Octavian’s early career raising private armies, turning Caesar into a divinity and creating his own political career outside of official structures was guided entirely by the manner of Caesar’s death. He claimed to want vengeance against his ‘father’s’ murderers and he upended every due process to pursue this claim. While the adults in the city were attempting to come to a very uneasy truce with Antony as consul and the assassins in safe positions abroad, Octavian refused to play along. Over the months that followed, however, Octavian used the manner of Caesar’s death as an unimpeachable foundation on which he could build power, influence and an army. No assassin considered the 18-year-old to be a political or military threat, and indeed he was treated as a nuisance and a joke by both Mark Antony and Cicero when he appeared in Rome two months after 15 March 44 BC to take up his place as Caesar’s heir. The Ides of March left an immediate impact on the Roman historical landscape not just because of Caesar’s unique position as Perpetual Dictator, but because it opened the door for his astonishing grand-nephew Octavian (who later renamed himself Augustus) to reshape the entire political world and to look reasonable while doing it.Ĭaesar adopted Octavian as his son in his will, written just six months before he died. Julius Caesar was neither the first nor the last leader to be assassinated in Roman history, but his is the only death that still reverberates. Before it was the Republic and after it came the Principate, under the rule of a single emperor. The Ides of March was a bottleneck in Roman history. ‘Caesar’s is the only death that still reverberates’Įmma Southon, Author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ( Oneworld, 2021) and A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women (published in September 2023) Wiki Commons/Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. Tickets for general admission cost €5 ($5.50).‘The Death of Caesar’ (detail), by Vincenzo Camuccini, c.1804. Those wishing to see the iconic site can visit every day except Mondays and some major holidays. The luxury jewelry company Bulgari helped fund the construction of the new walkways and evening lights. That deity would have been venerated inside the temples. Some of the artifacts unearthed over the last century of excavations are on display, including a massive stone deity head missing a chin and lower lip, as well as a fragment of a stone Winged Victory. The travertine pavers that Emperor Domitian had placed following a fire that ravaged the city in 80 CE, including the sacred area where Caesar was killed, can also be seen. Ancient writings described those latrines. Archaeologists believe this site is the Curia Pompeia because of the latrines found along the sides of the structure. It can be accessed via a staircase.īehind two of the temples, archaeologists uncovered a foundation and a section of a wall that they believe were once part of the Curia Pompeia, a sizable rectangular hall that temporarily housed the Roman Senate when Caesar was murdered for his political strategies in 44 BCE. One such temple, thought to be devoted to the goddess Fortuna, who is associated with chance and fertility, is circular, with six surviving columns. The four temples, which have been taken over by cats in recent years, are believed to have been dedicated to female deities. Forgotten Ancient Structure Uncovered by Devastating Libyan Floods
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