THE DEATH OF CAESAR tells a familiar tale, but it does three valuable things in addition to that. First, author and classicist Barry Strauss takes the time to put the characters of the assassination into their political context. Roman politics are not that different from our own, perhaps, but they operated on principles of gravitas and dignitas that have not prevailed in the United States since the early days of the Republic. What happened to Caesar on the Ides of March occurred for a variety of reasons, depending on the individual conspirators, and Strauss does a thorough job of explicating the conflicts and fault lines of Roman politics. He weaves in the short-term rationales for the assassination together with the bloody history of dictatorships and civil wars that caused the Senate to fear Caesar’s ambition.

Secondly, Strauss does a remarkable job of walking the reader through the tumultuous days following the assassination, leading up to the formation of the Second Triumvirate. The conspirators planned well enough to kill Caesar, but not well enough to save the Republic. Without significant military backing, Brutus and Cassius and their compatriots could not secure their position or take effective steps to neutralize Antony or Octavian. This led to a series of political moves and countermoves that most histories gloss over. THE DEATH OF CAESAR does a superb job of describing and discussing the aftermath of the assassination from the perspectives of Caesar’s friends and foes.

"Strauss handles the actual action of the assassination with aplomb, even though it’s a familiar tale. But it’s the part of the story that sets up the assassination and the aftermath that mark THE DEATH OF CAESAR as an impressive and necessary work."

But the most refreshing thing that Strauss does in THE DEATH OF CAESAR is to show a remarkable degree of discernment with regard to the available sources. Just for the sake of comparison, the Warren Commission interviewed over 500 witnesses and more than 3,000 exhibits, and you can still find lots of people who don’t think that it’s comprehensive or accurate. As Strauss explains, there simply aren’t any reliable eyewitness reports that have survived. The reports that do exist either have prejudices that can’t be discounted (such as the account of Cicero, who was obviously biased and wasn’t actually there) or are writing years after the fact (such as Suetonius, who wasn’t born for another century). Strauss pairs what we know from the ancient sources with a rational assessment of how and why the sources differ.

What’s left is necessarily subject to a good bit of conjecture. For example, Strauss takes care to point out the likely role that the spouses of Brutus, Antony and Caesar played in the story of the assassination, but without any evidence as to what they did or how they felt, it’s difficult to adequately appreciate their impact. Strauss openly wishes that he was a fly on the wall at one of Brutus’ dinners after the assassination. (He also delights in pointing out the inaccuracies of Shakespeare, who, of course, was not above improving the story to make it more dramatic.)

Although there are uncertainties and contradictions in the assassination narrative, there is also a good part of what happened that can be inferred from the historical record. While we may never know for sure which conspirator inflicted which wound on Caesar’s body, we do know a great deal about what Roman daggers were like. Strauss fills in the spaces of the narrative with digressions on weaponry and other factors, which are usually fascinating but somewhat distracting with respect to the narrative.

Strauss handles the actual action of the assassination with aplomb, even though it’s a familiar tale. But it’s the part of the story that sets up the assassination and the aftermath that mark THE DEATH OF CAESAR as an impressive and necessary work.