Brutus the Tyrannicide · Philosopher Turned Assassin
Rome, March 15, 44 BCE Marcus Junius Brutus walked to the Senate meeting with a dagger concealed beneath his toga. He was forty years old,…
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The Rubicon · Caesar’s Point of No Return
Northern Italy, January 10, 49 BCE The Rubicon was barely a river. More stream than barrier, shallow enough to wade across, narrow enough that the…
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Pompey the Great · How Rome’s Greatest General Lost Everything
Egypt, September 28, 48 BCE The ship anchored off Pelusium, Egypt. From the deck, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus watched a small boat row out from shore….
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The Catiline Conspiracy · When Cicero Saved Rome with Words and Blood
Rome, November 8, 63 BCE The Senate gathered before dawn in the Temple of Jupiter Stater. Not their usual meeting place. The normal Senate house…
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Memento Mori in the Ancient World · Plague, War, and the Shortness of Life
Rome, 166 CE The smoke rose from the pyres day and night. Bodies wrapped in linen lined the streets near the Esquiline Gate, waiting their…
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Cato the Younger · The Last Roman Republican’s Stand Against Caesar
Utica, 46 BCE The war was over. At Thapsus, Caesar had crushed the last resistance of the republicans. In North Africa, his legions marched with…
