By the time Julius Caesar stepped in front of the Roman Senate on the Ides of March in 44 B.C., the nearly 500-year-old Roman Republic had been ailing for years. Wealth inequality, political gridlock and civil wars had all weakened the republic in the century prior to Caesar’s ascension to power.

Caesar’s increasingly autocratic reign further threatened the republic. He bypassed the Senate on important matters, controlled the treasury and earned the personal loyalty of the republic’s army by pledging to give retiring soldiers property from public land or use his personal fortune to buy it himself, according to Edward Watts, author of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny. He emblazoned his image on coins and reserved the right to accept or reject election results for lower offices. As Caesar transacted public business from a gold-and-ivory throne, rumors swirled that he would declare himself king.

In the first weeks of 44B.C., Caesar was proclaimed “dictator for life.” His life, though, wouldn’t last much longer.

Fearful that the concentration of absolute power in a single man threatened the republic’s democratic institutions, dozens of senators who called themselves the “Liberators” plotted to kill the dictator. On March 15 in 44 B.C., Caesar was stabbed 23 times by conspirators who believed themselves to be saviors of liberty and democracy. Instead, the daggers they thrust into Caesar dealt a fatal blow to the already wounded Roman Republic.

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