The Final Judgement

Philokles, I must first thank you for the care and depth with which you have answered. You have not only illuminated the figure of Cato, but also shown how easily we are drawn into admiring or condemning what we have not yet sufficiently examined. I find myself better guided now, though perhaps no less troubled—and that, I suspect, is the mark of a fruitful inquiry.

But if you permit, I would now turn our attention more fully toward Caesar, and toward the consequences of his death.

For it seems to me that we stand here before one of the most decisive moments in the history of Rome—not merely the life of a man, but the interruption of a process whose outcome we can only imperfectly reconstruct.

Let us consider, then, what might have been.

If Caesar had not been struck down in the Senate—if he had been granted the time to complete what he had begun—what would have followed? Would he have transformed the Republic into a monarchy, as many feared? Was there, in his actions, any clear indication that he intended to replace the old order with a kingdom in the traditional sense?

I must confess, Philokles, that when I examine his conduct, I find little that compels such a conclusion.

He accumulated power, certainly—power of an extent rarely seen before. Yet he did so largely within, or at least alongside, existing forms. He accepted honours, but often with a measure of restraint; he enacted reforms in administration, in the calendar, in provincial governance, and in the settlement of citizens. His actions suggest not a man eager to discard the Republic entirely, but one attempting to reshape it into something more capable of governing a vast and complex empire.

Indeed, if we are to judge by what he did rather than by what was feared, we may say that he acted less like a founder of a kingdom and more like a reformer working within a structure he found inadequate.

And this leads me to a speculation—one that I offer cautiously.

Is it not possible that Caesar intended to stabilize the Republic through a period of concentrated authority, and only afterward to leave behind a system more orderly and sustainable than the one he had inherited? That he saw dictatorship not as an end, but as a means—dangerous, perhaps, but in his judgement necessary?

We cannot know. But neither can we say with certainty that he intended what later came to pass under Augustus.

And here, Philokles, the act of his murder becomes all the more perplexing.

For those who struck him down claimed to be acting in defence of liberty, in the name of the Republic, and—one must assume—in the spirit of men like Cato, whose opposition to Caesar had become almost emblematic of that cause.

But we must ask: were they justified in believing that Cato himself would have approved?

For Cato, whatever else we may say of him, acted openly. He opposed Caesar in the Senate, in argument, in political struggle. He did not resort to assassination. His was a resistance grounded in principle, not in secrecy.

Would he have sanctioned the killing of a magistrate—however powerful—within the very space that symbolized Roman political life?

Or was his name, like his memory, employed by others to lend dignity to an act whose consequences they had not fully considered?

And here I must raise a further and more troubling question.

What did the conspirators expect to follow?

For if they believed that by removing Caesar they would restore the Republic, upon what foundation did that belief rest? The conditions we have described—the inequalities, the rivalries, the precedents of power—would not vanish with the death of a single man.

Did they imagine that the old order would simply reassert itself? That the Senate would regain its authority, that the people would return to their former roles, that the balance once lost would somehow be restored?

Or did they expect another leader to emerge—and if so, who?

For it seems to me, Philokles, that in striking down Caesar they removed not only a man, but also the only figure at that moment who possessed the authority and the capacity to impose some form of order upon a deeply unsettled state.

And yet they appear to have had no clear plan for what was to come.

This leads me to a reflection which I offer with hesitation, yet which I cannot entirely suppress.

Is it possible that the act, though clothed in the language of liberty, was driven as much by fear, resentment, and uncertainty as by reasoned judgement? That those who carried it out, however noble their intentions, had not fully understood the situation they were attempting to resolve?

For if a man destroys what exists without knowing what is to replace it, he risks not restoring order, but deepening confusion.

And so I ask you, Philokles

When we consider the death of Caesar—not only as an act, but as the beginning of what followed—should we regard it as a defence of the Republic, or as a moment in which the last opportunity for its peaceful transformation was lost?

For it may be that in seeking to preserve what remained, his killers hastened the arrival of something entirely new.

You lead us, Lucius, to a moment where judgement can no longer remain suspended without becoming evasive. And though I have thus far sought to weigh each side with care, there are occasions in history where a certain clarity must be spoken.

For the killing of Caesar—whatever intentions may have been professed—cannot easily be adorned with the language of nobility.

Let us first consider the act itself.

Here was the man who held the highest magistracy of the Roman state, invested—however controversially—with authority recognized by law, by custom, and by the necessity of recent events. He entered the Senate not as a tyrant in hiding, but as the acknowledged leader of Rome. And there, in the very place where deliberation and counsel were meant to govern the affairs of the Republic, he was surrounded and struck down by men who had come not to argue, not to persuade, but to kill.

Such a deed, Lucius, had no precedent in the history of the Republic.

Romans had fought one another in civil conflict; they had proscribed enemies; they had used violence in times of upheaval. But the assassination of the leading magistrate, carried out within the Senate itself, under the guise of political action—this was something new, and something profoundly unsettling.

It is therefore difficult—indeed, I would say impossible—to regard the act as noble in itself.

And when we turn from the act to the men who carried it out, the difficulty deepens.

For many among the conspirators were not lifelong enemies of Caesar. On the contrary, they had benefited from his clemency. After the civil war, Caesar had pardoned numerous opponents, restored them to their positions, and even entrusted them with offices of responsibility. Some of those who later raised their hands against him had been recipients of this generosity. They had been spared when they might have been destroyed; elevated when they might have been excluded.

This does not, in itself, invalidate their political concerns. A man may oppose another even after receiving favour from him. Yet it casts a certain light upon the manner in which they chose to act.

For if they believed Caesar to be a danger to the Republic, they might have opposed him openly, as Cato had done—through speech, through political resistance, through whatever means remained within the framework of public life. Instead, they chose a course that avoided such confrontation, striking not in debate but in ambush.

This, I think, cannot be easily reconciled with the idea of noble resistance.

And yet, Lucius, we must still attempt to understand their intention, even if we cannot approve their method.

It is likely that they believed—perhaps sincerely—that by removing Caesar they would remove the threat to the Republic. They may have imagined that the old order, once freed from the dominance of a single individual, would reassert itself; that the Senate would regain its authority; that the balance of the constitution, though strained, could still be restored.

In this sense, the act may be seen as directed toward an idea—the preservation of the Republic as they conceived it.

But here we encounter the most troubling aspect of the matter.

For an action may be directed toward an idea and yet be profoundly misguided in its execution.

The conspirators, it seems, had little clarity about what would follow their deed. They had resolved upon the destruction of one man, but had not resolved upon the construction of anything in his place. They acted as though the removal of Caesar would itself suffice to restore the Republic, without fully considering the conditions that had given rise to his power in the first place.

This, Lucius, suggests not only a failure of foresight, but a certain confusion of thought.

For to strike at the visible figure of authority without addressing the deeper causes that had elevated him is to treat the symptom while leaving the illness untouched. And when the act itself introduces new instability, the result may be not restoration, but further disorder.

Thus, while I can understand—at least in part—the belief that motivated them, I cannot regard their action as either wise or honourable.

It was, as you have suggested, an attempt to do something whose outcome they had not fully grasped. It was undertaken without a clear plan for what was to follow, and carried out in a manner that avoided the responsibilities of open political struggle.

If I were to describe it, I would say that it was less the act of statesmen shaping the future than of men reacting to a situation they did not fully understand.

And in that sense, Lucius, it may indeed be called a lost and thoughtless attempt—an act born not of measured deliberation, but of urgency, fear, and a certain desperation to arrest a course of events that seemed to be slipping beyond their control.

As for Cato, whose name they might have invoked, I would hesitate to place him among them in spirit.

For whatever his faults—and we have not spared them—he did not act in secrecy, nor did he conceal his opposition behind gestures of loyalty. He confronted what he opposed directly, and he accepted the consequences of his stance.

The conspirators, by contrast, chose a different path.

And so I would ask you, Lucius: when an action is undertaken in the name of liberty, yet employs means that undermine the very order in which liberty must exist, can it truly be said to defend that liberty? Or does it rather reveal how uncertain men have become about the very thing they claim to preserve?

It seems to me, Philokles, that an act which destroys the very order in which liberty must live cannot truly be called its defence, however noble the intention may appear. For liberty without law is but a word, and law without order cannot endure.

But I see now that the light is fading, and the shadows of the garden grow longer upon the path. Our discussion, which has carried us from the old severity of the Catos to the violent end of Caesar, seems itself to follow the course of the Republic—moving from clarity into a certain gathering darkness.

Let us not, however, part without hope of continuing what we have begun.

For you have often spoken to me of an old friend of yours, a man well versed in both philosophy and the affairs of Rome, whose judgement you hold in high regard. It would be of great value, I think, to hear his thoughts on these matters, and to test our conclusions against a third voice.

Let us therefore agree to meet again soon, and, if it pleases you, invite this friend to join us. For it seems to me that questions such as these are not easily resolved between two men alone.

Come then, Philokles—let us take our leave for now, and return when both the light and our thoughts are renewed.