The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #196｜ Pompey and Caesar Part XXI

00:00:00.000 Flip back to Appian, who tells us this, quote, four days before he intended to depart for his

00:00:05.920 war in the east, that is, against the Parthians and the Getae, his enemies cut him down in the

00:00:11.480 senate house, or more accurately, the theatre of Pompey. They may have resented his success

00:00:16.760 and his now excessive power, or maybe, as some alleged, they longed for the republic of their

00:00:22.540 ancestors and were afraid, knowing him well, that he would conquer these nations as well,

00:00:27.220 and then indisputably become king. On reflection, I am of the opinion that the plot did indeed

00:00:33.380 originate over his additional title, although the difference it made was only of a word,

00:00:38.740 since in reality the dictator is exactly like a king. A pair of men in particular, both of whom

00:00:44.780 had belonged to the party of Pompey, took the initiative in forming the conspiracy. These were

00:00:50.260 Marcus Brutus, surnamed Capio, who was the son of that Brutus who had lost his life in the time of

00:00:55.900 Sulla, and had found refuge with Caesar after the defeat at Pharsalus, and Gaius Cassius, the one who

00:01:02.460 had surrendered his triremes to Caesar in the Hellespont. There was also Decimus Brutus 0.73

00:01:07.100 Albinus, one of Caesar's most intimate associates. All three had always acted in a manner that had

00:01:12.780 deserved the respect and trust they received from Caesar. He had placed matters of great importance in

00:01:17.960 their hands, and on his departure for the campaign in Africa, had given them military commands and put them

00:01:24.080 in charge of Gaul, Decimus of Transalpine, and Brutus of Cisalpine. At the present time, Brutus and Cassius

00:01:30.800 were both about to be creators in the city, but they were quarrelling with each other over the so-called

00:01:36.100 urban creatorship, which has greater prestige than the others, either because they were really competing

00:01:41.320 for the honour, or in order to mount a pretense that they did not habitually act in concert over

00:01:47.240 everything. When he made the decision between them, Caesar is supposed to have said to his companions

00:01:51.980 that Cassius had right on his side, but that he favoured Brutus. Such was the kindness and honour

00:01:57.900 he showed to the man in everything. It was even thought that Brutus was his son, because he was

00:02:03.140 Cato's sister, Sevilla's lover, when Brutus was born. For this reason, when victory was in his hands

00:02:08.980 at Pharsalus, he is said to have told his officers to make every effort to save Brutus. Brutus may have

00:02:14.960 been ungrateful. He may either not have known or been sceptical or ashamed of his mother's lapse.

00:02:20.740 He may have been excessively devoted to liberty and valued his country above all. Or perhaps,

00:02:26.160 being a descendant of that Brutus who had once expelled the kings, he was needled and shamed

00:02:30.740 to do just this deed by the people. For on the statues of the elder Brutus and on the judicial

00:02:36.200 tribunal of the present day, there appeared many anonymous graffiti like,

00:02:41.080 Brutus, have you been bragged? Brutus, are you a corpse? Or would you were with us now? Or your

00:02:47.440 descendants are not worthy of you? Or you're no descendant of his? Anyway, these and many other

00:02:53.360 remarks of the same sort inflamed the young man to the act as if it were in his blood. Rumours

00:02:58.680 about the kingship became still more insistent. There was a meeting of the senate due to take place

00:03:03.220 shortly, and Cassius took Brutus' arm and said, what are we going to do in the senate if Caesar's

00:03:08.980 clique proposed to make him king? Brutus replied that he would not be at the senate. When Cassius

00:03:14.340 persisted in asking, but what if they summon us as creators? What shall we do then, my good Brutus?

00:03:20.460 He replied, I shall defend my country to the death. Then Cassius embraced him and said, is there a man

00:03:26.440 among the nobility you would not win over with that sentiment? Or do you think it is the artisans

00:03:31.780 and shopkeepers who write up slogans at your tribunal who shame you, and not the Roman aristocracy

00:03:38.080 who ask the other creators for horse races and beast fights, but ask you for freedom as though

00:03:44.380 it is a deed that was in your blood? This was how they revealed to each other at that moment for the

00:03:49.540 first time these thoughts which they had in fact been long pondering. Each of them then sounded out

00:03:55.560 his own friends and any associates of Caesar himself, if they knew them to be conspicuously brave.

00:04:01.160 From their own acquaintances, they gathered two brothers, Caecilius and Buculaneus, and in addition

00:04:07.660 Rubrius Ruga, Quintus Ligarius, Marcus Spurius, Servius Galba, Sextus Naso, and Pontius Aquila,

00:04:15.780 these all from their own associates, and from Caesar's, the aforementioned Decimus, Gaius Casca,

00:04:21.460 Trebonius, Tilius Kimber, and Minucius Bacillus. Interesting actually, one of those names jumps out to me,

00:04:27.040 a nice little anecdote of Pontius Aquila. At one point soon after Caesar had returned from Spain,

00:04:33.840 i.e. after he had become the sole ruler in Rome, during one of his triumphs as Caesar passed by,

00:04:40.240 everyone would stand, but Aquila kept his seat, and Caesar is supposed to have noticed this and

00:04:46.560 shouted out above the throng of the crowd something like, what's wrong Aquila? Take back the republic from

00:04:52.840 me then, Aquila, and for a few days afterwards, when anyone came to him with official documents to

00:04:57.340 sign, Caesar was supposed to have said, obviously with his tongue in his cheek, you know, I shall do

00:05:01.920 this, but only if Aquila allows it, and if those anecdotes are true, it does, that does sort of speak

00:05:07.380 volumes about Caesar wanting to be, you know, truly undisputed, but they are only anecdotes, who knows

00:05:13.100 if they're really, really true. Appian goes on, when they, the conspirators, thought there were enough

00:05:18.160 of them, and judged it unnecessary to share their project further, they made a compact with each

00:05:23.200 other, without taking oaths, or making sacrifices. None of them backed out, or betrayed the plot, and

00:05:29.240 they looked for an occasion, and a place to carry it out. Time was pressing, because usually plots, if

00:05:34.880 they involve more than two or three, four people, will eventually get leaked, so once you go down that

00:05:41.360 path, you've got to act sooner rather than later. Time was pressing, because Caesar was in four days

00:05:46.440 of departing for his campaigns, and immediately acquiring a military guard. They had the Senate

00:05:51.920 House in mind as a suitable spot, because they believed that the senators, even if they had not

00:05:57.020 been forewarned, would eagerly associate themselves with the deed, as it is said to have happened in the

00:06:02.620 case of Romulus, when he began to behave more like a despot than a king. They also thought that the deed,

00:06:08.260 done like that earlier one in the Senate House, would appear to have been carried out, not as a piece of

00:06:13.360 treachery, but on behalf of the community, and since it was an act performed in common interest,

00:06:19.140 there would be no danger from Caesar's soldiers. Also, the credit would remain with them, for it

00:06:24.500 would be well known that they had initiated it. These were the considerations which made them fix

00:06:29.720 unanimously on the Senate House, but they were divided over how to proceed. Some thought that they

00:06:35.200 should also make away with Antony, Caesar's fellow consul, who was the most powerful of his associates,

00:06:40.900 and enjoyed the highest esteem among the soldiers. But Brutus said that if they killed only Caesar,

00:06:46.980 they would win glory as tyrannicides for removing a king. But if they killed his associates, they would 0.98

00:06:52.540 be thought to have acted out of personal enmity as partisans of Pompey. The conspirators found this

00:06:58.000 point particularly persuasive and waited for the impending meeting of the Senate." So discussions were

00:07:04.300 obviously had about whether there was a need, okay, we've got to do away, we've got to kill Caesar, 0.96

00:07:08.960 but is it just him? Or do we need to do away with people that would, you know, go on and fight a 0.62

00:07:14.120 vendetta on his behalf? Is killing Caesar, just Caesar, enough to put an end to his power base? Or will a

00:07:23.140 faction, a Caesarian faction, live on, fight on, even if the man himself is dead? Well, they decide that

00:07:29.840 they're only going to kill Caesar. And again, we all know, don't we, that that was a mistake. Probably the

00:07:36.480 prudent thing to have done was to do away with Mark Antony as well. But Brutus didn't want to do

00:07:42.200 that. Appian continues. The day before the meeting, Caesar went to dinner with Lepidus, his master of

00:07:47.500 horse. He brought Decimus Brutus Albinus to join in the drinking. And as they passed the cups around,

00:07:53.160 he put the question, what is the best sort of death for a human being? Various views were expressed,

00:07:58.760 but he himself thought a sudden death best of all. In this way, he forecast his own fate and the

00:08:04.640 subject of his conversation was what was to happen the next day. In the night, he lay in a heavy sleep

00:08:10.640 as a result of the drink. And his wife, Colpurnia, who had a dream in which she saw his body streaming

00:08:16.460 with blood, tried to stop him leaving the house. When he offered sacrifice, the signs repeatedly

00:08:21.700 proved ominous. He was actually on the point of sending Antony to dismiss the Senate. But Decimus,

00:08:27.180 who was there, persuaded him not to lay himself open to the charge of disrespect, but to go himself

00:08:32.840 and dismiss it. And he was carried in a litter to do so. There was a performance taking place

00:08:37.460 in Pompey's theatre, and the Senate was to meet in one of the rooms beside the theatre,

00:08:42.260 as was the usual custom when the shows were on. From early in the morning, Brutus and his associates

00:08:47.700 had been in the colonnades in front of the theatre, transacting business with any who needed them

00:08:53.480 in their capacity as creators. But when they heard about the results of Caesar's sacrifices

00:08:58.260 and the postponement of the meeting of the Senate, they were completely at a loss,

00:09:03.020 almost panicked and lost their bottle. At this point, someone grasped Casca by the hand and said,

00:09:10.000 you kept it from me, although I am your friend. But Brutus has told me, i.e. of this plot.

00:09:15.400 Casca was conscience-stricken and thrown into sudden confusion. But the man smiled at him and said,

00:09:20.820 wherever will you get the money to stand for the Adelship? Whereupon Casca recovered.

00:09:25.440 Brutus himself and Casca were deep in thought talking to each other when a senator, Popilius

00:09:31.400 Leens, drew them towards him and said that he joined with them in praying for success for what

00:09:37.100 they had in mind and encouraged them to make haste. They were disconcerted, but in their panic said

00:09:42.060 nothing. So the secret, the supposedly secret plot is basically out. Those are people that hadn't been

00:09:47.760 sort of formally asked to join it are somehow aware of it. Like I say, any conspiracy that's more than

00:09:53.500 really a tiny number of people is kind of doomed to leak. Appian goes on, when Caesar was already

00:10:01.120 being carried on his way, a member of his household who had learnt about the plot came running to reveal

00:10:06.760 such information as he had acquired. He went to Colpurnia and saying only that he needed Caesar on

00:10:12.740 urgent business, waited for him to return from the Senate because he did not possess full information

00:10:17.560 about the affair. Artemidorus, who had been Caesar's host on Nidus, ran into the Senate, but found him

00:10:24.520 killed moments before. Someone else gave him a note about the conspiracy as he was sacrificing outside

00:10:30.160 immediately before entering the hall where the Senate was meeting, and this was found in his hand after

00:10:35.180 his death. After he stepped out of the litter, Leens, the man who had shortly before prayed for success

00:10:41.160 with Cassius and his companions, went up to him and talked privately with him in an animated fashion.

00:10:46.780 At once, some of the conspirators were perturbed by the sight and duration of the exchange, and they

00:10:53.020 made signs to each other to commit suicide before being arrested. But as the conversation continued,

00:10:58.580 and they saw that Leens was behaving like someone who was not revealing information so much as

00:11:03.600 insistently requesting a favour, they breathed again, and when in addition they saw him embrace Caesar at

00:11:09.240 the end, they recovered their courage. It is the custom for the magistrates to take the omens before

00:11:14.140 entering the Senate, and again Caesar's first sacrificial victim was without a heart, or according

00:11:19.400 to others, without a head to the intestines. When the soothsayer said that this was a portent of death,

00:11:25.520 Caesar laughed and said that such the same had happened to him in Spain when he was fighting Pompey.

00:11:31.340 The soothsayer replied that on that occasion also he had been in extreme danger, but now the portent was

00:11:37.820 even more deadly. Caesar then told him to repeat the sacrifice, but even so none of the victims

00:11:43.780 yielded good omens. Ashamed about wasting the time of the Senate, and pressed by his enemies in their

00:11:49.480 guise of friends, he spurned the sacred ritual and made his entrance, for Caesar had to suffer

00:11:55.680 Caesar's fate." End quote. Let's cut back at this moment to Plutarch. He says, quote,

00:12:00.220 Now Antony, who is a true friend of Caesar's, and also a strong man physically, was detained outside

00:12:05.880 the Senate house by Brutus Albinus, who deliberately engaged him in a long conversation.

00:12:11.500 Caesar himself went in, and the Senate rose in his honour. Some of Brutus's party took their places

00:12:16.820 behind his chair, and others went to meet him, as though they wished to support the petition being

00:12:21.720 made by Tilius Kimber, on behalf of his brother, who was in exile. So, all joining in with him in his

00:12:28.000 entreaties, they accompanied Caesar to his chair. Caesar took his seat, and continued to reject their

00:12:33.440 requests, as they pressed him more and more urgently. He began to grow angry with them.

00:12:38.340 Tilius then took hold of his toga with both hands, and pulled it down from his neck. This was the

00:12:43.680 signal for the attack. The first blow was struck by Casca, who wounded Caesar in the neck with his

00:12:48.780 dagger. The wound was not mortal, and not even a deep one, coming as it did from a man who was no 0.98

00:12:54.580 doubt much disturbed in mind at the beginning of such a daring venture. Caesar, therefore, was able

00:13:00.120 to turn round, and grasp the knife, and hold on to it. At almost the same moment, the striker of the

00:13:05.380 blow, and he who had struck, cried out together, Caesar in Latin, Casca, you villain, what are you

00:13:11.320 doing? While Casca called to his brother in Greek, help brother, so it began. And those who were not in the

00:13:17.180 conspiracy, which was the majority of the senators present, by the way, including Cicerone, those who

00:13:22.940 were not in the conspiracy were horror-struck, and amazed at what was being done, and they were afraid

00:13:27.460 to run away, and afraid to come to Caesar's help. They were petrified, basically, stuck to the spot.

00:13:32.720 They were too afraid even to utter a word, but those who had come prepared for the murder all

00:13:38.020 bared their daggers, and hemmed Caesar in on every side. Whichever way he turned, he met the blows of

00:13:43.520 daggers, and saw the cold steel aimed at his face, and at his eyes. So he was driven this way and that,

00:13:50.200 and like a wild beast in the toils, had to suffer from the hands of each one of them. For it had been

00:13:55.300 agreed that they must all take part in this sacrifice, and all flesh themselves with his blood.

00:14:00.620 Because of this compact, even Brutus gave him one wound in the groin. Some say that Caesar fought

00:14:06.420 back against all the rest, darting this way and that to avoid the blows, and crying out for help.

00:14:11.180 But when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he covered his head with his toga and sank down

00:14:16.620 to the ground. Either by chance, or because he was pushed there by his murderers, he fell down

00:14:21.960 against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood. And the pedestal was drenched with his blood,

00:14:27.320 so that one might have thought that Pompey himself was presiding over this act of vengeance against

00:14:32.400 his enemy, who lay there at his feet, struggling convulsively under so many wounds. He is said to have

00:14:38.500 received 23 wounds, and many of his assailants were wounded by each other, as they tried to plant all

00:14:44.840 those blows in one body." End quote. So, sounds like quite a melee. Certainly no other way to picture it

00:14:50.780 than just a vicious attack. For a few more details, let's let Appian tell his version of it. He says this,

00:14:57.060 The conspirators left Trebonius behind to detain Antony in conversation outside the doors,

00:15:03.520 and when Caesar had taken his ceremonial seat, they crowded round him like friends, their daggers

00:15:08.720 hidden. One of them, Tilius Kimber, approached him from the front and begged for his exiled brother's

00:15:14.860 return. Caesar would not agree at all and wished to defer a decision. Kimber then took hold of Caesar's

00:15:20.560 purple toga, as though he was still pleading with him, and ripped the garment away and pulled it from

00:15:25.820 his neck, shouting, What are you waiting for, friends? Casca, who was standing behind Caesar's 0.98

00:15:31.100 head, aimed the first blow at his throat, but missed and wounded him in the chest. Caesar wrenched his

00:15:36.960 toga out of Kimber's grasp, gripped Casca's hand, and as he sprang off the seat, welled round and pulled

00:15:43.060 Casca after him with enormous force. So Caesar fought back. There's life in the old dog yet. He didn't go

00:15:49.600 down easily. While he was in this position, one of the others drove a dagger into his side, stretching

00:15:55.400 as it was in the action of twisting. Cassius also struck him in the face, Brutus in the thigh,

00:16:00.960 and Bucilianus in the back, so that for a few moments Caesar kept turning from one to the other

00:16:06.200 of them, with various cries like a wild beast. But after Brutus's blow, whether or not giving up hope

00:16:11.960 now, he wound himself in his toga and fell neatly at the foot of Pompey's statue. Even then, after he had

00:16:18.520 fallen, they went on savaging him until he had 23 wounds, and in the scuffle, many of them struck each

00:16:24.640 other with their daggers." And there is, of course, that detail, which may be apocryphal, of Caesar

00:16:30.500 when he saw Brutus saying something along the lines of, you too, my son, even you, Brutus,

00:16:37.260 et tu, Brute. And Caesar must have known at a certain point that he had been done to death before he

00:16:42.180 actually died and lost consciousness. He knew that he was done for. So that is the sad and also fairly

00:16:48.440 ignominious death of Caesar, isn't it? This great man, once again, like Pompey in the end, just cut

00:16:54.760 down, just butchered by lesser men. And so a bit like Alexander, cut off before his time. Who knows

00:17:00.720 what he might have gone on to do had Caesar left Rome and gone on to fight a war in the east against

00:17:06.300 the Parthians? Might he have been as successful as Trajan or Alexander in the east? Had he beat

00:17:13.060 the Parthians, would he have gone all the way to the Indus Valley? Or who knows? But Caesar is cut

00:17:17.900 off prematurely, murdered, and his body just left there. Again, a parallel with Pompey. No one picked

00:17:24.280 up the body. It was just left there. There's the image of all the senators, both those that were in

00:17:29.120 on it and those that weren't, all running out, pouring out of the theatre of Pompey or the building

00:17:34.400 adjacent to it. And the body just left there. Kind of sad, really, even if you're not a fan of

00:17:40.360 Caesar. The sort of immediate fall from grace, going from the greatest, most important, most

00:17:46.680 powerful man in the world, or at least the Mediterranean world, to just a dead body. Nothing

00:17:52.140 more than a piece of meat on the ground. That's how quickly fortune can change. The vicissitudes of

00:17:57.340 fortune, as Edward Gibbon might say, how quickly lady fate can turn on you. And so although I shall be

00:18:04.040 ending my story there with the death of Caesar, I've got to end it somewhere. At some point in

00:18:09.680 the future, after we've left the ancient world or ancient Rome for a while and talked about some

00:18:15.340 other things on Epochs, at some point I will return to the story. And I should almost certainly pick it

00:18:22.920 up from that point. What happens next? The story of Antony and Octavian and Cassius and Brutus and

00:18:31.160 Lepidus and everything else. Because, of course, nothing stops. History hasn't stopped, although my

00:18:37.920 story has. Nothing is over. In fact, there is another round of civil wars that go on for, what, like 10

00:18:47.460 years? Another 10 years? And they're even more brutal and bloody than the ones that have come before.

00:18:53.680 So, although there is a lot more to this story to go, I'm going to end my particular narrative

00:19:00.000 there. And so I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope I've been able to do the story some justice.

00:19:09.120 As always, let me know in the comments your thoughts and feelings. It's always much appreciated.

00:19:13.320 So, until next time, take care.

00:19:17.440 If you would like to see the full version of this premium video, please head over to

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - January 31, 2025

PREVIEW： Epochs #196｜ Pompey and Caesar Part XXI

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