On this day, March 14th, known as the Ides of March, an event took place which ever since has been imbedded in the collective minds of humanity, at least of that part of humanity beyond the Oriental world. We individually and collectively respond to thoughts of what we were doing on the day of the assination of JFK, or of a more recent memory, Nine-Eleven. These are moments of personal trauma, but no single day's events have had the impact of just one event more than twenty and a half centuries ago, and likewise has been affected by this trauma ever since.
"What is the best death?" That was the question Gaius Julius Caesar asked of his guests on the evening before the last day of the Ides of March, to guests gathered in his home. His own answer was, "A sudden one." The next morning, after a fitful night of nightmares his wife begged him not to go to the Senate, saying that she had dreamed of seeing him covered in blood. A like-minded servant sought to provide a deterrent by causing an ancestral picture to fall from the wall, to be taken as a bad omen.
But one of his closest friends , Decimus Brutus, who was also one of the conspirators urged him to attend the Senate if only to adjourn it courteously.
A friend who had learned of the plot came to warn him in person, but Caesar had already left. On his way to the Senate he met a soothsayer who had once told him, "Beware the ides of March. But Caesar, smiling, said that the ides had come and all was well, But they have not passed, answered the soothsayer. While Caesar was offering the usual sacrifice before Pompeys theater, where the Senate was to meet, a tablet informing him of the conspiracy was handed to him. He ignored it, and there is a tradition that says that it was found in his hand after his death.
One of Caesars favorite Generals, detained Antony from the meeting at the Senate by conversation. When Caesar entered the theater, he was approached by a faked petition asking Caesar to pardon the petitioner's brother from banishment, which Caesar refused. The Petitioner/Conspirator then followed after Caesar grabbing at his toga. This had been the pre-arranged signal: Some 60 men pressed themselves around him, and all of them had drawn daggers from under their togas. Suetoneus says that the "Liberators" flung themselves upon him without delay." and another historian said that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him Caesar said, in Greek, "You too, my child?". The Greek historian Appian says that When Brutus struck him Caesar ended all resistance; drawing his robe over his face and head, and he submitted to the blows and fell at the foot of Pompeys statue; with 23 stab wounds.
One wish had been granted to the most complete man antiquity had produced. wrote philosopher and historian Will Durant in his book Caesar and Christ The Story of Civilization Part III.
For a glimpse of a re-enactment of how it went down watch this short 2-1/2 minute video, called Hail Caesar, [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQrC1DgzFgQ&feature=PlayList&p=71391832951D1A0D&playnext=1&index=60"]Hail Caesar[/ame] from HBO's ROME. (If your are interested in watching, after clicking on the full U-Tube Video screen a series of vignettes flow cleanly from one to the next with no further prompting.)
With this event began days of chaos in the streets, a funeral pyle to burn the murdered Dictators remains, a civil war lasting 17 years, and a re-ordering of, and a new shape of government and society from that moment forward
The assassination of Caesar was the seminal event of Western Civilization, changing forever the Roman Republic which had been founded 465 years earlier in 509 BC, into an Empire ruled over by a First Citizen in the entity of the Principate, and finally by an Emperor all to continue for another 15 centuries to the year 1453 with the fall of New Rome, at Constantinople.
There is no other historical moment that is so imbedded in the collective minds of the world. The word Caesar in classical Latin (pronounced Kai (rhymes with eye)-Zar (rhymes with bar) is the derivative of the German word Kaiser, and the Russian word Czar, and the Kaisers and Czars would rule with their own version of Caesar's name in Germany and Russia into the last century.
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"What is the best death?" That was the question Gaius Julius Caesar asked of his guests on the evening before the last day of the Ides of March, to guests gathered in his home. His own answer was, "A sudden one." The next morning, after a fitful night of nightmares his wife begged him not to go to the Senate, saying that she had dreamed of seeing him covered in blood. A like-minded servant sought to provide a deterrent by causing an ancestral picture to fall from the wall, to be taken as a bad omen.
But one of his closest friends , Decimus Brutus, who was also one of the conspirators urged him to attend the Senate if only to adjourn it courteously.
A friend who had learned of the plot came to warn him in person, but Caesar had already left. On his way to the Senate he met a soothsayer who had once told him, "Beware the ides of March. But Caesar, smiling, said that the ides had come and all was well, But they have not passed, answered the soothsayer. While Caesar was offering the usual sacrifice before Pompeys theater, where the Senate was to meet, a tablet informing him of the conspiracy was handed to him. He ignored it, and there is a tradition that says that it was found in his hand after his death.
One of Caesars favorite Generals, detained Antony from the meeting at the Senate by conversation. When Caesar entered the theater, he was approached by a faked petition asking Caesar to pardon the petitioner's brother from banishment, which Caesar refused. The Petitioner/Conspirator then followed after Caesar grabbing at his toga. This had been the pre-arranged signal: Some 60 men pressed themselves around him, and all of them had drawn daggers from under their togas. Suetoneus says that the "Liberators" flung themselves upon him without delay." and another historian said that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him Caesar said, in Greek, "You too, my child?". The Greek historian Appian says that When Brutus struck him Caesar ended all resistance; drawing his robe over his face and head, and he submitted to the blows and fell at the foot of Pompeys statue; with 23 stab wounds.
One wish had been granted to the most complete man antiquity had produced. wrote philosopher and historian Will Durant in his book Caesar and Christ The Story of Civilization Part III.
For a glimpse of a re-enactment of how it went down watch this short 2-1/2 minute video, called Hail Caesar, [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQrC1DgzFgQ&feature=PlayList&p=71391832951D1A0D&playnext=1&index=60"]Hail Caesar[/ame] from HBO's ROME. (If your are interested in watching, after clicking on the full U-Tube Video screen a series of vignettes flow cleanly from one to the next with no further prompting.)
With this event began days of chaos in the streets, a funeral pyle to burn the murdered Dictators remains, a civil war lasting 17 years, and a re-ordering of, and a new shape of government and society from that moment forward
The assassination of Caesar was the seminal event of Western Civilization, changing forever the Roman Republic which had been founded 465 years earlier in 509 BC, into an Empire ruled over by a First Citizen in the entity of the Principate, and finally by an Emperor all to continue for another 15 centuries to the year 1453 with the fall of New Rome, at Constantinople.
There is no other historical moment that is so imbedded in the collective minds of the world. The word Caesar in classical Latin (pronounced Kai (rhymes with eye)-Zar (rhymes with bar) is the derivative of the German word Kaiser, and the Russian word Czar, and the Kaisers and Czars would rule with their own version of Caesar's name in Germany and Russia into the last century.
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