44 BC
The Ides of March conspirators assassinate Caesar
The Roman republic was a state formed around 500 BC after the overthrow of an early monarchy. It rose from a collection of towns in the Tiber valley to become a Mediterranean empire but its military successes eroded its political culture. Instead of self-sacrifice and service to the “res publica”, Roman leaders now vied to command armies and battle each other. The first century BC saw civil wars with dictators carrying out massacres of fellow Romans and the state degenerating into a rivalry of gangsters.
The most successful of these gang leaders was Gaius Julius Caesar, who had defeated rivals such as Pompey and added Gaul and Egypt to Roman control. Many of his fellow senators saw his power growing to such an extent that they feared the republic would once more become a kingship. Caesar had recently been named “dictator for life” and had been hailed in the streets as “rex”, though he made a show of refusing kingly honours.
On the Ides of March 44 BC, a group of senators calling themselves “the Liberators” accosted Caesar on his way to the Senate and stabbed him 23 times, leaving him to bleed to death. Their proclamation that they had delivered Rome from tyranny was not well-received and Rome again fell into civil war. The armies of the conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius were defeated by those of Marc Antony, Marcus Lepidus and Octavius Caesar — the so-called Second Triumvirate. In time Antony and Octavius would fall out out and make war, which resulted in Octavian ending the republic and becoming the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar.