Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in the Theatre of Pompey 2,064 years ago today, on the Ides of March, 44 BC. He was killed by members of the senate's Optimates party in an attempt to restore the rule of constitutional law.
Here is a question to consider: At what point is the cure worse than the disease? Can establishment partisanship really cleanse the body politic?
2,064 years ago today, sixty senators from the Opimates Party in ancient Rome had had enough. A brilliant populist (Julius Caesar) who had already defied the law by bringing his army into Italy from Gaul, had been made dictator for life. Under the Roman constitution dictators were legal (if uncommon); the constitutional answer to a strong executive in times of crises. But the very concept of one for life was galling (like the pun?) to the conservative Opimates, who (rightly or wrongly) attributed "regal" motives to Caesar's demeanor, actions, and bearing.
Caesar (for his part) did little to push the scale one way or the other. He fully understood his popularity (as well as the need for strong executive action) and for the most part, he tried to keep the senate on board (at least in appearance).
But there were many factors at play. As a member of the Populares party, Caesar had advocated a strong central government, a professional bureaucracy, and extensive land reform-- not to mention a wider franchise, and citizenship with the farther flung regions of the republic. His "globalist" policies (coupled with his aristocratic but undistinguished social position) were far too radical for the establishment, who viewed these changes as both unnecessary and dangerous. Caesar had to go!
As is often the case in any assassination (literal or figurative) the perpetrators had to find a noble cause to justify their actions (if even to themselves) and the Optimates wasted no time in cranking up their rhetoric and propaganda machine, finding justification for treason in everything from laurel wreaths to senate protocol breaches.
But in the end, all their machinations accomplished nothing. The loss of a populist leader made him a martyr, and actually aggrandized his successor to powers even greater than those granted to the fallen dictator for life. The effort presumably to save the republic was in fact the last nail in its coffin.
Curiously, among the many slanders hurled at Julius Caesar, was the claim that he wanted to be King of Rome. Once in the street, citizens hailed him yelling "Rex! Rex!" ("King! King!"). To which Caesar replied, "I am Caesar, not Rex."
Little did they know that his untimely death would make all of his successors "Caesars" as well as every Czar and Kaiser to follow.
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