Julius Caesar was a popular Roman political leader of the Roman Republic. There is a large debate to whether Julius Caesar was responsible for his own death. Julius Caesar was born on the 13th of July, 100 BC and died 15th March 44 BC, the cause of his death was assassination by a group of men from his own senate, the three main men involved were Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and Decimus Junius Brutus, during his meeting with them, the men had stabbed Julius Caesar 23 times. The consequences have been highly debated to what extent was Julius Caesar responsible for his own death?.
To an extent of reasons people think Julius Caesar was responsible for his own death. The first reason being he had ignored all the warnings that were that had come across him, in the article ‘The Murder of Julius Caesar – Ancient History Encyclopedia’ it is said that “there were a number of reasons for caesar not to attend the senate meeting… first, Caesar’s horses that were grazing on the banks of the Rubicon were seen to weep. Next, a bird flew into the Theater of Pompey with a sprig of laurel but was quickly devoured by a larger bird. Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia had a dream of him bleeding to death in her arms. And lastly, a soothsayer named Spurinna warned him to beware of danger no later than the Ides of March.”. After all the warnings that had come across Julius, he still went ahead with the meeting which makes people believe that he is partly responsible for his own death. Another reason was that he had dismissed his security team the before the day of assassination as it is said in the article ‘The Ides of March: Julius Caesar is murdered – Mar 15, 44 B.C. – HISTORY.com’, this reason is also partly why he was responsible for his own death as he should of never dismissed his security team since they should always be by his side to protect him and if they were with him that day he might of never been killed.
Furthermore, another reason to why people think julius caesar is responsible for his own death is because he trust many people very easily, in the book ‘Plutarch Roman Lives’ it says “Decimus Brutus, surnamed Albinus, who was so trusted by caesar that he was named in his will as his second heir”, with this piece of information it tells us readers how easily Julius Caesar trusted people that he even put them, people that are not even related to him, in his will which had caused Julius Caesar to become more of an easy target since they could ‘befriend’ him and easily ruin his life since he had trusted people so easily. One more reason to why Julius Caesar is responsible for his own death is because he was a very confident and arrogant person while he was running his position has a political leader. In the article ‘Do you think Caesar has any responsibility for his own death’ it is said that “the Roman citizen’s didn’t really have a choice, as caesar declared himself a dictator amongst all, and told them to worship him”. This shows how very confident he was in himself and how arrogant he was which people didn’t like, another piece of evidence of his arrogance is in the article ‘The Murder of Julius Caesar – Ancient History Encyclopedia’ it is said “this arrogance became increasingly more evident as time passed: he sat attired in a purple regalia of the ancient Roman kings on a specially built golden chair while attending the senate, often refusing to rise out of respect to any member who approached him”. This quote shows how rude and arrogant he was and why people didn’t like him, especially Cassius. If he hadn’t been arrogant everyone would of liked him without being forced to do so and no one would of killed him.
However, there is also an extensive amount of reasons as to why he wasn’t responsible for his death. The first reason is that in the book ‘Plutarch Roman Lives’ it is said that his wife Calpurnia asked Julius to postpone the meeting if he could and to stay at home as she was scared something would happen to him, Julius had listened to her because he knew she wasn’t capable of lying to him, so he sent antony to go and dismiss the senate. After julius had dismissed the meeting one of the men involved with julius Caesar’s death came up to him and convinced him to go to the meeting, in the book it tells us that Decimus Brutus was trying to convince julius by “reminding him that it was he who had requested this meeting of the senate” and that “all the senators were ready to endorse the proposal that he should be proclaimed king of the provinces outside Italy…”. This shows the readers that Julius did listen to his wife and postpone the meeting but was unfortunately later on convinced to go on with the meeting.
Another reason as to why he wasn’t responsible for his own death was because it was out of jealousy and hate. A man named Cassius was the planner for Julius Caesar’s death, his drive to kill julius was out of pure jealousy because julius caesar was getting more and more power everyday more than any other man in Rome, cassius thought Julius was not worthy of the power he had. Cassius had convinced everyone to turn their backs on Julius especially Brutus, Cassius had written a letter to Brutus to convince him to help with the assassination he had wrote “what trash is rome, what rubbish, and what offal when it serves for the base matter to illuminate so vile a thing as caesar” this quote shows us how he is trying to convince Brutus to join him by saying that when and if julius becomes king that Rome will become ‘rubbish’, ‘trash’ and so on. It is clear that Julius Caesar is not responsible for Cassius planning to kill him because of his jealousy as he would of done the same to anyone else that had more power than him.
In conclusion, Julius Caesar was, to an extent, responsible for his own death by not listening to the warnings that came across him that day and for being a very confident and arrogant person with a lot of power. But he was also not responsible for his own death as it was mainly out of jealousy which he didn’t have any control over.