ABSTRACT
On the evening of 14 March of the year 44, two of Rome’s palatial aristocratic mansions were filled with important guests at sumptuous dinner parties. At the house of the great patrician Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Caesar’s magister equitum (second-in-command), an exceptionally distinguished group was gathered, including – besides Caesar himself and his closest associates like Oppius and Balbus – the alluring Egyptian queen Cleopatra, Caesar’s friend and co-consul Marcus Antonius, and ironically Decimus Brutus, who was conspiring against Caesar. His position in the state no doubt required Caesar to attend many such dinner parties, though he was not really very much interested in food and drink. Being an extraordinarily busy man, he withdrew somewhat from the general conviviality, and passed the time reviewing state papers with his various secretaries and signing documents. Meanwhile the topic of conversation among the (presumably well-oiled) guests had turned to a discussion of the best kind of death. At this, in one of his disconcerting displays of his ability to fix his attention upon multiple matters at the same time, the seemingly distracted Caesar unexpectedly interposed his view: a sudden and unanticipated death was the most to be desired.1
