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Simon & Schuster
March 2015
On Sale: March 3, 2015
352 pages
ISBN: 1451668791
EAN: 9781451668797
Kindle: B00LD1S2YQ
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
The exciting, dramatic story of one of historyโs most famous eventsโthe death of Julius Caesarโnow placed in full context of Romeโs civil wars by eminent historian Barry Strauss. Thanks to William Shakespeare, the death of Julius Caesar is the most famous assassination in history. But what actually happened on March 15, 44 BC is even more gripping than Shakespeareโs play. In this thrilling new book, Barry Strauss tells the real story. Shakespeare shows Caesarโs assassination to be an amateur and idealistic affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary operation, a generalsโ plot, put together by Caesarโs disaffected officers and designed with precision. There were even gladiators on hand to protect the assassins from vengeance by Caesarโs friends. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key players, as Shakespeare has it, but they had the help of a third manโDecimus. He was the mole in Caesarโs entourage, one of Caesarโs leading generals, and a lifelong friend. It was he, not Brutus, who truly betrayed Caesar. Caesarโs assassins saw him as a military dictator who wanted to be king. He threatened a permanent change in the Roman way of life and in the power of senators. The assassins rallied support among the common people, but they underestimated Caesarโs soldiers, who flooded Rome. The assassins were vanquished; their beloved Republic became the Roman Empire. An original, fresh perspective on an event that seems well known, Barry Straussโs book sheds new light on this fascinating, pivotal moment in world history.
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