Augustus

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Rome was on the alert. Gaius Julius Caesar, who had been appointed dictator for life at the end of the previous year, was planning to set out in a few days’ time to wage war on the Parthians, who had been threatening the Roman province of Syria since the crushing defeat of Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae in the year 53 BC. It was clear that this would be a difficult venture, comparable in its extent to the Gallic War, the campaign of several years in which Caesar had conquered those parts of Gaul that still remained free and subjected them to Roman rule. No one knew whether Caesar’s aim this time was simply to exact revenge for the defeat of Crassus or whether he wanted to acquire more territory. The only certainty was that he would be absent from Rome for some time.

The dictator had called a meeting of the Senate for the Ides of March, to be held in the Curia of Pompey, an assembly hall built by Pompey the Great adjoining the theatre that also bore his name. Caesar shrugged off warnings of an assassination attempt, just as he dismissed the idea of surrounding himself with a bodyguard, trusting that his policy of reconciliation with the representatives of the old aristocracy and his own political position, so far uncontested in public, would stand him in good stead. He had dismissed his Spanish guards from his service some time earlier. It is possible that, at the height of his power and in view of his age and his failing health, he felt a certain indifference to the future. In fact we are told that he said, at this time, that his well-being was of importance primarily to the state; he had gained power and fame in abundance long before, and if anything were to happen to him now, then unrest and civil wars far worse than any seen before would threaten Rome.

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