Chapter 4 identifies the Tiberian era as the moment when Roman writers started representing the establishment of the Principate as a civic rebirth. Benefiting from the hindsight granted by half a century of peace, Manilius, Velleius Paterculus, and Valerius Maximus constructed a triumphant narrative that equated the acquisition of a head of state with the end of civil war. Yet their imagery also betrayed growing concern over the succession, a weakness encoded in the fabric of the Principate’s Republican façade. This problem became acute with the violent assassination of Caligula, which exposed the vulnerability of a political community dependent on one man for its survival. Those writing under Claudius, including the Elder Seneca, Philo of Alexandria, and Curtius Rufus, consequently began returning to imagery of a sick, aged, and headless body politic. Their revival of this tradition confirmed that the Augustan restoration was not a permanent solution. With each transfer of power came a new head of state who could harm or heal the body under his care.

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.