He was elected consul in 46 BCE, and then again in 45 BCE, this last time without a co-consul. By 45 BCE, Caesar was the undisputed master of Rome, and he pursued reforms that strengthened his own power. He provided land pensions for his soldiers, restructured the debts of a huge percentage of Rome's debtors, and also changed the calendar to make it look more like the one we use today. 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.