The
assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BCE is one of the most
dramatic and notorious events in Roman history. Caesar was murdered by a group of prominent
senators in Rome who engaged in a secret plot. He was the lone target and killed
in the Senate in the interval between a civil war and a foreign war. Many of
Caesar’s assassins were his disillusioned friends. In The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s
Most Famous Assassination, by acclaimed military historian Barry Strauss, the reader
learns how disaffected politicians and officers carefully planned and hatched
Caesar’s assassination weeks in advance, rallying support from the common
people of Rome. Read the interview with Barry
Sanders about the assassination of Caesar at -- http://etc.ancient.eu/2015/03/13/barry-strauss-on-the-assassination-of-caesar/
The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
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