Caesar Lives

On the Ides of March (March 15; see Roman calendar) of 44 BC, a group of senators called Caesar to the forum for the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate. However, the petition was a fake. Mark Antony, having vaguely learned of the plot the night before from a terrified Liberator named Servilius Casca, and fearing the worst, headed Caesar off before he left for the forum. Once there a group of senators intercepted Caesar just as he was passing the Theatre of Pompey, located in the Campus Martius, and directed him to a room adjoining the east portico.

As Caesar began to read the false petition, Tillius Cimber, who had handed him the petition, made a grab for Caesers tunic. According to Eutropius, around sixty or more men participated in the attempted assassination. Caeser was stabbed 23 times. According to Suetonius, a physician later established that only one wound, the second one to his chest, had been lethal.[106]