Beware The Ides of March...

On 15 March 44 BC, a conspiracy of Senators led by Cassius Longinus and Marcus Brutus ambushed Gaius Julius Caesar at a meeting of the senate and stabbed him twenty three times. Later one of the first recorded autopsies would reveal that out of those stab wounds only one of them was actually fatal. 
In a move that would later come back to bite The Liberators (as the assassins chose to call themselves) they allowed Marcus Brutus to talk them all into not killing Mark Antony, Caesar's second in command when they moved against Caesar himself. Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of Rome's greatest orators and lawyers, would go on to call the whole affair 'A good dead half done.' Though, to be fair, he and Mark Antony hated each others' faces off with a fury that made the feud between Red Sox and Yankees fans look like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. playing touch football. So there's that if you follow me. 
 I can understand Brutus's thinking, myself. Marcus Brutus argued that if they just killed Caesar it would look better to the people rather than if they ran around knifing everybody in authority who ever thought nice things about the man. And, well, Antony had a reputation as a boor and a drunkard who only had what political pull he did because of his friendship with Caesar. I go into a little more about Mark Antony in one of my videos here if you're interested. It stood to reason that Antony wouldn't be too much of a problem at any rate. What could go wrong, right?
 However, it turns out The Liberators had badly misjudged the mood of the people. Bear in mind the Roman people had just been through years of political strife and civil war before this latest round of civil war between Caesar and his former political ally Pompey Magnus which had just wrapped up. At least part of the reason the common folk loved Caesar because he brought peace and stability after all the turmoil. And now here comes Marcus Brutus and the other 'Liberators' out on to the steps of Pompey's Theater with Caesar's blood on their hands shouting about freedom from tyranny. Needless to say they were greeted with stony silence (how you could tell a Roman crowd didn't like what you were trying to say) followed by everyone with half a brain running home as fast as their feet could carry them to baton down the hatches.
 So, when it came time for Caesar's funeral, Antony and The Liberators came to a sort of gentleman's agreement. Antony would appear at the funeral with Marcus Brutus and speak to try and smooth things over and make it look like everything was alright. They certainly didn't expect Antony to give such a speech that it kicked off a riot wherein the mob smashed up nearby shops to make a funeral pyre for Caesar right there then go on the warpath. 'The Liberators' had to run for their lives to Greece with an infuriated mob close on their heels. Just when the Roman people thought things were going to calm down civil war was on the horizon again...
 As an aside, if you haven't seen HBO's Rome I highly recommend checking it out. They really went all out on the costumes and sets, even filming in Rome itself as much as possible. One of my only major beefs with the series is that they made a huge mistake in my opinion not letting James Purefoy (who played Mark Antony) not do the funeral oration scene. Since the series was slated for cancellation after season two they had to cut time where they could...though I'm sure James Purefoy would have heckin' crushed it.