In March of the year 44 BC, a group of Roman officials carried out a bloody assassination of their leader, Julius Caesar, in the Senate. History documents the most treacherous of conspirators as one Marcus Junius Brutus of ‘et tu Brute’ fame, who justified the murder as a response to fear over the excessive concentration of power that Caesar had accrued, threatening the very existence of the Roman Republic. The event triggered a civil war which ultimately led to the fall of the very republic that the assassination was designed to save. Throughout history, political assassins have justified the…
