Author | Thornton Wilder |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Julius Caesar |
Genre | Historical fiction |
Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
Publication date | February 18, 1948 [1] |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Pages | 246 pp |
OCLC | 519672619 |
LC Class | PZ3.W6468 Id |
The Ides of March is an epistolary novel by Thornton Wilder that was published in 1948. In the author's words, it is 'a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic. Historical reconstruction is not among the primary aims of this work'. The novel deals with the characters and events leading to, and culminating in, the assassination of Julius Caesar.
The novel is divided into four books, each starting earlier and ending later than the previous book. Catullus' poems and the closing section by Suetonius are the only documents in the book that are not imagined; however, many of the events are historical, such as Cleopatra's visit to Rome.
Though the novel describes events leading up to Caesar's assassination on 15 March 44 BC, several earlier events are described as if they were contemporary. Thus, the violation of the Bona Dea mysteries by Publius Clodius Pulcher, Caesar's subsequent divorce of his second wife Pompeia, and the circulation of two poems by Catullus suggesting that Caesar and his engineer, Mamurra, were lovers (and Catallus's subsequent apology) are transposed from December 62 BC to December 45 BC. In addition, many characters depicted as living in the novel were dead by 44 BC, including M. Porcius Cato (in 46 BC), Catullus (in c. 54 BC), Julia (in 69 BC) and Clodius (in 52 BC).
Note that names, relationships, and events are described as they occur in the novel and are not necessarily historically accurate.
American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there had been "only three novels published since the first of the year that were worth reading ... Cry, the Beloved Country , The Ides of March, and The Naked and the Dead . [2] Wilder himself once wrote that the book was "a kind of crossword puzzle" that "only begins to speak at its second reading." [3] Edmund Fuller called the novel "a text so rich that it requires exploration rather than reading." [4]
Gaius Valerius Catullus, known as Catullus, was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexually explicit themes.
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
This article concerns the period 49 BC – 40 BC.
Marcus Junius Brutus was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. He is often referred to simply as Brutus.
Clodia, nicknamed Quadrantaria, Nola, Medea Palatina by Cicero, and occasionally referred to in scholarship as Clodia Metelli, was one of three known daughters of the ancient Roman patrician Appius Claudius Pulcher.
Publius Clodius Pulcher was a Roman politician and demagogue. A noted opponent of Cicero, he was responsible during his plebeian tribunate in 58 BC for a massive expansion of the Roman grain dole as well as Cicero's exile from the city. Leader of one of the political mobs in the 50s, his political tactics – combining connections throughout the oligarchy with mass support from the poor plebs – made him a central player in the politics of the era.
The gens Claudia, sometimes written Clodia, was one of the most prominent patrician houses at ancient Rome. The gens traced its origin to the earliest days of the Roman Republic. The first of the Claudii to obtain the consulship was Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis, in 495 BC, and from that time its members frequently held the highest offices of the state, both under the Republic and in imperial times.
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Pro Caelio is a speech given on 4 April 56 BC, by the famed Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero in defence of Marcus Caelius Rufus, who had once been Cicero's pupil but more recently had become estranged from him. Cicero's reasons for defending Caelius are uncertain, but one motive may have been his hatred of Publius Clodius Pulcher, who two years earlier had passed a law which had forced Cicero into exile, and whose sister Cicero attacks mercilessly in this speech.
Pompeia was either the second or third wife of Julius Caesar.
Lesbia was the literary pseudonym used by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus to refer to his lover. Lesbia is traditionally identified with Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer and sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher; her conduct and motives are maligned in Cicero's extant speech Pro Caelio, delivered in 56 BC.
Calpurnia was either the third or fourth wife of Julius Caesar, and the one to whom he was married at the time of his assassination. According to contemporary sources, she was a good and faithful wife, in spite of her husband's infidelity; and, forewarned of the attempt on his life, she endeavored in vain to prevent his murder.
Julia Minor was the second of two daughters of Gaius Julius Caesar and Aurelia. She was an elder sister of the dictator Julius Caesar, and the maternal grandmother of Rome's first emperor Augustus.
Claudia was the daughter of Fulvia by her first husband Publius Clodius Pulcher. She was the stepdaughter of Mark Antony and half-sister of his sons Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Iullus Antonius.
Gaius Julius Caesar, one of the most influential men in world history, has frequently appeared in literary and artistic works since ancient times.
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Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators on the Ides of March of 44 BC during a meeting of the Senate at the Curia of Pompey of the Theatre of Pompey in Rome where the senators stabbed Caesar 23 times. They claimed to be acting over fears that Caesar's unprecedented concentration of power during his dictatorship was undermining the Roman Republic. At least 60 to 70 senators were party to the conspiracy, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. Despite the death of Caesar, the conspirators were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic. The ramifications of the assassination led to his martyrdom, the Liberators' civil war and ultimately to the Principate period of the Roman Empire.
Gaius Porcius Cato was a distant relative, probably a second cousin, of the more famous Marcus Porcius Cato, called Cato the Younger. This Cato was probably the son of Gaius Porcius Cato, the homonymous consul of 114 BC, being then the grandson of Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus and thereby the great-grandson of the famous Cato the Censor, often called Cato the Elder.
Julia, also known as Julia Major and Julia the Elder, was the elder sister of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator.
The Ides of March is a 1961 Australian television play. Director William Sterling said it was a more impressionistic production than the usual television drama.