and gathered around Caesar, their daggers concealed in the folds of their togas. One of them, Tillius Cimber, knelt and began pleading with Caesar to allow his brother to return from exile. When Caesar replied that the topic would have to wait, Cimber grasped Caesar’s purple toga in order to restrain his hands and cried out, 'Why are you waiting, friends?' Hereupon one of the Cascas tried to stab Caesar in the throat, but missed and struck him in the chest instead. Caesar managed to wrestle free of Cimber and, grasping Casca's hand, sprang from his chair. While he was dragging Casca about, another conspirator stabbed him in the side. Cassius wounded him in the face and Brutus struck him in the thigh. When Brutus came forward to stab him, he ceased to put up any further resistance. Both Suetonius report and Cassius Dio report the tradition that his dying words, addressed to Marcus Brutus, were, ‘You, too, my son?’, though they also suggest that he may have emitted only a groan Only Shakespeare, quoting from an unknown source, puts the words ‘Et tu, Brute?’ into his mouth. As Shakespeare further stated, Brutus’ stab was ‘the unkindest cut of all’. Caesar fell to the floor beside the statue of Pompey and drew his toga over his head so that his last moments should not be witnessed. The conspirators continued hacking at his prostrate body, wounding him twenty-three times (or thirty-five, if we are to believe Nicolaus of Damascus.) Such was their incompetence that many of them slid on Caesar’s blood and injured each another.

Once the conspirators had desisted from their bloody crime, Brutus stepped forward intending to harangue the other senators. Before he had a chance to do so, however, they all fled from the chamber, including Mark Antony, who, fearing that he was also a target, escaped disguised in a brown, plebeian tunic. Once news of the murder had spread to the citizenry, panic spread throughout the city. The markets were ransacked and people locked themselves indoors, preparing to defend themselves from their roofs. The assassins conducted a victory parade, waving their daggers in the air and calling upon the citizenry to embrace liberty. However, they took the precaution of wrapping their togas around their left arms to serve as shields in case of attack. A few senators, innocent of the crime, joined their ranks and claimed complicity in the murder. They later paid for their bravado with their lives.

Meanwhile Antony barricaded himself inside his house, fearing that his life was in danger. Lepidus, who was in the Forum when he learned of the murder, ran to the island in the River Tiber where he had a legion of soldiers under his command and dispatched them hastily to the Campus Martius.

3 p.m.
Caesar lay on the floor of the Curia for some time until three slaves arrived and bore him back to the Domus Publica in a litter. According to the opinion of his personal physician Antistius, who performed a post mortem, presumably after the body had been taken back to the Domus Publica, none of the wounds was lethal except for the second one which the victim received in his breast. Curiously we do not know who delivered the second blow. Whatever the truth, Antistius’ report indicates that the murder was a messy business, perpetrated by rank amateurs.

We know of no other instance from antiquity of a post mortem being conducted after a murder and it is not clear why one was performed on this occasion. One suspects, however, that it was ordered by Mark Antony. Antistius is the first physician in history to pronounce upon the exact cause of death in a case of violent killing. A cynic might argue that the reasons why his services were called in and why the autopsy report was preserved were firstly to make the conspirators appear ignominious and incompetent, and secondly to increase sympathy for the victim, by demonstrating that the majority of the wounds merely served to increase his pain.

The conspirators’ original plan had been to drag the corpse the short distance to the Tiber and toss it into the water. It is unclear when they changed their minds, which they no doubt did because they feared antagonising the populace further. Like their decision to spare Antony, taken out of misplaced idealism, their decision to spare the corpse was to prove disastrous.

5 p.m.
The assassins, or ‘Liberators’ as they liked to call themselves, had by late afternoon taken refuge on the Capitoline Hill overlooking the Forum. They were attended by Decimus Brutus’ gladiators, who served as their bodyguard. When it became apparent that no more violence was planned, a number of sympathisers ascended the hill. Plutarch tells us that Brutus delivered a speech which was ‘designed to win over the people and which was appropriate to the occasion.’ This hardly amounts to a ringing endorsement of his oratorical performance. The assassins seem to have had no coherent idea about how to ‘liberate’ Rome other than by slaying the tyrant. One and all they now displayed woeful political ineptitude. What was to happen after the slaying of the tyrant seems not to have crossed their minds.

6 p.m.
Later in the day Brutus and Cassius descended to the Forum. A number of eminent citizens conducted Brutus on to the Rostra, where he delivered another speech. However, when the praetor Cornelius Cinna began to denounce Caesar, voices in the audience were raised in dissent.
Shortly afterwards Brutus and Cassius again withdrew to the Capitol. According to Appian they sent messengers to Antony and Lepidus asking if their deed could be ‘tolerated out of pity for the perpetrators’. Antony’s response was polite and non-committal.

11 p.m.
Antony acted quickly. Probably the same night he obtained Caesar’s private papers from his widow Calpurnia. These were to prove extremely useful, since they would enable him to ‘interpret’ Caesar’s final wishes and to appoint magistrates of his own choice. Now or later he also got his hands on Caesar’s fortune, which probably amounted to about 100 million sesterces. It was stored in the Domus Publica – evidently Caesar did not believe in banks. According to Suetonius, it was at the request of Caesar's father-in-law L. Calpurnius Piso that his will was obtained from the Vestal Virgins. In addition to his private bequests referred to earlier, Caesar bequeathed his gardens beside the Tiber to the people and gave 300 sesterces to each man. Prior knowledge of the contents of the will gave Antony a huge advantage over the assassins at the funeral.

It is not clear what Cicero was doing on the day of the murder. Possibly someone had advised him to stay clear of the Senate. Nor do we know how Calpurnia reacted to her husband’s death. Did she hold herself in some part responsible? Is that what the story of her dream is implying? And what, finally, of Cleopatra, who slipped out of Rome secretly with her son Caesarion shortly afterwards, destined to live, and love, another day?

Caesar’s murder did not come as thunder out of a blue sky, as the poet Horace might have put it. On the contrary, it was preceded by portents – and I do not mean those produced by chickens – that make it seem inevitable. This leaves us with a disturbing and endlessly fascinating question. Could Caesar have been wholly unaware of the plot against his life? Given the fact that he probably had a network of agents consisting of freedmen, clients and slaves constantly gathering information on his behalf, it seems utterly inconceivable that he had no inkling of the fact that his life was in danger, particularly in light of the size of the conspiracy. The structure of the Roman home, moreover, lends itself to constant eavesdropping. Caesar’s dismissal of his Spanish bodyguard seems therefore like an act of reckless self-endangerment. Can he have placed his trust in the oath which the Senate had taken to protect his life? That is profoundly unlikely, given Caesar’s inflexible grasp of Realpolitik. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that he saw his death coming and walked calmly towards it, preferring, in his own words, to die once than a thousand times over. It was an act of the utmost disdain.

So perhaps his friends, who turned out to be his enemies, were acting in his interests after all.