In its construction, a Roman military dagger exemplifies efficiency. The blade was iron and, in the Late Republic, about six to eight inches long and about two inches wide. Double-edged, the blade was leaf-shaped, with a slight spine running down the middle, and ending in a sharp tip. Such a weapon was perfectly designed to stab through the human chest, which is, on average, about six to eight inches thick.
The blade was held by a strong bronze or wooden handle ending in a pommel. A cross guard, secured through the top of the blade, protected the user’s hand. The military dagger sat in a metal frame scabbard mounted to a soldier’s belt by rings or a buckle.
A martial artist who works with replicas of Roman weapons today describes the Roman military dagger as smooth, streamlined, and remarkably light. It rides well against the hip, behind the back, or on the stomach, and can be grasped quickly. It was the right weapon to hide under a toga.
Remarkably, we know what two of the assassins’ daggers looked like. A coin issued by Brutus—of which more later—shows two military daggers used on the Ides of March. The two daggers are not identical. Rather, each has a different hilt. The right dagger’s hilt is decorated with two flat disks. The left dagger has a cross-shaped hilt. These might seem minor points to us but the details are not likely to have escaped a contemporary’s eye, especially not a soldier’s eye.
Since the coin was meant to be read from left to right (the direction of the inscription), it is tempting to believe that the first dagger, the dagger on the left—the one with the cross-shaped hilt—belonged to Brutus, whose name is on the other side of the coin. In that case, the dagger on the right—the one with a two-disk hilt—was Cassius’s. Archaeologists have found both kinds of daggers in use in the first century B.C. In the current state of the evidence, cross-shaped daggers are rare, so perhaps Brutus’s dagger looked really distinctive to people at the time.
The primary purpose of the Roman military dagger was to kill at close range. It was well suited for use in brawls, fracases, and security duty but it played an important role on the battlefield as well. Combat would leave many of the enemy wounded but still dangerous. The Roman military dagger was an efficient way to dispatch them, with its double edge (for slashing throats) and sharp point for stabbing (throats, eyes, groins, and chests) to make sure the enemy was truly dead and no further threat. Roman soldiers probably sometimes preferred to use their military daggers rather than their swords in order to limit wear and tear on the latter, which were more expensive and so harder to replace. For instance, it made sense to use a dagger, and not a sword, to cut off a dead man’s finger for his ring or an ear for an earring.
A dagger was also large enough for use off the battlefield, to trim branches for firewood, defensive walling, or palisades, and yet small enough to cut meat for meals (and dressing game). But many soldiers also carried a small sheath knife, for eating, shaving, and general small tasks. Thus a Roman soldier had a sword—the main tool, expensive and well cared for, subject to frequent inspection for condition; a dagger—the workaday sharp implement also used in combat as a backup and “mercy” tool; and a sheath/utility knife—kept as sharp as can be for finer domestic work and eating utensil. On the Ides of March, the military dagger would prove its worth.
THE DEED
Even before Caesar sat down, some of the conspirators stood behind his chair while others gathered around him, as if they were going to pay their respects or bring some matter to his attention. They were really forming a perimeter. Sixty men could not have approached Caesar without arousing suspicion. Besides, there wasn’t room for sixty men on the tribunal. More likely, about a dozen conspirators gathered around the seated dictator, with others poised to join them later in a second wave. Cassius was there from the start and supposedly glanced at the statue of Pompey as if to draw support from his old friend and enemy of Caesar.
The attack on Caesar, as we now know, was neither random nor improvised. The five main ancient sources are in general agreement, although they differ in some details. The story that they tell points to careful, advance planning. To succeed, the attack had to be sudden and swift before Caesar’s supporters had time to help. Centurions, for example, were among Caesar’s new senators. They were in the room and could have jumped to the dictator’s assistance. But the conspiracy did not lack military minds who had thought the operation through.
To return to the scene in the Senate House, after Caesar was seated, Tillius Cimber took the lead. The hard-drinking scrapper had Caesar’s favor and so he was unlikely to arouse suspicion. He came up to the dictator and presented a petition on behalf of his exiled brother. The others joined him, clasping Caesar’s hands and kissing his breast and his head.
These moves offer another sign of careful planning on the part of the conspirators because they mirror an earlier assassination attempt in 47 B.C. The intended victim then was the abusive governor of Further Hispania. The conspirators approached him in a public building in Corduba (modern Córdoba, Spain) as if they were going to present a petition. Then one of them grabbed him with his left hand and stabbed him with a military dagger twice. They killed one of his attendants but the governor survived. He was Quintus Cassius Longinus.
We can be sure that the conspirators of 44 B.C. knew about this event. For one thing, the next governor of Further Hispania was Trebonius. For another, Quintus Cassius Longinus was probably a brother of Cassius the conspirator. So, by drawing near Caesar with a petition on the Ides of March, the plotters were following an earlier scenario—no, they were improving it, because unlike the governor, Caesar had no attendants to protect him.
Cimber disrespected Caesar by coming up to him with his hands out instead of keeping them humbly beneath his toga. Then Cimber took hold of Caesar’s toga and held it so tightly that he kept Caesar from getting up. Caesar was angry. Now Cimber pulled the toga from Caesar’s shoulder. According to Suetonius Caesar exclaimed, “Why, this is violence!” This expression, found only in Suetonius, expresses Caesar’s sudden realization. Whether he actually said this or not, it seems likely that the truth flashed before his eyes. The omens had been right after all and he had been wrong. But it was too late. As agreed on in advance, pulling down Caesar’s toga was the signal to start the attack.
The honor of the first blow went to Publius Servilius Casca. He too was a friend of Caesar. Perhaps he was chosen because the Pompey supporters in the conspiracy insisted that a friend of Caesar go first, or perhaps because Casca was an experienced killer. We can only speculate about that. Since he was a senator, he was at least in his early thirties but probably not much older. Knife fighting has never been dainty. Very few soldiers, even good ones, have what it takes to stab a man to death. It takes sheer physical strength and a certain brutality to drive a dagger through a man’s flesh, but the circumstances that day also demanded fearlessness. Casca had to strike in cold blood in front of several hundred witnesses and with the knowledge that retaliation was likely. One imagines that he was young and strong.
Nicolaus, Plutarch, and Appian say that Casca had a sword. Or do they? The Greek word they use, ksiphos, can also refer to a dagger, and it probably does so here. Elsewhere they generally refer precisely to a dagger (ksiphidion or egkheiridion). The use instead of a word that could mean “sword” adds a certain grandeur to the first blow. It didn’t make the stroke accurate, though. Casca struck from above. He aimed for Caesar’s neck and missed. A neck strike should have been fatal but Casca hit Caesar in the breast. Nicolaus says that Casca was nervous, but Caesar was a moving target.
Four of the five main ancient sources agree that Caesar tried to defend himself, while Dio says that there were too many attackers for Caesar to do or say anything in response. Nicolaus simply says that Caesar stood up to defend himself. Plutarch says Caesar turned around and grabbed Casca’s dagger by the handle (here Plutarch indeed calls it a dagger). Appian adds that he hurled Casca away with great violence. Suetonius says that Caesar caught Casca’s arm and stabbed him w
ith his stylus—a pointed, iron instrument, about the size and shape of a pencil, used for writing on a wax tablet. He adds that Caesar tried to get up but was unable because of the next blow.
Of all the sources, Appian most emphasizes Caesar’s military qualities. He has Caesar respond to the assassins with “anger and shouting.” Plutarch says that Caesar cried out in Latin, “Impious Casca!”—or, in another version, “Accursed Casca! What are you doing?” Either version is understandable considering that Caesar considered Casca a friend. Suetonius claims that Caesar merely groaned without uttering a word in the attack, and Dio says that Caesar was unable to say anything, but a warrior like Caesar would probably have shouted something in defiance. Meanwhile, Casca cried out to his brother Gaius for help. Plutarch and Nicolaus say that Casca shouted in Greek to make sure he was heard above the din. If Casca was a thug, evidently he was an educated thug. According to Nicolaus, Gaius Casca obeyed his brother’s call and delivered the second blow, which struck the dictator in the ribs.
Pause for a moment, as the other assassins draw their daggers, to contemplate the Roman nobility. They believed that they were carrying out their sworn duty to defend the Republic. By attacking Caesar, the assassins believed, they were covering themselves with glory. They did it out of conviction, they did it out of self-interest, they did it out of hatred, they did it out of jealousy, and they did it out of honor. They were the descendants of the senators who murdered the reforming Gracchi brothers in 133 B.C. and 121 B.C., and of the patricians who sat like statues dressed in togas when the Gauls sacked Rome in 387 B.C. and thus died fearlessly.
The conspirators surrounded Caesar in a circle—again, a sign of careful planning. The blows now came fast and furious. If Caesar was indeed standing, he could not have stayed on his feet for long, probably for less than a minute. Plutarch’s description of Caesar being driven here and there like a wild beast sounds like poetic exaggeration. In short order, Caesar fell not far from his chair.
The attack almost sounds choreographed, even ritualistic. Two ancient sources use the language of a sacrifice to describe the attack, suggesting a common and perhaps a contemporary source.
None of the sources names all of the attackers. Nicolaus mentions three besides Casca—Cassius, who planted a slanting blow across the face; Decimus, who struck deep under the ribs; and Minucius Basilus, who missed and struck Rubrius on the thigh. Nicolaus also says that Cassius tried for a second blow but struck Brutus’s hand instead. Appian agrees that Cassius struck Caesar in the face but says that Brutus stabbed him in the thigh and Bucolianus in the back. Plutarch says that Brutus struck Caesar in the groin—a site that sounds a little too good to be true for Caesar’s alleged love child.
Ah, Brutus, the famous center of Shakespeare’s description of the assassination! Caesar’s cry of “Et tu, Brute?” or “You too, Brutus?” is not in the ancient sources. It was a Renaissance invention. Suetonius and Dio include a report that when Brutus rushed at Caesar or, even less credibly, after Brutus struck him powerfully, Caesar said, in Greek, “kai su, teknon” which means, “you too, child.” Both authors express doubt about Caesar actually saying this. Regardless, a lively scholarly debate has long been going on as to what he meant if he did say it.
One possibility is that the dying Caesar was acknowledging Brutus as his son—and perhaps insulting him as a bastard and condemning him as a man who kills his own father. Another possibility is that Caesar was cursing Brutus. “The same to you!” is a familiar phrase on ancient curse tablets. A third possibility is that Caesar was interrupted in midsentence. Had he continued, he might have said something like, “You too, child, will one day taste power like mine.” At least one of the later emperors said something similar to a young successor, and he might have been quoting Caesar.
A great man’s last words make for an ever-fascinating theme. “You too, child” is a classic contribution to the corpus. In all likelihood though, Caesar said nothing of the kind. The story was probably invented later, when a debate raged over Brutus’s role that day. It is easier to imagine Caesar’s last words as an indignant cry against the villainy of Casca—a final war cry from an old soldier who had stumbled unknowingly onto his last battlefield.
But Caesar didn’t only utter last words. He carried out a last gesture. All the five main sources except Nicolaus state that Caesar covered his face—Nicolaus makes no mention of this. Caesar’s was a gesture of protection, of resignation and, perhaps, of modesty. Suetonius states, and Dio implies, that Caesar made his gesture as soon as he realized that he was being attacked from all sides. As Suetonius makes clear, what Caesar did was wrap his toga over his head. But when? According to Plutarch, it was only when he saw Brutus approach him with a dagger that Caesar did so. Less probable, Appian has Caesar do it after Brutus strikes him. Suetonius adds that Caesar also drew his toga over his legs for the sake of decency—an antidote, as it were, to the lifetime of peccadillos that Suetonius refers to in his biography. Valerius Maximus, a Roman writer of the first century A.D., makes it a gesture of immodesty as well. It showed that Caesar was less a man than a god returning home.
We’ll never know just how Caesar responded to Brutus that day, if he responded at all. Caesar was closer to Decimus, who had lied to him that very day. We might expect that Decimus’s betrayal hurt Caesar more than Brutus’s betrayal. Yet there was a third party in the relationship between Brutus and Caesar—Servilia. Caesar’s connection to Servilia was a matter of the heart, and the heart has its reasons. So perhaps Brutus’s betrayal stung most sharply.
It probably took only a few minutes for Caesar to die. If they all lined up, if no one hesitated and if everything worked with complete efficiency, then twenty or more assassins could probably have each stabbed Caesar before he died. But few things work so smoothly. Besides, Caesar moved and fought back. The attackers were confused and overexcited, and in the turmoil some of them missed Caesar and stabbed each other. Brutus, for example, had a wound in his hand.
So, if they wanted to be able to say, “I stabbed Caesar,” some of the attackers would have had to settle for stabbing the dead body. Caesar’s heavy woolen tunic and toga surely soaked up most of his blood. The assassins had Caesar’s blood on their daggers, but little of it stained their own clothing.
Caesar received twenty-three wounds. No fewer than eight ancient sources say that. Twenty conspirators are known by name, of whom one, Trebonius, presumably did not stab Caesar because he stood outside the room. That leaves four additional attackers, unless some struck more than once. What about the other thirty-six of the sixty conspirators? Maybe some were Roman knights and so ineligible to attend a Senate meeting. Maybe some were senators but stayed home that day, perhaps out of cowardice. But most were probably there on the Ides and yet did not stab Caesar.
Nicolaus explicitly says otherwise, that there was none of the conspirators still left who failed to strike Caesar’s corpse on the ground, so that they all seemed to share in the deed. He also says, alone of the sources, that Caesar received thirty-five wounds. Perhaps, because he enjoyed the patronage of the emperor Augustus, Nicolaus maximized the crime against Caesar—he also says there were more than eighty conspirators in total. It’s also possible that Nicolaus simply got his numbers from a different source than the others and that the sources disagreed. Nicolaus’s argument that every conspirator struck Caesar dead if not alive may be true, but it sounds like a poetic touch, echoing the mistreatment of Hector’s corpse in the Iliad. The reality was probably less melodramatic.
Some conspirators were assigned to defense. Their job was surely to back the killers up by holding off rescuers and keep an exit path clear. The plotters had to be prepared for a response. Even without arms, a counterattack by dozens of senators could have overwhelmed the killers, especially if some of Caesar’s friends had also smuggled in daggers to the room. Yet that turned out not to be the case, and the assassins moved so quickly that most observers responded with shocked inaction. But not Cic
ero, not if what he says later is true, not if he derived great joy from seeing with his own eyes the just death of a tyrant.
Still, Caesar had many friends in the room and even more outside, where his virtual bodyguards were waiting. The door to the Senate House was kept open during sessions, and the sons of senators were encouraged to stand outside and watch. Cassius’s son, in his freshly minted manhood, might have been there to observe his father murder the dictator.
It’s a little-known fact but there were two rescuers in the Senate House that day.
THEIR FINEST HOUR
Among the senators present were Lucius Marcius Censorinus and Gaius Calvisius Sabinus. Both supporters of Caesar, they were otherwise oil and water. Censorinus was the product of an old and prestigious Roman family but one that had taken its share of knocks. Calvisius was an Italian whose family name wasn’t even Latin. Yet before the morning was over, the two men would be bound together by unbreakable ties.
Censorinus came from a noble house that claimed descent both from a king of Rome and the satyr Marsyas, a character out of myth and a symbol of liberty. The family went in for no-holds-barred fighting. In the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.) they broke oaths to Carthaginians. During the wars between Marius and Sulla they beheaded a consul and displayed his head on the speaker’s platform. All’s fair in war. Censorinus was the son of a man who, like Caesar, was a staunch supporter of Marius and an opponent of Sulla. Censorinus’s uncle, another strong Marian, was captured by Sulla and killed. The family was probably short of money in later years, which might explain why Censorinus took on the undesirable role of a seller of public property like Antony. Although nothing else of Censorinus’s earlier career is known, two things are clear. He had held public office, as senators had to, and he knew how to fight—future events show that.
Death of Caesar : The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination (9781451668827) Page 15
