Giulio Cesare - Grandi Delitti nella Storia


Author: Barbara Biscotti
Rating: 4/5

This one was not a surprise, I am a huge fan of Caesar (although I haven’t read any monographs yet) and wanting to know more about the circumstances around the famous dictator’s death was only natural to me.

The books provides a detailed account about the events that led up and constituted what is the most famous assassination in History (and there’s little doubt about that).

The author, using the outline that has characterized this series about famous murders, first presents the backstory of the murder itself answering questions such as:

Then, it tries to reconstruct what materially happened in the Curia di Pompey on the fated 15 of march 44 BC (including the 23 stab wounds and complete with the orders of the blows, as the ancient sources have passed on over the tides of time).

Finally, it presents a through picture of both the character of Caesar and the profile of his material killers (in the figures of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassus Longinus because listing the 50ish senators that, with various degrees of culpability, were part of the plot would be demanding).

I am not going to lie, I really enjoyed the book; probably my judgment is influenced by the fact that I am a long time admirer of the titular character, but nonetheless it is another book that I recommend, especially if you want to know more about the death throes of the Roman Republic.

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