A suicide bomber drives a truck packed with explosives into the U. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing U. That same morning, 58 French soldiers were killed in their barracks two miles away in a separate suicide terrorist attack.
The U. Marines were On October 23, , about 50 Chechen rebels storm a Moscow theater, taking up to people hostage during a sold-out performance of a popular musical.
Doctor Barnett Slepian is shot to death inside his home in Amherst, New York by an anti-abortion radical. The Ghost of Caesar has appeared to him on the battlefield, he says, and he believes that the time has come for him to die. His men urge him to flee; he demurs, telling them to begin the retreat, and that he will catch up later. He then asks one of his men to stay behind and hold the sword so that he may yet die honorably. Antony enters with Octavius, Messala, Lucillius, and the rest of their army.
Brutus was a worthy citizen, a rare example of a real man. Octavius adds that they should bury him in the most honorable way and orders the body to be taken to his tent. The men depart to celebrate their victory. Brutus preserves his noble bravery to the end: unlike the cowardly Cassius, who has his slave stab him while he, Cassius, covers his face, Brutus decides calmly on his death and impales himself on his own sword.
Additionally, whereas the dead Cassius is immediately abandoned by a lowly slave, the dead Brutus is almost immediately celebrated by his enemy as the noblest of Romans. Notably, Brutus is also the only character in the play to interpret correctly the signs auguring his death.
When the Ghost of Caesar appears to him on the battlefield, he unflinchingly accepts his defeat and the inevitability of his death. Although Caesar gives the play its name, he has few lines and dies early in the third act. While Octavius has proven himself the leader of the future, he has not yet demonstrated his full glory.
Over the course of the play, Cassius rises to some power, but since he lacks integrity, he is little more than a petty schemer. The idealistic, tormented Brutus, struggling between his love for Caesar and his belief in the ideal of a republic, faces the most difficult of decisions—a decision in which the most is at stake—and he chooses wrongly.
In particular, the killers used a military dagger the pugio , which was becoming standard issue for legionaries. Military daggers were not only practical weapons but also honourable ones.
Again, he wanted to show that the assassins were no mere murderers. The Roman Senate House still stands in the Roman Forum and most visitors assume that Caesar was killed there — but he was not, nor on the Capitoline Hill, as Shakespeare states.
It was part of a huge complex including a theatre, a park, a covered portico, and shops and offices. Their real purpose was as a backup security force. As a general, Caesar had a bodyguard but he made a point of dismissing it after returning to civilian life in Rome. He wanted to seem accessible and fearless. This made the dictator uniquely vulnerable inside the Senate House. Still, Caesar had appointed many of the senators personally, and they included military men. Even before Caesar took his seat on the tribunal, several assassins stood behind the chair while others surrounded him as if trying to grab his attention.
The truth is that they were forming a perimeter. Then the attack sprang into action. At this signal, his co-conspirators struck, led by Publius Servilius Casca. Caesar, the old warrior, tried to fight back. He stabbed Casca with his stylus — a small, pointed, iron writing utensil — and managed to get back up. Two of his supporters among the senators, Lucius Marcius Censorinus and Gaius Calvisius Sabinus, then attempted to reach him but the conspirators blocked their way, and forced them to flee.
Antony was a veteran soldier, strong, dangerous and loyal to Caesar. With Mark Antony detained by Trebonius, there was little Caesar could do to defend himself. It probably took only minutes for him to die — succumbing to what most of the sources state were 23 wounds. Before the end, he wrapped his toga around his face and, in an ironic turn of events, fell at the foot of a statue of his rival, Pompey.
Civil war soon broke out again and, to a man, they were to suffer violent deaths. That, however, does not brand them as foolish idealists. It merely shows that their political acumen did not match the military skill they displayed on the Ides of March.
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