Those who were not in the conspiracy were too horrified and panic-stricken at what they saw either to run away or to help, and did not even venture to cry out. The conspirators all drew their naked daggers and Caesar found himself surrounded. Wherever he turned, he met blows, saw steel levelled at his face and eyes, and found himself driven like a wild beast and penned in by all their hands. It had been agreed that each of them should draw blood and flesh their swords, and that is why Brutus dealt him a single blow, striking him in the groin. Some say that he fought the others, twisting this way and that and shouting, but that when he saw the sword of Brutus drawn, he pulled his robe over his face and threw himself down by the base of Pompey’s statue* — either by accident or because his murderers pushed him there. It was drenched with his blood, and men thought that Pompey presided in vengeance over the death of his enemy, who lay at his feet and gasped his life out from a multitude of wounds. He is said to have received twenty-three: and many of his murderers wounded each other as they rained their blows on his body.
Translated by RW Livingstone.
From The Pageant of Greece (1923) by Sir Richard Winn Livingstone (1880-1960).
* Plutarch thus indicates that Caesar fought back until he saw that even Brutus, to whom he had shown such clemency and on whom he had showered honours, was in on the conspiracy, and that once that had become clear to him, he no longer resisted. This agrees with Shakespeare’s dramatisation, condensed into one line:
Caesar: “Et tu, Brute? — Then fall, Caesar!”