The Ides of March: How Julius Caesar Was Really Killed #Shorts
Pack: 01 - The Ides of March How Julius Caesar Was Really Killed
On the Ides of March, 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in Rome as the Senate met.
- More than sixty men joined the plot, led by Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus, with Decimus Brutus (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar 80)
- They struck in the Curia of Pompey, in what is now Largo di Torre Argentina in Rome (National Geographic)
- Suetonius counts 23 stab wounds. He says Caesar groaned at the first blow; some wrote he said in Greek, "You too, my child?" (Suetonius 82)
- "Et tu, Brute?" is Shakespeare's line from Julius Caesar, not a historical record (Folger Shakespeare Library; National Geographic)
- The killing led to another civil war; in 27 BC the Senate gave Caesar's heir Octavian the title Augustus (HISTORY)
Did the conspirators save Rome, or doom it?
Sources
- Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, ch. 80–82 (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago)
- National Geographic, "Et tu, Brute? The real story of Brutus' betrayal of Caesar," Mar 12, 2026
- National Geographic, "What really happened on the Ides of March?"
- HISTORY, "How Julius Caesar's Assassination Triggered the Fall of the Roman Republic"
- Folger Shakespeare Library, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1
Images
- La morte di Cesare, Vincenzo Camuccini, Public domain
- Eid Mar aureus of Brutus, photo by Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Sacred area in Largo di Torre Argentina, photo by John Samuel, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Death of Caesar, Jean-Léon Gérôme (Walters Art Museum), Public domain
- Augustus of Prima Porta, photo by Justin Benttinen, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Full sources
