In all probability Caesar decided that the growing rush of rumors needed to be stemmed. Perhaps he had become wise to the unwisdom of accepting so many honors. Almost on the eve of the Parthian expedition, the feverish political climate needed to be calmed. The Lupercalia offered a high-profile opportunity to stage a “spontaneous” request and then have it decisively turned down. It is fascinating to observe (according to one of the earliest sources, Nicolaus of Damascus, who at one point in his life was a tutor in the household of Antony and Cleopatra) the active involvement of two known or presumed critics of the regime (and conspirators) in the charade. Their presence at the scene may imply an intention to involve a wide range of political opinion in a spectacle that was meant to quash the rumors once and for all.
The maneuver failed. What if the crowd’s applause had supported rather than refused the “crowning”? skeptics wondered. Could suspicious and cynical constitutionalists be sure what would have happened then? So far as the conspirators were concerned the Lupercalia did nothing to lull their fears. If anything, it focused their minds and hurried them up. What was probably an inchoate group, or groupings, of malcontents came together as a clearly defined plot. It was probably at this point that Cassius was able to recruit the conspiracy’s most celebrated member, Marcus Brutus.
Attacking Antony in a speech almost exactly a year later, Cicero said, “You, you, assassinated him at the Lupercalia.” This colorful overstatement contained a germ of truth: the public offer of kingship was in a sense Caesar’s death warrant.
About this time, an apparently unimportant misunderstanding also left a bad impression. Caesar was sitting in the vestibule of the Temple of Venus in his newly opened Julian Forum deciding various construction contracts. A Senatorial delegation appeared on the scene with a commission to present him with a formal record of all the honors he had been voted. Unfortunately, the Dictator was not looking in their direction and seems not to have noticed them. He went on conducting business until someone pointed out their presence. It was only then that he put aside his papers and received the Senators but, as an added discourtesy, failed to rise to his feet. He evidently realized this was a gaffe, for his friends soon put it around that he had been unable to stand up because of an attack of diarrhea.
What were Caesar’s real political intentions for the future? It is hard to be certain today, and even contemporaries struggled to find an answer to the question. This may well be because Caesar himself was unsure of the way forward. In all probability he recognized that the formal assertion of monarchy was out of the question. The Dictatorship for Life gave him what he wanted while staying, more or less, inside constitutional norms. He was quoted as saying: “I would prefer to hold the Consulship legally rather than a kingship illegally”; the same principle could be applied to the Dictatorship and this was probably his genuine view on the subject.
Caesar’s personal mood was depressed. His health was deteriorating. (As he got older, it is reported, his epileptic fits became more frequent and he suffered from headaches and nightmares.) He became aware of plots against him and secret nocturnal meetings but took no action except to announce that he knew of them. Warned that Brutus was plotting against him, Caesar touched his body and said: “Brutus will wait for this piece of skin.” On another occasion, though, he took a less sanguine view. When Dolabella and Antony were reported to be plotting revolution, he replied: “It’s not fat, longhaired fellows that worry me but those pale, thin ones”—by whom he meant Brutus and Cassius.
The Dictator dispensed with a troop of armed Spaniards that was his permanent escort, as well as a bodyguard of Senators that had been voted to him. He mingled publicly and unprotected among all comers. When advised to rehire the Spaniards, he said: “There is no fate worse than being continuously under guard, for it means you are always afraid.” His decision was probably as much motivated by scorn for the opposition as by a desire to bid for popularity. “It is more important for Rome than for me that I should survive,” he said on more than one occasion. “If anything happens to me, Rome will enjoy no peace. A new civil war will break out under far worse conditions than the last one.” Those close to him felt he had lost the desire to live much longer.
Caesar’s reluctance to show any signs of compromise and his refusal to share power with others explain the remarkable fact that so many leading members of the government joined the conspiracy to put an end to their leader. Besides Cassius and the much-trusted Marcus Brutus, who were both Praetors, there was Decimus Junius Brutus (a distant relative of Marcus), who was to be Consul in 42. The continuing silence of Mark Antony, now Consul, about his conversation with Trebonius speaks louder than words. AS the final plans for the assassination were laid, the conspirators spent some time pondering what to do about Antony. The fact that he was seen as a potential sympathizer was a reason for not making him a target alongside Caesar. However, Cassius argued that he should be killed along with Caesar: he was a physically strong man and might intervene to help the Dictator. Also, he and Caesar were Consuls and he would be the senior official after the assassination. If he were out of the way, Brutus and Cassius, as Praetors, would be able to take charge of the government legally. Brutus disagreed: it was one thing, he said, to kill a tyrant but quite another to kill a lawfully appointed Consul. It was finally agreed that Trebonius would isolate Antony at the crucial moment by intercepting him before the meeting and holding him in conversation.
During the first three months of 44 a great simplification of Roman politics took place. On the one hand, Caesar finally came to see that he had failed to reconcile the optimates to his dominance and further consolidated his authority. On the other, the optimates finally came to despair of a restoration of the Republic. Neither side could see a way out of the impasse except by Caesar’s removal from the scene—permanent, so far as Brutus and Cassius were concerned, and temporary from Caesar’s perspective. The Parthian expedition was, in its own way, a recognition of Caesar’s failure. However it was to be achieved, he had to go.
The precise decision as to where to conduct the assassination was made on short notice, when a meeting of the Senate was convened for the unlucky date of March 15 at Pompey’s theater. This would be a controlled environment and, when the deed was done, the conspirators would be able to explain themselves at once to their peers.
AS the chosen date was a holiday, a gladiatorial display was due to take place later in the day in the theater. Brutus, as Praetor, was in charge of the gladiators, who could be useful in the aftermath of the assassination if anything went wrong. A strong detachment of gladiators was assembled, which could be brought into the theater precincts on the pretext of a rehearsal or a training exercise. There was good reason for this precaution. Just outside the city limits on a small island on the Tiber, an army loyal to Caesar under the command of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who as Master of the Horse was the Dictator’s official deputy, was encamped. A stone bridge connected the island to the city and, although soldiers were forbidden to enter Rome, it was perfectly possible that Lepidus would march in to put down any trouble.
By March 15 information about the conspiracy was leaking out. Almost as soon as Caesar left the State House in the morning a member of his household who had heard something of what was going on came running into the building to report what he had gleaned. AS he did not know the date and time of the attempt, he simply told Caesar’s third wife, Calpurnia, that he needed to see him on urgent business. He sat down to await his return.