Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus
Cassius and Brutus were but two of the conspirators in the Roman Senate complicit with the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, 44 BCE. The same Senate had but recently declared Caesar as dictator for life, a position which the dissenting minority feared meant the end of the Senate’s power and the Roman Republic. The senators also feared Caesar’s popularity with Roman citizens, and had heard the crowds welcoming Caesar upon his return to Rome hailing him as a king. Caesar was reported to have replied “Ego Caesar, non rex” (I am Caesar, not King), but the statement was not reassuring to those who feared his ambition.
Brutus and Cassius were brothers-in-law, and the conspiracy to kill Caesar began with them. As they drew other, like-minded senators into their plot they began to call themselves the Liberators. Actions by Caesar to attain greater powers (which had to be awarded by the senate) helped them to recruit additional supporters. Caesar was not without supporters of his own in the senate, and when he announced his intention to invade and conquer Parthia (today’s Iran and surrounding areas) one senator, Lucius Cotta, proposed awarding the title of King. This was based on the prophecy that a King would conquer Parthia, a task which could not be accomplished by a mere general.
It was Caesar’s announced plan to depart for the campaign against Parthia in late March which led to the planning for the assassination to take place on the Ides of March, when Caesar would attend the senate alone. Caesar was warned by several persons of rumors that there was a plot against him in place. Because of the warnings he was late attending a gladiator display on the Ides, and it required Brutus’s personal pleas to Caesar to persuade him to attend at all. According to Plutarch, Marc Antony was aware of the plot and attempted to warn Caesar but one of the conspirators detained him.
While Caesar was in the Senate one of the conspirators called for him to consider a petition, and several of the Liberators surrounded him with calls for support. In the crowd, knives were drawn from beneath togas, and Caesar was stabbed repeatedly, including multiple thrusts as he lay bloodied on the floor of the senate. Caesar was autopsied, in one of the earliest known post-mortem reports, and was stabbed at least two-dozen times, dying from the loss of blood. Shakespeare placed the dying words “Et tu Brute” in Caesar’s mouth, no contemporaneous account has him uttering those words.
The assassination did not lead to the restoration of the Roman Republic, instead it hastened its end and the start of the Roman Empire. Civil war followed with Roman forces led by Marc Antony opposed to those of Cassius and Brutus. That was followed by another civil war in which Antony allied with his wife Cleopatra in opposition to Octavian, Caesar’s designated heir. Following Octavian’s victory he became the first Roman Emperor under the name Caesar Augustus, a title bestowed upon him by the senate in 27 BCE.