Marcus Terentius Varro - On the Death of Caesar

Senators, we gather today to acknowledge the death of Gaius Julius Caesar and to determine what is to be done with his remains. Caesar, as we must recognize, is a man of great yet conflicted importance to Rome and its people. He has expanded our territories with arms and men, and has invaded our city with the same. He has restored many of us here today from exile, myself included, and has diminished their importance by his dictatorship. He has captured the hearts of the Roman people, and has tried to establish a terrible precedent to remove their voices.

Senators, I will not pretend that I have received no privilege from Caesar, nor can I condone the manner by which the assailants slew him. But regardless of my feelings, Caesar’s death is immutable. All that we may decide is how to treat the body of this man.

Considering all the glories Caesar has earned and wrought for Rome, it would be a shame to see Caesar’s body lost in the Tiber River. What the conspirators slew Caesar for was a matter of potential harm Caesar posed to the republic and not actual harm having already been done. It, therefore, seems as unjust to me to dispose of the man so callously as it would to execute in the same manner a man who gathered knives and poisons but had yet committed no murder. Neither Caesar nor any man should be punished so harshly for actions untaken.

At the same time, his claim for himself as perpetual dictator, without the blessing of the senate and with an heir besides, is a serious offense, and a man who would steal such a position does not deserve the grand procession and deification proposed here. As I have said, Caesar has tried to establish a terrible precedent to isolate power in one man, whom we may not always trust to speak for the good of the people.

I propose that we instead grant it to the family and friends of Caesar to hold a private burial. For all his actions both inspiring and unsettling, Caesar was a citizen of Rome—nothing more or less. We would dishonor ourselves to deny Caesar this final rite, taking away as much freedom as his later action threatened to take from Rome. Further, we would deny one of the oldest stories on the matter in our history. As I’m certain all of you were taught as small boys, after Remus taunted his brother Romulus and leapt over the wall of Rome, our great founder slew his brother in anger. Yet, by certain accounts, after all battle ceased, Romulus gave his brother a proper burial. Now, I ask you senators, were the actions of Caesar truly worse than those of Remus, the betrayer of his brother and first enemy of Rome?

I should wish that none of us spoke so severely about Caesar, for to do whether favorably or unfavorably would be to distort the memory of Caesar. Grant him a proper, private burial if you wish to preserve the dignity of our fatherland.