Constructing the Ides. Caesar's death between Republic and Empire

If provided funding from the RJ Sabbatical program, I would use the research year (12 months) to finish my monograph on the assassination of Julius Caesar, specifically focusing on how narratives of the murder were constructed and contested in the wake of 15 March 44 BCE.

In the monograph, I ask questions and offers novel suggestions as to how stories and memories of the assassination were told, staged, contested and negotiated not only by Greek and Roman authors but also through spectacles, monuments, coins, poetry and inscriptions.

The book deals with society’s responses to trauma and with the construction of opposing narratives at the time of intense political change and societal upheaval.

And, unlike earlier studies, it gives weight to the physical presence of bodies, to rhetorical performance and persuasion, to topography and monuments and to the material aspects of rivaling memories.

In our time of populist movements, political ruptures, fake news and rewritings of the past, this study hopefully contributes to a deeper understanding of how societies shape narratives of past events through oratory, spectacle, urban imagery, visual erasures – and violence.