Who Killed Julius Caesar?
Published April 29, 2003
Before the opening credits on the Discovery Channel's* latest attempt at repackaging the hackneyed and the obvious as new and starting, "Who Killed Julius Caesar?" even started to roll, my father asked the best question of all:
Who the hell cares about a murder that happened 2000 years ago?
Well, unfortunately, I do. And so do lots of other people, apparently, or Discovery Networks and all of its ilk would not continue making this kind of dubious crap and calling it documentaries, nor would its tame stable of so-called critics keep praising it in tidy, blurb-ready sound bites.
As the tone of the above might indicate, I was not, perhaps, in the most receptive of moods to take in such fare late of a Sunday night, but I am a sucker for all things ancient, and hadn't the Discovery-owned History Channel done a pretty good two-parter on the Spartans a while back (superior to the PBS show on the Greeks several years ago that never even mentioned the battle of Thermopylae! To put this in perspective for non-classics nerds, this would be like doing an in-depth series on America during World War II without mentioning Pearl Harbor or the Battle of Midway, or one on the space program without discussing the Apollo 11 mission, a hilarious, glaring oversight upon which not enough derision could ever be heaped in 300 lifetimes - one for each of the Spartans who fell there)?
Plus, well, like pretty much everyone else in North America, I'm also a fan of CSI, and get off ever so slightly on watching high tech gadgets employed to tease out the tiniest clues.
Such was the promise of "Who Killed Julius Caesar?," the opening act of which strongly suggested that the version of this famous death we all cherished from paging through our Plutarch, leafing through our Livy, shuffling through our Shakespeare, was going to be proven wholly wrong, or at least inaccurate or incomplete, using modern methods and models unavailable to previous investigators.
Such was the promise, but the delivery, while entertaining, fell quite a bit short.
What unfolded before viewers through an otherwise perfectly good hour was an Italian law enforcement bureaucrat who figured he knew better than Suetonius, et all, and was damned well going to prove it, even though the scene of the crime had been obliterated, the body was 2000 years gone to dust and ashes, the culprits beyond the reach of the law, even the language of the drama largely dead. Said bureaucrat spends a lot of time riding around in the backseat of an official car (and we complain about our tax dollars at work! But then again, we've never knowingly had a porn star making policy either. Trade offs, trade offs...), shuttling around modern Rome, reenacting the murder to determine how many people could have actually accounted for the documented 23 stab wounds, and interviewing a neuroscientist with either a strange pan-European accent or a daunting, Sister Wendy-caliber speech impediment or both about exactly what kind of epilepsy poor old Julius actually did have.
- Who Killed Julius Caesar?
- Published: April 29, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Documentary
- Writer: Kate Sherrod
- Kate Sherrod's BC Writer page
- Kate Sherrod's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
i love the way you put your words together you really make sense
who was caesar
Kate,
I've always blamed Calpurnia. She had her premonitions, and she knew what the Soothsayer said. She should have done something more to keep Julius home that day. Maybe breakfast in bed? A massage?
PS> Oh, and Mary Lincoln is as guilty as Booth in old Abe's death. She just had to go to the theatre all the time and Abe just wanted to sit home and watch CNN.
Whats up dudes!
I watched the "Who Killed Julius Caesar?" episode and was facinated. Sure it was slightly hokey, but facinating none the less.
My mom and I had an intense argument over whether Chaucer was middle English (says I), or whether it was old English (says she). I knew I was right and defended myself to the end. My dad came in and asked what we were arguing about and when we told him he replied, "Who gives a sh@!"
It is the same with this show. No one really knows for sure what motivated Caesar, but it definitely adds to the discussion. It certainly is plausible, given what we know about him. Remember, people haven't changed much over the course of time. Some people will do anything to become famous.
Who killed caesar!!!? MY project is due!!!
I don't understand!?
please just tell me who killed caesar i dont care to read about the book i need to know!i have home work you know and its a test!i need help and this is just wasting my time giving comments to evry one so good bye!
lucy....the butler did it
good luck on your test
heh
Excelsior?
I blame MTV. Yeah, for almost everything, including the death of Caesar.
This boring!!!!!!! it shound have more information because it does not tell u who killed him!!!!
Can somebody tell me who killed him!
WHAT!I ONLY WANTED TO KNOW WHO KILLED HIM!AND WHAT THE CITIZENS THOUGHT!MY HOMEWORKS FOR TOMMOROW U KNOW!I DONT GET IT WHAT R U TRYING TO SAY?BECAUSE UV CONFUSED ME!
That was brillent!You gave all the right information I needed and I think the words all fit perfect together.You are brillent!
I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You want to know who killed Julius Caesar? It was his friends, the Roman Senate, and his best friend, Brutus.
you kneed to have this web site so that i can fid the info without putting much thought in ti it
this web sit sycks
Mr Mustard killed Caesar in the parlor. Seeking revenge Jimmy Hoffa shot Mr Mustard as he sat on the toilet reading the New York Times. Hoffa is buried in my backyard. Feel free to dig him up.
I no now as a gay man why christians dont like us it was not a jew that killed jesus but a gay man pilate (gay man) said to the jews "shall i crucify your king" the jews turned round and said "we only have one king and that is caesar" also gay jesus was not just on trial because he claimed to be the son of god but because he refused to pay his taxes to caesar they added being gay is wrong to the bible to get back at us because of what happend to jesus i think caesar was the son of god like he claimed to be.
Reading MOST of the comments above, I feel I'm surrounded by idiots.
It's not "who" killed Caesar? It's "what" killed Caesar - the salad, obviously. The butler served the salad. So, as Gonzo Marx pointed out above, the butler did it...
All hail the butler!!!
ruvy what are you talking about where in my statement am i wrong what are you talking about sometimes i dont think people can handle the truth and i also think that jesus was gay it does not say once that he is not gay and why in front of pilate could jesus not turn the loaf of bread into 10 loafs when he was asked to do so.
Like I said, Derek, I feel I'm surrounded by idiots in reading most of the comments to this article. Half the people writing in did not know that Caesar was killed by a bunch of Roman senators afraid of losing their influence in the dying Roman Republic.
I won't argue with your Biblical knowledge, as you draw it all from the Christian book - which I do not know that well and don't generally credit.
Let it stand that I don't give a rat's ass if Jesus (presuming the dude actually lived) was gay or straight. The ossuaries found in East Talpiot in J-lem not too long ago tend to argue that he was straight, but that is neither here nor there.
Any Jew's reference to "caesar" in the Christian book would not be to Julius Gaius (caesar was a nickname meaning hook-nosed), but to the title "caesar" that his nephew Augustus took as ruler of Rome.
I was i little wrong saying caesar was the son of god he said he was the son of the greek god venus and i think that it is only gonzo marx when the comment is style over truth but i least you new what happened to caesar i also think the only reiligon that will be going to hell out of the universe is the taliban who i think god would fogive the devil before them because they are not human beings
THIS IS ALL A LOAD OF HORSE #$@%!!!!!!!! I STILL DONT KNOW WHO KILLED CAESAR!!!!!!!!!!
My comments amanda are far from rubbish i think i was one of gods chosen children like caeser was being gay was not in the ten commandments a priest once said to me "yes it was adultery" but that is cheating not being gay
i think julius caesar was a good man but he done the wrong impresions for the roman republic. things like this are intresting to know.
yo for all you guyz tryin to get ur HW done brutus killed caesar along with the other conspiraters at the senate when he went that morning
I really need to know who killed him for S.S. but no one can really tell me!!!! Nether does this one, not my ful... BYE BYE
The two main people who killed caeser were Gaius CASSIUS Longinus, and Marcus Junius BRUTUS. altho they were helped by many other conspirators who decided they would each stab him once each, at the least, to share the guilt and the blame.
We never killed anybody!!!!! You're all big losers !!!
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/4954)
i think it's intresting, hey i mean lots of people aren't even trying to figure out when- or who the first person killed in the bostn masscre was, wait- i'm wrong well bye!