What happened to Julius Caesar's assassins?

On the morning of March 15, 44 BCE, known as the Ides of March, Julius Caesar made his way to a meeting of the Senate.

Ignoring the pleas of his wife, Calpurnia, who had dreamt of his death, Caesar was confident in his position as dictator perpetuo, or dictator for life, which he had secured recently.

The Senate convened at the Theatre of Pompey rather than the usual Senate house, an odd choice that held symbolic weight, as it was the place of his old rival Pompey’s greatest achievements. 

As Caesar entered the Senate, a group of conspirators numbering over sixty, had been plotting his murder in secret.

Among them were key figures such as Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, both former allies of Caesar who had grown disillusioned with his rule.

Cassius was a bitter and ambitious man who harbored deep resentment toward Caesar’s rise.

He believed Caesar aimed to destroy the Republic and crown himself king, which would end Rome’s centuries-old tradition of semi-democratic rule.

Brutus, in comparison, was more conflicted: while he held personal loyalty to Caesar, he saw the assassination as a personal duty to Rome.

His family’s legacy as defenders of the Republic weighed heavily on him. 

Once Caesar took his seat, the plot unfolded swiftly. The conspirators surrounded him under the guise of presenting petitions.

Tillius Cimber approached first, grabbing Caesar’s toga as a signal for the others to strike.

The first blow came from Casca, which was clumsy and barely wounded Caesar.

Shocked, Caesar attempted to defend himself, but the conspirators overwhelmed him.

Each assassin stabbed him in a frenzy of violence. His bloodied body fell at the base of a statue of Pompey, a final, grim irony. 

By the end, Caesar had suffered twenty-three wounds, many delivered after he was already dead.

The assassins were excited, as they were convinced that they had saved Rome from tyranny.

In fact, they left his lifeless body in the Senate chamber. However, they had seriously miscalculated the consequences of their actions. 

Immediately after Caesar’s assassination, the conspirators, still believing their act would be celebrated as the salvation of the Republic, were met with silence.

Fear rippled through the city and the Roman people, shocked by the sudden murder of their leader, did not openly support of the assassins.

Instead, rumors of unrest began spreading, and the crowd's mood darkened. Many feared that the death of Caesar, who had held Rome together during times of civil war, would plunge the city into chaos once again. 

In the Senate, the atmosphere was equally tense. Many senators had been unaware of the plot, and some fled in panic, uncertain of their own safety.

Antony, who had been Caesar’s close ally, quickly saw the danger posed by the power vacuum and positioned himself as the key figure in the ensuing political battle.

By calming the initial chaos, Antony aimed to keep control by overseeing the funeral of Caesar. 

When Caesar’s will was read aloud a few days after the assassination, it was announced that the murdered leader had left a large sum of money to each Roman citizen.

His will also named his grandnephew, Octavian, as his heir. This revelation shocked many, including the conspirators, who had hoped the death of Caesar would extinguish his political legacy.

Instead, it strengthened his position in death. Octavian, who was only eighteen at the time, would soon arrive in Rome to claim his inheritance. 

Tensions between the different factions began escalating rapidly. The Roman populace demanded justice.

Antony used the public’s anger to his advantage. During Caesar’s funeral, he delivered a passionate speech that ignited the crowd.

He held up Caesar’s bloodstained toga, pointing out the marks of each stab wound, and called the assassins traitors.

This swayed the crowd, which erupted into violent riots. The homes of Brutus and Cassius were attacked, and the conspirators, sensing that they had misjudged the people’s loyalty to Caesar, were forced to flee Rome. 

In light of the growing unrest in Rome, Octavian, Mark Antony, and a third leader named Lepidus recognized that their only path to power lay in joining forces.

They shared a common goal: eliminating the assassins and seizing control of the fractured Republic.

In 43 BCE, these three powerful figures formed the Second Triumvirate, an official political alliance granted extraordinary powers for a five-year term.

This alliance was sanctioned by the Lex Titia, which gave them unprecedented control over Rome’s military and political machinery. 

One of their first decisive actions came with the proscriptions, a purge that saw hundreds of Rome’s wealthiest and most influential citizens executed or exiled.

This allowed the triumvirs to eliminate opposition and seize the fortunes of those they deemed enemies of the state.

In fact, the Triumvirate issued death warrants for anyone suspected of sympathizing with the assassins, which led to widespread fear and violence throughout the city.

Prominent figures such as Cicero, who had openly supported the assassination, were among the victims.

His brutal execution sent a clear message: anyone standing against the Triumvirate would face destruction.

Furthermore, the Triumvirate declared war on Brutus and Cassius.  

In October 42 BCE, the forces of Brutus and Cassius faced their reckoning on the plains of Philippi.

After fleeing Rome, they had built a substantial army in the east, gathering support from those who wished to see the Republic restored.

Brutus commanded the right flank, while Cassius led the left, their combined forces numbering around 100,000 troops.

Across the battlefield, the armies of the Second Triumvirate, led by Mark Antony and Octavian, waited. 

On October 3, the first engagement took place. Antony, an experienced general, led a direct assault on Cassius’s forces, who were positioned on a ridge.

His aggressive attack quickly overran Cassius’s left wing, which was poorly fortified.

Cassius, witnessing the collapse of his lines and unable to see beyond the confusion of battle, believed his army had been annihilated.

In despair, Cassius ordered his freedman to kill him. His death came too soon. In truth, Brutus’s forces had been successful in their initial skirmishes, even breaching Octavian’s camp.

However, the lack of coordination between Brutus and Cassius doomed them, leaving Brutus to face the future without his most trusted ally. 

Regardless, Brutus reorganized his army and prepared for a second battle later in October. By this time, the morale of his troops had begun to waver.

On October 23, the final, decisive engagement took place. Antony once again led the charge, this time with the full weight of the Triumvirate’s forces.

Brutus fought bravely, but his army, now outnumbered and outmaneuvered, began to break.

His men, unable to withstand the relentless assault, retreated in disarray. The battle was lost. 

As the remnants of his army fled, Brutus understood that defeat was final.

Refusing to be captured, he found a small group of loyal officers and asked them to assist him in ending his life.

One of them, Strato, reluctantly agreed. With his sword held steady, Brutus ran upon it, ending his life as the Republic he had fought for crumbled around him.

Following their deaths, the surviving assassins scattered or surrendered. 

Other conspirators, such as Decimus Brutus, Gaius Trebonius, and those who had played lesser roles in the plot, were relentlessly pursued by the forces of Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus.

Decimus Brutus, who was a distant relative of Marcus Brutus, had been a trusted lieutenant of Caesar, yet he betrayed him on the Ides of March.

After the assassination, Decimus attempted to flee north to rally support in Gaul, which he had governed.

However, in 43 BCE, Decimus was abandoned by his troops, captured, and executed by a Gallic chieftain loyal to Antony.

His head was sent back to Rome as proof of his death. 

Gaius Trebonius had a different but equally tragic fate. He had been one of Caesar’s former generals and had helped lure Mark Antony away from Caesar on the day of the assassination, which was designed to ensure that the dictator was alone when the attack took place.

After Caesar’s death, Trebonius fled to Asia, where he hoped to regroup. In 43 BCE, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, a supporter of the Triumvirate, captured Trebonius in Smyrna.

Dolabella ordered that Trebonius be tortured and then killed. His head, too, was sent back to Rome as a symbol of the Triumvirate’s dominance. 

Several other lesser-known conspirators met similar fates. Quintus Ligarius, who had participated in the plot, was hunted down and executed after trying to evade capture.

Lucius Tillius Cimber, the man who had signaled the start of Caesar’s assassination by pulling his toga, while he managed to escape immediate capture, his fate remains unclear in the historical record.

It is likely that he was killed or driven into exile during the purge that followed the Triumvirate’s victory at Philippi.