The Ides of March
We owe Julius Caesar the famous phrase “the die is cast” (Alea iacta est). He said this in January 49 BC when he led his army across the Rubicon River in northern Italy, after his conquest of Gaul. A positive aspect of him is that he did not seek revenge. He spared the lives of his enemies defeated in the civil war with the intention of turning them into friends and together improving what he called “the new Republic." Among his murderers on that Ides of March were those whose lives he had spared.
In 59 BC, the year he became Consul, he founded Florentia which later changed its name in Italian to Firenze (Florence). In 55 BC, Caesar and his legionaries were the first Romans to arrive in Britain and come into contact with the peoples of that land.
He had a daughter named Julia, whom Caesar married to Pompey Magnus, who would later be his greatest rival and whom he defeated during the civil war at the Battle of Pharsalia on September, 48 BC. Julia and the baby from her marriage to Pompey had died in childbirth a few years earlier.
Following Pompey death, in 48, Julius Caesar had a passionate relationship during four years with the Ptolemaic Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII. They had a son, named Caesarion.
In the year 46 BC, he modified the Roman calendar, creating the novelty of the leap year and changed the number of days in each month, remaining that way to this day. Caesar planned this reform of the Roman calendar during his stay in Alexandria, assisted by the astronomer Sosigenes.
In the summer of 46 BC, he returned triumphant from the civil war and the Senate, many of them against their will, proclaimed him dictator for 10 years. That same year, Cleopatra moved with her son to Rome.
Being a dictator for 10 years was something completely unusual. The office of dictator was an occasion when a man was elected by the Senate for a period of 6 months in times of war or serious crisis. In February of 44 BC Caesar managed to get the people to proclaim him Dictator for life.
He and his contemporaries did not know it, but that day the meaning of being a dictator took on the meaning it has in our modern world, and the Dictator as it had been conceived by the ancient Romans disappeared forever.
He was populist; he did things to please the people to the point that they idolized him. Although it must be recognized that he did very favorable things for his people. From his proclamation as dictator in 46 BC until the eve of his death, he did not stop carrying out colossal works for the city and all kinds of measures in favor of the poor.
Senators from the Optimates party to meet secretly planning the assassination. The conspiracy was carried out in the house of Servilia ,mother of Brutus and lover of Julius Caesar for years. But incredibly among the Optimates conspirators there were also Populares, who always claimed to support Caesar. Among those who stabbed him was Lucius Tillius Cimber, who had always been his ally and whom Caesar considered one of his best friends.
Caesar was stabbed in the Theatre of Pompey where the Senate was temporarily meeting. Brutus and Cassius were the ringleaders of the conspiracy. According to all classical sources, the "best friend” Lucius Tillius Cimber, was the one who took him by surprise, grabbing him tightly by the toga and shouting the order to kill him, and Casca was the first to draw his dagger and wound him with a cut, thus initiating the brutal attack of the others.
Historians agree that, with a few exceptions, such as Cato, Cicero, Brutus or Cassius, the majority of Caesar’s adversaries were motivated only by envy; Even many in his own party, such as Lucius Tillius Cimber, began to feel envious of Caesar’s success and popularity.
Unlike Caesar, his nephew and adoptive son Octavian was vengeful; four years later, all of Caesar’s adversaries and assassins were dead and his property confiscated. After years of civil wars, and the conquest of Egypt, Octavian ordered the execution of 17-year-old Caesarion, days after Cleopatra and Mark Antony committed suicide, and in 27 BC became Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.
At the place where Caesar’s body was cremated, every March 15th people leave flowers and signs that read: Ave Caesar.
