The aftermath of the Ides

Dados Bibliográficos

ID23458447
AutoresElizabeth Rawson (autor correspondente)
Ano1994
Páginas468-490
Data de publicação1994-02-24
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoCHAPTER
PeriódicoThe Cambridge Ancient History (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/chol9780521256032.015
OpenAlexW2503072934
Open LibraryOL21834395M
ISBN9780521256032
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas577

When Caesar had fallen at the foot of Pompey's statue Brutus lifted his dagger and called aloud on Cicero's name, congratulating him on the recovery of liberty. The nervous old man had not been in the plot, but was a very senior consular and the embodiment of Republican principle; if Brutus hoped, however, for prompt endorsement or even help in keeping the senators in their places he did not get it. They fled in terror, and there was panic in the streets outside. The conspirators, guarded by a body of gladiators previously posted at hand by D. Brutus, made their way instead to the Forum and harangued whomever they could find there, stressing that they had only aimed to kill a tyrant, not to seize anything for themselves. Meeting with no great enthusiasm, they occupied the Capitol, either as a symbolic step, or from fear of the veterans in the city, who were bound themselves to fear for their allotments. And hither Cicero and other senators did come to congratulate them, while young Dolabella appeared in the Forum in the consular insignia which he had been promised when Caesar should have left Rome. Antony, the other consul, had fled to his house; Lepidus, Caesar's magisterequitum , who had troops close at hand, may have seemed the greater threat. Though we know more about the next year than any other in Roman history, mainly because Cicero's correspondence is here so rich, the precise course of events in the next few days is hard to reconstruct; there are probably no contemporary letters, and Dio and Appian, our fullest sources, are often contradictory or probably inaccurate.

Ancient history · Art · Cicero · Enthusiasm · Plot (graphics) · Political science · Procession · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology