Killing Caesar: How History Remembers His Assassin
April 2, 2019
3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Speaker: Kathryn Tempest, University of Roehampton
Conspirator and assassin, philosopher and statesman, promoter of peace and commander in war, Marcus Brutus (ca. 85-42 BC) was a controversial and enigmatic man even to those who knew him. His leading role in the murder of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, 44 BC, immortalized his name forever, but the verdict on his act remains out to this day. How did his contemporaries view Brutus? And how have their reactions colored the legacy of Caesar’s famous assassin? Drawing on the burgeoning body of literature devoted to memory studies, this paper will explore how the site of Brutus’ memory became actively contested and politicized in a struggle for ‘ownership’ over the cultural trauma that set in after Caesar’s assassination and the battles at Philippi. From freedom-fighting patriot to a cut-throat king-slayer, we will see how the variety of responses he inspired in those who knew him were precisely the qualities that gave rise to the adaptation and appropriation of his memory in the centuries that followed.
Date posted
Mar 20, 2019
Date updated
Mar 20, 2019