A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome

by Emma Southon

In the first days after the murder, it seemed that the murderers would get their wish: they were granted forgiveness by the Senate led by Antony. The homicide was briefly an assassination for possibly honourable purposes. The killers would be unpunished because they had not committed a punishable act. The peace didn’t last. Against the wishes of the murderers, and entirely undermining their aims and goals, the Senate granted Caesar a public funeral. Here, his friends built a wax mannequin of him, laid it on an ivory couch within a gold shrine draped in purple and dressed it in the clothes Caesar died in. His blood-soaked, filthy torn tunic hung in the centre of the glorious shrine. The message was unmistakable: our sacred and beloved Caesar was taken from us. Antony used his eulogy to recite the decree of the Senate in which they had voted Caesar his highest honours and the pledge the senators had made to protect Caesar. In that moment, the mood changed and Caesar’s death became, in the minds of the people of Rome, truly a murder. And they were enraged.