Why was Julius Caesar killed and the Roman Republic fell? 

Why was Julius Caesar killed and the Roman Republic fell? 

The great Spanish bestseller of the ancient world has just published 'Roma Betrayed' (La Esfera) and writes below exclusively for El Confidencial

In the biographies of the rulers of Antiquity, it is easy to find all kinds of portents before or after their death. In the case of Julius Caesar, it seems inevitable that the general and politician who had been a larger-than-life character was also larger than death. The signs that followed his assassination on the Ides of March 44 BC were as inordinate as his ambition had been: a comet arrival and a volcano eruption, no less. Although contemporaries gave more importance to the first phenomenon, it was the second, which many did not even know about, that really influenced their lives. And not for the better.

Beginning with the astronomical wonder, what would be known as Caesar's comet appeared in the second half of July 44 BC. By opportune coincidence, games in honor of the late dictator sponsored by his heir, Octavio, were being held at the same time. He was so impressed by that cosmic coincidence that years later he wrote in his autobiography: "At the same time as my games, a comet was seen in the northern region of the sky for seven days. It rose around the eleventh hour and could be seen clearly from all the lands. People believed that this star meant that Caesar's soul had been received among the numina of the immortal gods., in whose name this badge was added to the statue of his head that shortly after we consecrated in the Forum". (Quoted by Pliny, NH 2.94).

The eleventh hour at which the comet became visible—' sides crinum or 'maned star' in the original text, referring to its long tail—was the penultimate hour before nightfall, since the twelve hours when the Romans divided the day began to be counted at dawn and ended at sunset. The fact that the wandering star was sighted before sunset indicates that its brightness must have been very intense, similar to that of Venus, with a magnitude of -4.0.

Caesar's young heir managed to convince many people that that comet was a benign sign, and even assured that he was born on the comet, 'sequel in eo fascia. Taking the opportunity to promote his adoptive father and, by the way, himself, he did not limit himself to consecrating a statue in the Forum, but he had coins minted in which that star appeared .

In general, and despite Octavio's positive interpretation, comets were considered heralds of disasters and not of blessings. An Etruscan soothsayer named Vulcanio predicted that this one in particular marked the end of the ninth era and the beginning of the tenth, which would be the last of his people. Indeed, Etruscan culture had been in a long, sweet decline for a long time, but its imprint lasted long enough for Emperor Claudius to write a twenty-volume history of the Etruscans. Why was Caesar assassinated?

volcano

Had it been true that the comet heralded an end, it would in all respects have been that of the Republic itself. This succumbed after a series of civil wars, whose calamities were exacerbated by the second phenomenon we have mentioned, the volcanic eruption.

Curiously, that eruption does not appear in Julio Obsecuente 's Book of Prodigies, a compilation of portents extracted year by year from the work of Tito Livio that does mention the comet. Instead, in that book we find described a strange event that occurred in 44 BC: "Three suns shone, and around the lowest sun a halo resembling a spike shone in a circle, and then, when the sun was reduced to an only disc, its light was dim for many months" (Book of Wonders 68).

It is not the only source that mentions this solar halo. According to Suetonius, a few months before the comet's appearance, when Octavian "returned from Apollonia after the assassination of Caesar and entered Rome, a rainbow-like circle encircled the sun, though the sky was still and clear" (Suetonius, Augustus 95) .

A rainbow-like circle surrounded the sun even though the sky was calm and clear

This is corroborated by Seneca in 'Cuestiones naturals 1.2.1, specifying that this phenomenon showed varied colors in the manner of the rainbow. The difference with this one was that it drew a complete circumference, similar to the halo that completely surrounds the moon when there are high and thin clouds formed by ice crystals. What made the spectacle of the spring of 44 BC surprising was that it could be seen in broad daylight and with a clear sky .

 

That peculiar halo was not an isolated event. At that time the sun itself seemed to behave in an abnormal way that caused great concern among people. Remembering him, the poet Virgil would write: "He [the sun] is also the one who, when Caesar was extinguished, took pity on Rome, covering his brilliant head with dark rust and causing an impious generation to fear an eternal night."

It could not be considered pity for the sun, since that darkening affected the crops, as explained by Plutarch (Caesar 69): "During that whole year [44 BC], the solar disc was dull and dull. The heat it radiated was weak and scarce, so the air was dark and heavy from the weakness of the heat that passed through it. The fruits, half ripe, withered and withered because of the coldness of the atmosphere."

Actually, the explanation for that strange darkening of the sky was not in the sun itself, one hundred and fifty million kilometers away, but much closer to Rome, on the island of Sicily.

fire balloons

The cause was none other than the Etna volcano . Following the same passage in which he speaks of the "dark rust", Virgil adds: "How many times have we contemplated Etna overflowing with fire and smoke, its furnaces open, boiling over the fields of the Cyclops and rolling balloons of fire and molten rocks!"

Commenting on those same verses, a scholar named Servio quoted a text by the historian Tito Livio: "It is a bad omen every time Etna, a mountain in Sicily, spews balls of flame instead of smoke. And, as Livio says, before Caesar's death sprang so much fire from Mount Etna that not only the neighboring cities but also Reggio, which is a long way away, suffered its effects".

Etna was already a very active volcano in Antiquity, unlike Vesuvius, whose true nature was hidden from the people who lived in the vicinity until the eruption that in AD 79 destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Now, is it true that Mount Etna erupted in the same year as Caesar's death?