In a dying republic, what is bravery? Is it to fight to the very end, until the last breath of democracy is eased out? What if you have no role in statecraft, no role in this virtuous republic, would you still fight? Against the Titans of Rome, in a dying republic, Hortensia, daughter of the great statesman and speaker Quintus Hortensius, walked into the lion's den of the neverending death spiral of the Roman Republic. She would be arguing against the son of a Roman God in the future Augustus Caesar [1], Mark Antony, and the Pontifex Maximus of Rome Lepidus. The Pontifex Maximus is a position today called the Pope [2], however, it's a little more complicated than that. Of course though, Pontifex Maximus meant chief religious officer of Rome, an elected position in the Roman Republic, an appointed one in the empire. The Pope itself is not in the same organization as the Roman Republic, considering it collapsed 2000+ years ago but there is a direct lineage between the two. All that aside, in order to talk about Hortensia’s brilliance, we must first talk about the men she was facing. There is no shortcut around these 3 men, but that’s what makes it all the more impressive and incredible, how she dueled with them in the public square and won.
But I want to emphasize the sheer and utter political, religious, and military power that one woman, Hortensia, would be facing, spearheaded by three men, Lepidus, Antony, and Augustus*. I’ve already gotten into Lepidus a bit, he has been mostly forgotten to history but was an extremely competent albeit unpopular general [4], who served under Julius Caesar’s dictatorship as master of the horse or number 2. He replaced the fired Mark Antony, and did so practically flawlessly. Even after his eventual defeat in said power struggle to Augustus, he was allowed to keep the head religious officer of Rome even though Caesar literally had it in his will that Augustus should get it [5], and lived a life of luxury in semi exile. The only other man who lost as much as he did and ended up in a great position was Tiberius, who was Augustus’s 8th choice in the imperial line to replace him as Princeps or Emperor [6]. To summarize in order to be allowed to lose as Lepidus did, you must first win at an extremely impressive rate, and be respected by all. Lepidus was an extremely competent man, even in a time of extremely competent leaders, and he was for the time the 2nd most powerful person in the 2nd Triumvirate [7] behind only Antony. The 19 year old Augustus was 3rd most powerful, but things would change.
Mark Antony was a lightning rod of controversy and general insanity in his time, this has not changed even today. He was perhaps the personification of the proverb “May you live in interesting times” [8]. At several points in his life, he abandoned his children to his arch enemy's sister (his 4th wife Octavia the Younger, Augustus’s sister) [9], Augustus never even considered leveraging them because he knew Antony did not care at all. In 42 BCE he had not even truly begun his complete and utter just main character syndrome, but at this point in his life at age 41 he had been married twice or three times with an unknown number of children, but at least four[10]. He had served under Julius Caesar in Gaul, commanding the Roman cavalry in the legendary Battle of Alesia in which the Romans were outnumbered at least three to one, and besieged on two sides. He was then promoted by Caesar to a legate with two legions under his command. After the conquest of Gaul, he was appointed to the college of Augurs as a Roman priest, and elected Tribune of the Plebs, an extremely powerful position that could veto legislation in the Roman senate. He was directly responsible for helping to interpret the will of the gods by watching the flights of birds [11]. He was sent to Rome as Caesar’s main representative to try and stop a civil war from erupting, was almost assassinated leading to said civil war as Caesar was stripped of his office and his legions as the senate demanded he return to Rome on trial for war crimes. Caesar would return to Rome, with his legions just not in the way the senate had hoped and Antony on the march to civil war was promoted to number two of Caesar. In the first act of the civil war he engaged in a naval campaign against the Pompeins and Lucius Scribonius Libo tricking them and smashing their fleet [12]. Only then was he able to join Caesar in Greece, with Antony's support and legions, Caesar was able to defeat Pompey, the man called the next Alexander the Great [13] in an equally legendary battle of Battle of Pharsalus outnumbered two to one He then returned to Rome, and was appointed Master of the Horse under the now Dictator Caesar (Dictator was an office in the Roman Republic, it was meant as a temporary position to deal with massive threats, using it in a massive civil war or Hannibal marching on Rome was a good idea [14]) and was left behind to keep Italy in check. He was appointed by Caesar to not mess things up in Italy while he had to go Hadrian style hopping around Rome’s provinces to put out fires everywhere, and fight further in the civil war. All Antony had to do was not fuck shit up in Italy. He then proceeded to fuck shit up in Italy. As Caesar was besieged in Alexandria with his new Mistress Cleopatra [15] Antony was basically head of the Roman state, and as head of the Roman state he deliberately allowed a riot to spiral out of control, then sent the Roman army to kill hundreds of people [16]. He openly threatened members of the Senate including Cicero saying he would display his severed head and hands in the Roman forum. He tried to parade around Rome in a chariot pulled by Lions;he had allowed Rome to fall into a state of total and complete anarchy. Rome had survived at this point 3 military occupations by Sulla twice and by Caesar, there were mass killings before, mass killings would follow, but even during the great fire of Rome never before or since has there been such chaos in the imperial city. It was all due to Antony’s ego and mismanagement, he was then fired by Caesar when he returned from Egypt. But Caesar, in his dual insanity, allowed Antony, now just a private citizen, to lead Romans in battle as he tried to extinguish lingering flames from his civil war and allowed him back into his court. During his temporary rift with Caesar a senator approached him asking if he wanted to help assassinate him, Antony declined. Antony then met with Caesar on the road back to Rome, reconciled in the long journey, but did not tell him that a conspiracy to assassinate him had almost gone through. We have no idea Antony’s motives here. It is both possible that he didn’t want to tell Caesar because he was bitter about their rift, he may have been worried that Caesar would react negatively, or the likeliest of scenarios he was such an idiot he did not consider to even tell Caesar about such a plot because it had fallen through [17]. But nevertheless he would be elected in 44 BCE to serve as a Consul with Caesar, as Caesar had been appointed dictator for life not needing the Consulship as much as Antony did to govern, as he would soon be campaigning in Parthia to wipe the Roman slate clean after the disastrous campaign by his former ally Crassus. Caesar would never reach Parthia, his dictatorship for life was the shortest appointment he ironically had. But before that Mark on the Roman holiday Lupercalia, as a religious officer just like Caesar, presented a Diadem in front of a crowd of shocked Romans [18]. Caesar rejected it, but it was at this moment his fate was sealed, no Roman would ever bow to a king, not Caesar at least. He would a month later be killed, quite famously on the Ides of March. In the immediate aftermath of Caesar’s assassination Antony fled the city, but would return and pushed Lepidus and the conspirators towards a peaceful solution. The compromise in essence was while not state sanctioned, the murder of Caesar would be allowed and those who did it pardoned, in exchange for all of his official acts being ratified. The situation was tense, Lepidus had 6000 men outside Rome that could have stormed the city and murdered thousands, but Antony and Cicero who hated one another, formed an unholy alliance to keep the peace even though it disgusted Cicero to ratify Caesar’s insane number of illegal actions [19]. For this Cicero would be remembered immortally as a savior of Rome, and in the greatest irony a legitimacy of Caesar and those who would follow him. Antony, on the other hand, immediately ruined this moment.
I will take a brief pause from this to return to Hortensia, who I do promise we will talk about for a great deal. I just must show the general level of insanity and leadership drain in Rome at the time, was specifically generally insane even for a Roman civil war. There is absolutely not a single shred of evidence in existence that Hortensia would have acted at all in this situation, but the 2nd Triumvirate which was about to form drove such a level of true and utter chaos Hortensia felt compelled to act. If she felt compelled to act it is only because of the chaos Antony, Lepidus, and Augustus would compel Rome into. It is directly because of these 3 mens power struggle that Italy would be thrown for the first time in a generation into such a chaotic state, that the Women of Rome became the final line of defense, never before had it happened in the Roman Republic, and never since. Mark Antony in a very direct way, is responsible for Hortensia’s actions because he threw everything into such a chaotic state there was simply no one left to act but her.
Let us now continue with the Insanity of Mark Antony. First he stole the Pontifex Maximus and gave it to Lepidus so he wouldn’t attempt to murder him immediately to seize power, then he gave a speech at Caesar’s funeral [20]. Shakespeare has affected pop culture and history in a way that made this speech into something incredible. “Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears' ' [21] is a masterful speech that I encourage you to watch or listen to, the writing is truly fantastic. However it is a fiction, at Caesar's funeral, Antony’s exact words are lost, but he immediately threatened those who he had just made a deal with in Brutus and Cassius, he grabbed the bloody garment from Caesar and showed the crowd where he had been pierced. He then proceeded to move the crowd into such a frenzy they started to burn the city, it became a total event of collective madness [22]. He would manage to screw the situation up in Rome so quickly and insanely, the senate and politicians would turn to the 19 year old Augustus to try and save them. It is at this point Antony plunged Rome into a conservative estimate of a 7 sided civil war [23], which is just so maddeningly confusing that we just can’t get into it, managing to be defeated by a massive Roman senatorial army but killing both opposing Consuls, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat at the battle of Mutina[27], which has Augustus allied with Decimus Junius Brutus a man who helped kill his dad. Antony had managed to create so many enemies, they were unable to effectively fight him at the same time.
It is at this point the 3 men, Lepidus, Augustus, and Antony came to a shared realization that fighting in this convoluted civil war would hand victory to Brutus and Cassius who were unrivaled in the rich Roman east. Not only that but the Roman senate was attempting to stab Augustus in the back as he had marched on Rome rather recently as well, if they continued fighting like this, they would surely be destroyed. And thus the 2nd Triumvirate was formed.
The first Triumvirate was an informal 3 sided power sharing agreement between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. The 2nd Triumvirate had the full force of Roman law [29], with 5 year terms for each partner, Augustus would have Africa as the junior partner to both Lepidus and Antony. Antony Gaul, as he had conquered it, and Lepidus Spain. They would jointly rule Italy, the Republic was officially dead. I wish to stress that this was probably Mark Antony’s more normal moments, his career would only get stranger, and more insane. He is truly just something else entirely.
The power of a name
Augustus Caesar would have something far more powerful than any army, he had his new last name, Caesar. He was 19 years old, he had marched a private army into Rome triggering a civil war [30] but that didn’t matter anymore. He was young, reckless, he would soon drive Italy itself into a massive famine, he would in his pre Augustus days rule incompetently, and violently. But that didn’t matter either. He had Caesar as his name, his dad was Deified [31] as a Roman god, he was small now but would soon grow into a giant of Rome, the Giant of Rome. He would be written into the Bible, his soon adopted name would be the title of which an emperor retained, you were an Augustus or if you were a junior Emperor a Caesar [32]. He would leave Rome a city of Marble one day, but for now he was 19, he was there but mostly restrained. Lepidus and Antony were running the show for now, but Augustus had a dark side, he was just as ruthless as Antony and Lepidus, he was more bloodthirsty than his father by far and away. Caesar had pardoned his enemies, he had lived through Sulla’s purges [33], he did not wish to kill his enemies. This however enraged his enemies even further, for in a Republic you kill traitors, only a king pardons his enemies, so they killed him. Augustus would not make that mistake. And so the 2nd Triumvirate wrote a list of enemies, of potential future rivals, just rich people and Proscribed them [34]. The act of proscribing was quite horrific, it immediately stripped said person of Roman citizenship, and condemned them to death. To help someone who was proscribed was a death penalty offense, if you captured or killed said person who was proscribed, you were entitled to a share of their wealth, this turned a generation of murderers into some of the richest men in Roman society. The 2nd Triumvirate needed money, they had to go and fight Brutus and Cassius in what would be the largest battle in Roman history, so they targeted people with money who had done nothing wrong to be murdered so they could rob them. And then they purged the political class of Rome, so they could pack the senate forever ending what little of what was left of a Republic in Rome, even Cicero was not safe. His severed head was displayed along with his hands, as Antony’s revenge for the Philippicae [35], a series of speeches he made against Antony to try and save the Republic. Augustus, who had been calling Cicero privately father, let it happen. Rome had fallen into an era of darkness.
Now I have taken you on this incredibly long journey because you need to understand what Hortensia was facing. 3 men had just strangled the Roman Republic, openly, after warring with each other, and had only stopped to war with others. Anyone who stood against them, who had the misfortune of being rich at a bad time, anyone who could have been a threat was publicly and brutally murdered. Trying to talk to one of the 2nd Triumvirate could be actual suicide, to speak out against them your head would be severed and nailed to the Forumn, Hortensia didn’t just do that she did it to their face. She would openly, publicly, as a woman who was barred from the Republic in every single way, that was actively being murdered in front of everyone defy these men. That is a level of bravery that is just unimaginable, unthinkable, completely insane, but she would do it.
The political climate of the time
In 42 BCE the Roman political climate as best I can describe it was the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin. Things had already been extremely bad, a Pro-Consul named Julius Caesar had plunged Rome into a civil war that had been hot for a year 49-48 BCE [36], then for the next 4 had been constantly at war with Rome’s enemies, and internal rebellions. Rome had calmed to
the point that there were now only 3 current factions engaged in a civil war, the 2nd Triumvirate, Brutus and Cassius, and of course the Boat King Sextus Pompey. Unfortunately the Boat king is for another time, but in Rome at the moment there was an aura of just death, and terror. The civil wars would not really stop until the final defeat of Antony 12 years later, ever since Caesar had crossed the Rubicon Italy and Rome had been engulfed in a level of terror not seen since Hannibal. The worst part was that it was Romans doing it to themselves, it wasn’t a son avenging his fathers death like Hannibal, it wasn’t a Gothic sack, it was Romans killing other Romans brutally. There is nothing more Roman than attacking other Romans, but for the time this was still shocking, which is why a purge was necessary. The pr situation had to be controlled, and if you kill your enemies they can’t really complain anymore. With a truly genius strategy of killing everyone you dislike, the 2nd Triumvirate seeked to raise funds. They had to pay for the largest Roman army on earth, and unlike Brutus and Cassius were not in the extremely wealthy East, they had the West which had been more or less on fire for a while now.
In the process of killing so many rich men, several female aristocrats suddenly were free to do as they pleased. Some of course were murdered with their husbands to more effectively steal their riches, but Women were seen as such property that there wasn’t really a need to kill them at times. If you stole someone's house, you wouldn’t kill their dog, you would keep them. Of course said situation would be somewhat awkward, the number of women who were forced into relationships with their husbands killers was low, but not 0. Wealthy women in Rome weren’t really property of their husbands, they were property of their families [37]. Dynastic politics in the Roman Republic was based significantly on familial ties, it was how you got your career started. There were only like a few names that Romans would have, enraging me to this day [38]. You wouldn’t be addressed by your first name, there were just too many people who shared names. If you were writing to a specific person, you could use it but that’s slightly different. The name of your family though, would always be said, if you were of course in high enough standing for it to matter. If your name was Gaius Drussus Nero Constantius, you would probably
be addressed as Gaius Constantius, or Constantius [39]. If you were a member of the powerful Juilia family, and a Woman you would be called Julia. If you had siblings, you would be called Julia Major if older, Julia Minor if younger. However, as rich families could afford to keep their kids alive more and more, you would sometimes get a first name. The very powerful families that seeked to use Women as chips in alliances for marriage during this time would sometimes give their daughters the family name and their fathers name. The daughter of the Dictator Sulla would be named Cornelia Sulla after her dads official Lucius Cornelius Sulla [41]. So the aristocratic classes of Women were given 2 names, one from their dad, the other from their family, less powerful families just gave Women their family name. This of course then would immediately change in the empire, which drives me further insane. So Hortensia, is not short for anything, Hortensia was literally given her name from her dad Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, and that's it. She was not a member of a truly powerful family, on paper she was considered to be nothing more than an extension of her family, property of her clan, but it is from this disadvantage that she pounced.
Women's Role in the Republic:
None! Women were citizens of Rome but had none of the voting benefits, none of the education, none of the responsibilities, and as such were not a threat to anyone unless they were truly extraordinary. Meaning if you killed enough male family members of a Roman woman, their name could literally cease with them unless they married into another family. They were wholly extensions of their fathers and male family members, not pawns on a chessboard, but breeding animals treated like livestock [42]. This is not extraordinary for the time, but it was noticeable. Women were not quiet about it. The Roman Republic probably falls eventually no matter what, but if it hadn’t just as they had granted full voting rights to the Italians, one wonders when they would have granted full rights to women. Of course with a dying Republic this matters less, Hortensia was not an idiot, as she saw her brothers, and as other women saw their husbands, sons, and fathers be murdered in this so called virtuous Republic they were infuriated. They were told that the Roman Republic was the greatest system on earth, a system that they were banned from. Then that same system was murdering their families, and causing Rome to be in a spiral of total chaos from a truly unfathomable amount of Civil wars. It was a time bomb, the men of the 2nd Triumvirate did not see it coming at all. But Women of Rome in wartime were granted slightly more leniency, since Rome was towards the end of the Republic always at war this was exploitable.
The issue on the table
During the 2nd Punic war the Women of the Roman Republic had donated their jewelry in the war effort against Hannibal [43]. This was done for survival, the Roman state was threatened in a way that total destruction seemed possible. It was considered a Patriotic effort by said Women to voluntarily give up goods of excess to fight such an existential threat, it was a donation not a tax. The 2nd Triumvirate desperately needing funds and with total control over the senate and legislation, passed a tax on the 1,400 richest women of Rome [44]. This was the spark that lit the fury from the Women of Rome. For generations they had been treated as cattle, they had been disposed of for younger family members by powerful husbands. They were allowed to be vestal virgins, but if they were raped or became pregnant they could be sealed in box until they suffocated to death. They had seen their sisters and daughters die in childbirth, their children die from malnutrition while their husbands were gone fighting a never ending civil war after civil war. Even the richest women, the richest women in the entire Republic, the only women with any sorts of rights were widows like Fulvia, whose husband was executed on orders of Pompey the Great. It’s why Brutus considered Caesar a father to him. They had no political rights, no economic rights, they were not property of their husbands, branded with it as their only name. If they were lucky, lucky, they could get their fathers name too, the pleasure of being owned by your father as well as your family. They had seen their husbands, sons, fathers be killed by these civil wars about petty politics they could not even interact in. Women who were virgins were not supposed to be harmed in Rome, so the men sent to execute them would make them not a virgin anymore and then kill them. The Women of Rome now had seen a purging of the political class, a mass murder of aristocratic families for their wealth, so they had just witnessed many of those who they had loved killed simply so they could be robbed. And now those who murdered, those who intended to send more of their loved ones to die again in a civil war, for a Republic they were strangling by themselves, now requested further money from them. This was a bridge too far. Hortensia was the daughter of a famous Orator and as such, could speak just like those same men who dominated what was left of Rome. For most of these women what did they have to
lose? Their dignity? Their wealth? What wealth, what good is money when you cannot be free from your own family, what good is a home if your husband was murdered in it. What good is a Republic if you have no voice, it wasn’t about the Jewelry, it wasn’t about taxation. It was about stripping of further dignity from these Women who already had nothing left but the wealth they could never spend. If they acquired too much of it, they would be murdered anyways, so is there anything left to do but march on down to the Forum and give that 3 Headed abomination of a Hydra a piece of their minds.
The women first reached out to the mother of Augustus, Atia and his sister Octavia. They agreed with the cause and gave them their support. Then they reached out to Fuvlia, wife of Antony, she being no less batshit than Mark, was extremely rude and slammed the door in their face [45]. Hortensia and her supporters, some of whom; were just curious citizens who wanted to watch such a large crowd of women, realized that even with the support of the women of the Triumvirate they would still need to act by themselves. So they marched and pushed their way into the Roman Forum, and got atop the Rostra Vetera so Hortensia could speak. The meeting itself must have been an extraordinary site to a Roman witness, the Women of Rome so often were simply just background characters, like ghosts in the wind. One can imagine many in the crowd had forgotten Women had a voice at all. I can try to explain what was to happen, but Hortensia’s words are just so truly incredible, I can still feel it. The historian Appian recorded as best he could, not an exact translation but still the message is clear.
“You have already deprived us of our fathers, our sons, our husbands, and our brothers on the pretext that they wronged you, but if, in addition, you take away our property you will reduce us to a condition unsuitable to our birth, our way of life, and our female nature. If we have done you any wrong, as you claimed our husbands have, proscribe us as you do them. But if we women have not voted any of you public enemies, nor torn down your house, nor destroyed your army, nor led another against you, nor prevented you from obtaining offices and honors, why do we share in the punishments when we did not participate in the crimes? Why should we pay taxes when we do not share in the offices, honors, military commands, nor in short, the government for which you fight between yourselves with such harmful results? You say “because it is wartime.” When have there not been wars? When have taxes been imposed on women, whom nature sets apart from all men? Our mothers once went beyond what is natural and made a contribution during the war against the Carthaginians, when danger threatened your entire empire and Rome itself. But then they contributed willingly, not from their landed property, their fields, their dowries, or their houses, without which it is impossible for free women to live, but only from their jewelry.... Let war with the Celts or Parthians come, we will not be inferior to our mothers when it is a question of common safety. But for civil wars, may we never contribute nor aid you against each other.” [47]
The 3 Triumvirates were furious at Hortensia and these women for daring to critique them. They attempted to remove the women from the Rostra Vetera and out of the Forum and sight. But the crowd resisted, men and women alike protested loudly. The men, though, would not give up their stratified position in society, agreed somewhat with Hortensia, and free of the fear of losing
what they had already lost in money, or loved ones they resisted. Antony and Lepidus and Augustus had to leave with their tail tucked between their legs, lowering the tax from 1400 to 400 women, and extending it to men as well. They still needed money for the wars to come, they were still going to fight them. But even for a moment, the Republic was alive in Hortensia, she was the last Republican left in Rome. Not Cicero, not Sulla, not Caesar or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, but a woman who dared defy 3 of the most powerful men on earth and embarrassed them so totally, they had no choice but to relent. In a dying Republic there still is light.
[1] Caesar, Augustus "Augustus religion" PBS https://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/augustus_religion.html#:~:text=Augustus%20claimed%20it%20was%20the,stories%20of%20his%20frugal%20habits
[2] Marshall, Eireann "The Confused History of the Title Pontifex Maximus" Prospettiva tours 09/20/2020 https://www.prospettivatours.com/newsletter/the-confused-history-of-the-title-pontifex-maximus/
[3] “Gaius Octavius Augustus Caesar” homepages 07/21/03 https://homepages.rpi.edu/~holmes/Hobbies/Genealogy2/ps32/ps32_017.htm
[4] Drake, Lee "Climate and the Collapse of the Roman Empire: Part 3b2: The Fall of the Republic" Medium.com 12/03/2017 https://bleedrake.medium.com/climate-and-the-collapse-of-the-roman-empire-part-3b2-the-fall-of-the-republic-eab868db90e9
[5] Leveritt, Will "2027 years ago today: Augustus took the title Pontifex Maximus" University of Nottingham blogs, 03/06/15 https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/mintimperials/2015/03/06/2027-years-ago-today-augustus-took-the-title-pontifex-maximus/
[6] "The Crisis of Succession" ancient Roman history.com 23 BCE https://ancientromanhistory31-14.com/augustus/the-crisis-of-succession/
[7] Gill, N.S. “The Second Triumvirate to the Principate” Thought Co, 01/13/2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/second-triumvirate-to-the-principate-117552
[8] “May You Live In Interesting Times” quote investigator, 12/18/2015, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/18/live/
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[11] Tranquillus, Suetonius "The Lives of the Caesars" Tufts University http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dantony%3Achapter%3D1#:~:text=Antony%20accordingly%20left%20Gaul%2C%20B.%20C.,of%20Pompey%20and%20the%20aristocracy.
[12] Rickard, J “Lucius Scribonius Libo” 12/21/2010 http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_libo_l_s.html
[13] "A ROMAN ALEXANDER: POMPEY THE GREAT" Erenow.net, 106-48 BCE
https://erenow.net/ancient/in-the-name-of-rome-the-men-who-won-the-roman-empire/8.php
[14] Wilson B., Mark “The Evolution of the Roman Dictatorship” University of Michigan, https://www.press.umich.edu/10150936/dictator
[15] "Caesar and Cleopatra in Egypt" University of Chicago, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/egypt.html
[16] "Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius) (83 - 30 BCE)", UNRV Roman History, https://www.unrv.com/fall-republic/marcus-antonius.php
[17] “The Assassination of Julius Caesar (The Ides of March, 44 B.C.E.)” Historia Civilis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XBxMk_plhA
[18] Brewtnall, Edward Frederick "Antonius offering the diadem to Cæsar" New York Public Library, 1885, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-5f9f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
[19] "Cicero on the “Unforgettable Ides of March”" sententiaeantiquae 03/15/2018 https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/03/15/cicero-on-the-unforgettable-ides-of-march/
[20] “Appian on Caesar's Funeral” livius.org, 44 BCE, https://www.livius.org/sources/content/appian/appian-caesars-funeral/
[21] “Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears”, poetry foundation . org, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56968/speech-friends-romans-countrymen-lend-me-your-ears
[22] Plutarch “The Life of Antony” University of Chicago, 1920, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html
[23] Rawson, Elizabeth “144-43 BC The Last Age of the Roman Republic" Cambridge University Press, 1992
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-ancient-history/aftermath-of-the-ides/F1EE83253858458B9AB9B33EE6A36F6A
[27] Leveritt, Will "On this day in 43 BC the battle of Mutina was fought between Mark Antony and Octavian.” University of Nottingham blogs, 04/21/2016 https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/mintimperials/2016/04/21/on-this-day-in-43-bc-the-battle-of-mutina-was-fought-between-mark-antony-and-octavian/
[28] "The Second Triumvirate, 43-30 BC" digital maps of the ancient world , https://digitalmapsoftheancientworld.com/digital-maps/roman-republic/the-second-triumvirate-43-30-bc/
[29] N.S Gill, “The First and Second Triumvirates of Rome” ThoughtCo, 1/26/2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/first-and-second-triumvirates-of-rome-117560
[30] Toher, Mark “Octavian's Arrival in Rome, 44 B.C.” Cambridge University Press, 05/2004,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3556291
[31] "Becoming a God: The Deification of Julius Caesar" Walking inside Rome,
https://www.walksinsiderome.com/blog/becoming-a-god-the-deification-of-julius-caesar/
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[33] Green, Andy "Crossing the Rubicon: Brutal Role Models Influenced Julius Caesar’s Rise to Power” Magellan TV, 10/18/2020,
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