Killing Jesus: A History Read Free Page B

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    Or, as it is also known, the Ides of March. And as the great Roman orator and lawyer Cicero will soon write, “The Ides changed everything.”
    The fifty-five-year-old Divus Julius—“Julius the God,” as the Roman Senate will later proclaim him—is being carried through Rome. The day is warm but not hot, and the people stand back in awe as Caesar passes by. He is a man of average height but extraordinary determination, having successfully conquered, invaded, or allied Rome with what will later be called Spain, Britain, France, Egypt, and Italy. Caesar is a study of conflict in his personal life, eating little and drinking even less, even as he spends money with abandon—such as when he commissioned the construction of a new villa, only to tear it down as soon as it was completed because he felt it wasn’t perfect. And while many Roman men are wary of their sex drives, believing that too much sex will drain the virility from their bodies, Caesar has no such compunction. Calpurnia is his third wife, but he has had many mistresses, including the ambitious Cleopatra of Egypt.

Julius Caesar
    Now, reclined in his litter, the well-muscled warrior statesman contemplates the subject of murder—his own. Friends, soothsayers, and even his beloved Calpurnia—whom he first bedded when he was forty and she was a sixteen-year-old virgin—have warned him that something terrible will happen today. It was Calpurnia who made Caesar late this morning. Last night she dreamed in most vivid fashion that he would be assassinated, and she begged him not to go to the Senate. Under normal circumstances, Caesar would have ignored her forebodings, but in the past few days informants have urgently warned him about a conspiracy to kill him. Given the choice of heeding those warnings or ignoring them, Caesar has chosen to brush them off—and even make light of them.
    “What is the sweetest way to die?” asked Lepidus, Caesar’s second in command, two nights earlier over dinner.
    “The kind that comes without warning,” the dictator shot back.
    Caesar indulged Calpurnia’s fears for much of this morning. He even sent word that the Senate be dismissed. But then Decimus Brutus, the great general who had crushed the Venetian fleet during the Gallic Wars, arrived at Caesar’s home and pleaded with him to ignore Calpurnia’s nightmares. He reminded Caesar of his impending journey to Parthia, the land west of Judea where Rome’s legions had suffered one of their most bruising defeats at the Battle of Carrhae nearly ten years earlier. Caesar’s aim is to subjugate the Parthians—who hail from the mountainous deserts of the modern-day Middle East—and continue the expansion of Rome’s global empire.

    The scheduled departure is March 18, just three days away. Caesar could be gone for months, perhaps a year. So it’s urgent that he meet with the Senate and clear up any unfinished business. Brutus also hints that there might be a nice surprise awaiting Caesar. A month ago the nine hundred members of the Senate named Caesar dictator for life. Now Brutus is intimating that they might also name Caesar king this morning, meaning that he will become the first monarch Rome has known in almost five hundred years.
    The citizens of Rome have enjoyed a republic ever since Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was overthrown in 509 B.C. , and they are so averse to the idea of an absolute ruler that the Latin word for “king,” rex , is considered repugnant. But as Caesar draws closer and closer to his meeting with the Senate, he is sure that the people feel differently about him. He has long been devoted to keeping the masses happy. One way to do this is by ensuring that popular entertainment is available to one and all, distracting them from any issues they might have about their government. Right now, for instance, as Caesar’s path to the Senate takes him from his home on the Via Sacra and out beyond the pomerium , Rome’s sacred boundary, he can