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2 results

  • Chapter 13 - Remembering M. Brutus: From Mixed and Hostile Perspectives

  • from Part II - Politicising Cultural Memory
  • Edited by Martin T. Dinter, King's College London, Charles Guérin, Université de Paris IV
  • Book:
    Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome
    Published online:
    27 April 2023
    Print publication:
    11 May 2023, pp 218-238

  • Summary

    On the Ides of March 44 BC, a momentous occasion took place in the history of Rome: Julius Caesar was assassinated in a crowded meeting of the senate.1 Almost immediately the scramble to define, legitimize, and record the act was set in motion. Marcus Junius Brutus, we are told, raised his dagger in the air and called on Cicero, presumably hoping he would be the ideal advocate for their deed; after all, Cicero had spoken out vigorously against tyranny in his published works, and this is the line they wanted to take now: that Caesar was a tyrant justly slain. For the same reason, the assassins took control over their image by rebranding themselves as ‘Liberators’ – that is, as the men who had freed Rome from Caesar’s rule. On the afternoon of the Ides, Brutus and Cassius attempted to address the people of Rome in a contio – a public meeting hastily convened in the forum. But there was little public support either then or in the meetings that followed.

  • 1 - The triumviral period

  • from PART I - NARRATIVE
  • Edited by Alan K. Bowman, University of Oxford, Edward Champlin, Princeton University, New Jersey, Andrew Lintott, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 February 1996, pp 1-69

  • Summary

    The triumviral period was to be one of the great men feeling their way, unclear how far a legion's loyalty could simply be bought, whether the propertied classes or the discontented poor of Rome and Italy could be harnessed as a genuine source of strength, how influential the old families and their patronage remained. Philippi is a very long way east, and the battles there were fought very late in the year. Even before Philippi, eighteen Italian cities had been marked down to provide land for the triumvirs' veterans; and it fell to Octavian to organize the settlement. Octavian firmly held Tarentum and Brundisium, the two great harbours of southern Italy, and it would be no easy matter for Antony to transport large quantities of troops in several waves and land them on hostile beaches. Octavian himself entered Alexandria without resistance, and in a careful speech announced his forgiveness of the city.