Don’t ask how or why I’m still writing today. Just be glad you’re seeing one final official diary entry from me. Because I will (or rather: have already) been killed. On the Ides of March, 44 BC, I shall die — and that’s not cool.

No glorious conquest, no epic battle, no clever one-liner — nothing! I’ll simply be gone forever, living on only in your hearts as the greatest leader the Roman Empire has ever known.

But how did it come to this? Honestly, this moment deserves its own new verb tense. But I’m tired. So instead, let’s ask the real question: How did I die?

At the beginning of 44 BC — yes, I should have seen it coming — some senators with strong republican beliefs, led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, began plotting my assassination.

Then, on the Ides of March, it happened. I didn’t even want to go to the Theatre of Pompey, where the Senate was meeting that day. My wife had a terrible dream — a warning. But then Decimus Brutus came along — yes, he was in on it — and convinced me to attend.

There they were: not hundreds, as some say, but a small group of senators, and they stabbed me. Again and again — 27 times, to be exact. Not countless. But still — cowards! They crept up from behind!

And then… I realized the awful truth: My own son had betrayed me.
That’s when I managed to force out my final words:

Et tu, Brutus?

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You too, Brutus?

Gaius Julius Caesar

But let this be a warning: Never try to murder a member of the Caesarian family. You’ll live just long enough to regret it. Every last one of those treacherous conspirators — within the next ten years? Dead. Every. Single. One.

So beware: betrayal may win a battle, but it never survives the war.