The reasons for Julius Caesar’s assassination is a frequently asked question on this subReddit.

u/festess gave an explanation for “What were the motives for the assassination of Julius Caesar?”

u/friskydongo answered “Why was Julius Caesar assassinated?”

There is no way my answer will cover exactly why Caesar was killed, as political thought during the late Republic period is so complex, my lack of experience in intensely studying Roman history would not be able to serve this question justice. That being said however, I will still attempt to answer this question to the best of my abilities.

Firstly, when it comes to Suetonius, it is noteworthy to consider his writing style in The Twelve Caesars. Suetonius was not focusing on the political history of the Roman Empire so much as he wanted to look more on the personal lives of Julius Caesar and the first eleven Roman Emperors, therefore the motives for Caesar’s assassination are not highlighted as much as, say, his reforms. In his biographies of the Emperors (or in this case, of Julius Caesar), Suetonius cites his sources quite often, “Titus Ampius has recorded some of Caesar’s public statements…” (Suet. Jul. 77) “From the time of his first consulship until the outbreak of the civil war (according to Quintus Tubero)” (Suet. Jul. 83). Suetonius of course has his biases, he makes it quite clear which Emperors he considered good (e.g Augustus, Claudius, Titus) and which ones he considered bad (e.g Caligula, and Nero). It seems, however, that much of Suetonius’ writings, though sometimes biased, parallel the beliefs of historians contemporary to him.

Plutarch’s writings were concerned with the beliefs in the struggle between good and evil, and, like Suetonius, he highlighted examples of people whom he clearly saw as having good or evil traits. Unfortunately, however, there are few contemporary sources dealing with the assassination of Caesar, so for the most part, Plutarch and Suetonius are the best sources we have.

Some of the details regarding the order of who joined the conspiracy to kill Caesar are uncertain, with Plutarch portraying Cassius as the first conspirator, and Cassius Dio portraying Brutus, not Cassius, as the originator of the plot. The motives, however, appear to be agreed upon regardless of the author: the conspirators considered Caesar a tyrant.

It is important to note the origin story of the Roman Republic. According to tradition, Rome was founded by the legendary Romulus as a kingdom. The modern consensus is that the Roman Kingdom did exist, but that many of the details on its history are shrouded in mythology, many of our sources on the Kingdom period come from late Republic/early Empire writers. The story of the end of the Roman Kingdom and the beginning of the Republic would have been one very familiar with the Romans by the time of Caesar. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was overthrown in 509 BC when his son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped the noblewoman Lucretia, causing her suicide. The outrage of the incident caused the public to revolt against the Roman monarchy. The aftermath of the revolt, lead by Lucius Junius Brutus, led to the exile of Lucius Tarquinius along with the rest of his family, and the transition of the government of Rome from monarchical rule to senatorial rule (It has been speculated by some, notably Machiavelli, that the rape of Lucretia was merely the inciting incident of the revolt, and that the overthrow of the monarchy was inevitable). Junius Brutus is traditionally regarded as one of the first consuls of Rome.

Much of the identity of the Romans during the Republic period came in the fact that they were not a monarchy. Rome was ruled by two consuls, each with the power to veto the actions of the other, so one would not become too powerful, their term limits were also limited to one year at a time for the same reason. Dictators (i.e a sole ruler over Rome) were appointed only during times of crisis, and their term limit was even shorter than that of the consuls (dictators were set by law to rule for 6 months).

The dictatorship of Sulla from 82-81 BC was still very fresh in the minds of the Romans during the time of Caesar. Sulla’s time as dictator eerily resembled that of a king to some, there were worries Sulla wanted to make himself a kingly figure, and do away with the Republic. The same fears were held when Caesar was declared Dictator perpetuo (dictator for a perpetual or indefinite amount of time) in 44 BC. Though Caesar had reportedly refused to be crowned king after several attempts to coronate him by Mark Antony, it appeared that Caesar’s rule as dictator was going to be a repeat of what happened with Sulla less than 40 years prior. The scare with Caesar gaining all of this power and becoming perpetual dictator was the same as the scare for Sulla, that is, the assassins felt Caesar completely disregarded the Republic and wanted to revert Rome back to a monarchy. There were of course other motives the assassins had, as u/festess said in their answer, one of the motivations for Marcus Brutus would be Caesar’s sudden rise to power taking away some of the power Brutus himself had. It was a commonly held belief during the time of Caesar that Marcus Brutus was descended from Junius Brutus, the leader of the rebellion which overthrew the Roman monarchy, this belief gave Brutus more of an incentive to defend the republican system of rule in Rome, Junius Brutus was a symbol of Roman republicanism.

Caesar’s assassination, however, would reveal to go against the primary motive of his assassins. The Second Triumvirate under Octavian and Mark Antony would declare war on Caesar’s assassins, and following that, Octavian and Antony would fight against each other. Following the civil war between Octavian and Antony, Octavian is declared Augustus, and becomes the first Emperor of the Roman Empire. Though consuls still existed during the time of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire, they were mostly ceremonial. Rome following the assassination of Caesar would go on to resemble a kingdom more than it did a republic.

I hope my answer helped you in some way!

Sources

Matthes, Melissa M. The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli, and Rousseau. Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 2000.

“Plutarch.” Livius, 1 Aug. 2019, https://www.livius.org/sources/content/plutarch/.

Sifuentes, Jesse. “Sulla's Reforms as Dictator.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 6 Dec. 2019, https://www.ancient.eu/article/1481/sullas-reforms-as-dictator/.

Telford, Lynda. Sulla: a Dictator Reconsidered. Pen & Sword Military, 2014.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Roman Republic.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 28 Nov. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Republic.

Tranquillus, Gaius Suetonius, et al. The Twelve Caesars. Penguin, 2007.

Woolf, Greg. Et Tu, Brute?: the Murder of Caesar and Political Assassination. Harvard Univ. Press, 2007.