But by 44 BCE, many senators had decided that Caesar controlled too much of the power in Rome, and so they stabbed him 23 times on the floor of the Roman Senate. Caesar was duly surprised about this and everything, but he never said et tu, Brute, when he realized Brutus was one of the co-conspirators. That was an invention of Shakespeare. The conspirators thought the death of Caesar would bring about the restoration of the Roman Republic, and they were wrong. For one thing, Caesar's reforms were really popular with the Roman people, who were quick to hail his adopted son Octavian, as well as his second-in-command, Mark, I am the wrong horse Antony, and a dude named Lepidus, as a second triumvirate. This triumvirate was an awesome failure, degenerating into a second civil war. Octavian and Antony fought it out, Antony being the wrong horse lost.