Communications Manager Kyla Merwin Recommends The Final Days of Julius Caesar produced by The Great Courses.
“Beware the Ides of March,” warned the seer Spurinna to Rome’s most powerful man, Gaius Julius Caesar.
On that day of foreboding, March 15, 44 BCE, one of the most infamous assassinations in world history would take place.
To set the stage, narrator Robert Garland takes us first, with passion and aplomb, to another pivotal day in Roman history in January 49 BCE, when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in northern Italy with his 13th Legion.
Alea iacta est, he declared at the river’s edge. “The die is cast.” This saying has resonated through the centuries to signify the passing of a point of no return.
In bringing a standing army across this border, Caesar triggered a civil war, his own forthcoming appointment as Rome’s Dictator for Life, and the ultimate fall of the Roman Republic.
From these ashes, Caesar left a trail of destruction—and a growing resentment among Rome’s political elite.
From there, the story races toward March 15, 44 BCE—a day of schemes, blood, and blunders.
Strolling into the Senate, some five hours late, Caesar spotted the seer Spurinna, and said, “The Ides of March are come.” To which the seer responded, “But they are not yet gone.”
I’ll leave the grisly details (including twenty-three stab wounds), Caesar’s true final words (not et tu Brute?), and Marc Antony’s revenge, for you to discover in The Final Days of Julius Caesar. This eleventh episode of Living History: Experiencing Great Events of the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, is only twenty-nine minutes long but packed with gripping detail and imagery.
It is ultimately a story of hubris, betrayal, and ambition—and the reminder captured in a phrase often associated with Roman triumphs: memento mori.
Remember: you are mortal.
Watch The Final Days of Julius Caesar on Kanopy, free with your library card, here.
