The Ides: Caesar's Murder and the War for Rome

by Stephen Dando-Collins

Book Overview

Unraveling the many mysteries surrounding the murder of Julius Caesar

The assassination of Julius Caesar is one of the most notorious murders in history. Two thousand years after it occurred, many compelling questions remain about his death: Was Brutus the hero and Caesar the villain? Did Caesar bring death on himself by planning to make himself king of Rome? Was Mark Antony aware of the plot, and let it go forward? Who wrote Antony's script...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470425237
• ISBN13: 9780470425237
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Trade Paper Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Masterfully insightful, dynamic and engaging!

The Ides is a masterfully insightful, dynamic and engaging book that breathes new life into the people and places it covers. It is a captivating interjection into a conversation too long dominated by worn out academic reflections. Tom Tiballi, 'Philadelphia City Paper' literary review.

Can A Book Be Scholarly and Thrilling?

Quite simply, Yes! Dando-Collins(DC) scholarly work reads like a novel. If history was presented like this, there would be no drop-outs. The political machinations of the time of Caesar's death are fascinating and DC lays it out in wonderful detail. His variety of sources give differing accounts and seemingly leaves it up to you to decide and ponder whether Cesar's murder was justified. The book however is not without fault. DC's bias against Caesar is evident in many passages but one comes to mind where he writes "The most striking thing about the more than sixty assassins is that in putting their lives on the line to join the conspiracy, none asked for anything..." (pg.229). Oh really? He constantly portrays the assassins as the light of democracy and republicanism and Brutus as nothing but "virtuous and noble". He makes the same mistake of many other historians and judges Caesar from the perspective of 21st Century morals and mores. 'By any definition, Cesar was a tyrant' DC tells us, but what he fails to tell you is that the Senators of the Republic were all out to enrich themselves at the expense of the conquered peoples. Caesar was a threat to their way of life and their riches due to his reforms and the big tent of opening up the citizenship of Rome to lesser barbarians. Please DC don't think for one minute they did it for the good of the Republic. Nor should your readers. Democracy as worshiped by Cicero, a leading Liberator simpatico, as a government "of the people, by the people" meant government by the unjustly enriched Senators. Caesar was a threat to the Republican Senate and the old way but it was more corrupt than a benevolent ruler/king/dictator could ever be. DC compares Caesar to Sulla and wonders why he couldn't just relinquish the power after he accomplished what he set out to do just like Sulla did when he eventually retired and died of old age. Sulla could afford to do that because he ruthlessly killed all his enemies when Caesar magnanimously, or foolishly pardoned his. In the end, DC apparently chalks the murder up to Caesar's mental problems and therefore he must have brought it onto himself? A bizarre justification for murder with no historical basis and detracts from an otherwise excellent book. Despite these issues it is a wonderful book to read and deserves 5 stars.

Was Caesar's Murder Justified?

The Ides by historian Stephen Dando-Collins is an extremely readable book on a disturbing and in many ways intriguing subject - the quest for a noble cause through an ignoble act. A schophant senate showers Julius Caesar with honors and titles, including dictator for life, until there remains no other to bestow but one : King of Rome. Five centuries have gone by since the expulsion of kings. No one wants them back. Rome is a republic. In a world of symbolism, people find cause for suspecting that Caesar, while pretending to reject it, wants in fact to be king. A plot develops to save and restore the republic by taking action against the "tyrant" before he embarks on a long expedition against the Parthian empire. More than sixty Roman senators join the conspiracy as well as a few of Caesar's trusted friends. They call themselves the "Liberators." These are men who have enjoyed Caesar's clemency after the civil war with Pompey and his favour in appointments to high offices. Marcus Brutus, leader of the conspiracy, is perhaps Caesar's natural son through Servilia, the love of his youth. It is a different and distant time when dreams reveal what is to come and augurs watch the flight of birds in the skies or conduct a sacrifice to look for omens. "Beware of the Ides of March" Caesar has been warned, but he fails to take the warning seriously. The story is told in 230 pages and in three parts: The Conspiracy, The Murder, Aftermath and Retribution. The third part is longer than the first two and covers a longer time span. It relates the Liberators pleading their case and fleeing for their life, Marcus Antonius scheming against the senate which backs the Liberators and outwitting his opponents, Marcus Antonius and Octavian first scheming and raising armies against each other, then coming together to set up the second triumvirate with their shadowy third partner Lepidus, and finally winning a victory over Brutus and his mentor and comrade Cassius, who both commit suicide. There is a final section LIX in Roman numerals which should not be missed: Judging the Assassins and the Victim, where two questions are posed - Was Caesar's murder justified ? Was he a despot, as Brutus, Cassius, Cicero, and others claimed ? The author goes over what the classical Greek and Roman historians had to say - Suetonius, Plutarch, Appian, Seneca, Cassius Dio, Tacitus...Then the author gives his own opinion on Caesar and the Liberators, in very definitive terms. The book leaves you with a desire to read more, in particular the classical historians whose surviving works are available in translation not only in print but also on the internet. If you are a Cleopatra fan, beware, you will find very little of her here.