section_path: Dictatorship and assassination/Conspiracy and death
section_name: Conspiracy and death
paragraph_text: Conspiracy and death
  
  Attempts in January 44 BC to call Caesar rex (lit. ' king ') – a title associated with arbitrary oppression against citizens – were shut down by two tribunes before a supportive crowd. Caesar, claiming that the two tribunes infringed on his honour by doing so, had them deposed from office and ejected from the Senate. The incident both undermined Caesar's original arguments for pursuing the civil war (protecting the tribunes) and angered a public which still revered the tribunes as protectors of popular freedom. Shortly before 15 February 44 BC, he assumed the dictatorship for life, putting an end to any hopes that his powers would be merely temporary. Transforming his dictatorship, even with a decadal appointment, into one for life clearly showed to all contemporaries that Caesar had no intention to restore a free republic and that no free republic could be restored so long as he was in power.
  
  Just days after his assumption of the life dictatorship, he publicly rejected a diadem from Antony at celebrations for the Lupercalia. Interpretations of the episode vary: he may have been rejecting the diadem publicly only because the crowd was insufficiently supportive; he could have done it performatively to signal he was no monarch; alternatively, Antony could have acted on his own initiative. By this point, however, rumour was rife that Caesar – already wearing the dress of a monarch – sought a formal crown and the episode did little to reassure.
  
  The plan to assassinate Caesar had started by the summer of 45 BC. An attempt to recruit Antony was made around that time, though he declined and gave Caesar no warning. By February 44 BC, there were some sixty conspirators. It is clear that by this time, the victorious Caesarian coalition from the civil war had broken apart. While most of the conspirators were former Pompeians, they were joined by a substantial number of Caesarians. Among their leaders were Gaius Trebonius (consul in 45), Decimus Brutus (consul designate for 42), as well as Cassius and Brutus (both praetors in 44 BC). Trebonius and Decimus had joined Caesar during the war while Brutus and Cassius had joined Pompey; other Caesarians involved included Servius Sulpicius Galba, Lucius Minucius Basilus, Lucius Tullius Cimber, and Gaius Servilius Casca. Many of the conspirators would have been candidates in the consular elections for 43 to 41 BC, likely dismayed by Caesar's sham elections in early 44 BC that produced advance results for the years 43–41 BC. Those electoral results came from the grace of the dictator and not that of the people; for the republican elite this was no substitute for actual popular support. Nor is it likely that the subordination of the normal magistrates to Caesar's masters of horse (Latin: magistri equitum) was appreciated.
  
  Brutus, who claimed descent from the Lucius Junius Brutus who had driven out the kings and the Gaius Servilius Ahala who had freed Rome from incipient tyranny, was the main leader of the conspiracy. By late autumn 45 BC, graffiti and some public comments at Rome were condemning Caesar as a tyrant and insinuating the need for a Brutus to remove the dictator. The ancient sources, excepting Nicolaus of Damascus, are unanimous that this reflected a genuine turn in public opinion against Caesar. Popular indignation at Caesar was likely rooted in his debt policies (too friendly to lenders), use of lethal force to suppress protests for debt relief, his reduction in the grain dole, his abolition of the collegia restored by Clodius, his abolition of the poorest panel of jurors in the permanent courts, and his abolition of open elections which deprived the people of their ancient right of decision. A popular turn against Caesar is also observed with reports that the two deposed tribunes were written-in on ballots at Caesar's advance consular elections in place of Caesar's candidates. Whether there was a tradition of tyrannicide at Rome is unclear: Cicero wrote in private as if the duty to kill tyrants was already given; he, however, made no public speeches to that effect and there is little evidence that the public accepted the logic of preventive tyrannicide. The philosophical tradition of the Platonic Old Academy was also a factor driving Brutus to action due to its emphasis on a duty to free the state from tyranny.
  
  While some news of the conspiracy did leak, Caesar refused to take precautions and rejected escort by a bodyguard. The date decided upon by the conspirators was 15 March, the Ides of March, three days before Caesar intended to leave for his Parthian campaign. News of his imminent departure forced the conspirators to move up their plans; the Senate meeting on the 15th would be the last before his departure. They had decided that a Senate meeting was the best place to frame the killing as political, rejecting the alternatives at games, elections, or on the road. That only the conspirators would be armed at the Senate meeting, per Dio, also would have been an advantage. The day, 15 March, was also symbolically important as it was the day on which consuls took office until the mid-2nd century BC.
  
  Various stories purport that Caesar was on the cusp of not attending or otherwise being warned about the plot. Approached on his golden chair at the foot of the statue of Pompey, the conspirators attacked him with daggers. Whether he fell in silence, per Suetonius, or after reply to Brutus' appearance – kai su teknon? ("you too, child?") – is variantly recorded. He was stabbed at least twenty-three times and died at once.