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00:00political assassination the murder of national leaders april 1968 martin luther king jr is
00:15shot and killed in memphis tennessee in nazi germany there were over 42 attempts on the life
00:21of adolf hitler and in november 1963 president john f kennedy was gunned down in plain sight
00:28in the 20th century it's something we saw again and again but this tradition can be traced back
00:34far further rome 44 bc and the leader of the roman republic is julius caesar but on march 15th he was
00:45brutally murdered stabbed 23 times by his fellow senators an open and shut case or was it can
00:53science unearthed the truth behind the most famous assassination in ancient history
01:10the death of julius caesar
01:38the death of julius caesar is one of the most fabled events of all time
01:44famously plotted against by those closest to him it's a story which has been retold through the ages
01:53but there are many questions left unanswered how could the murderers have got past his guards
01:59and how exactly did they deliver the fatal blows and why did caesar ignore all warnings
02:08one man is convinced that the version of events that reaches us today is not the whole truth
02:15colonel luciano garrafano is one of the world's top forensic investigators he works with the carbonieri
02:22italy's equivalent of the fbi for the last 25 years garrafano has used forensic science to solve
02:28some of italy's worst crimes including apprehending several notorious mafia bosses
02:34but now he's taken on one of the biggest challenges of his career reopening the cold case of the death of julius caesar
02:47caesar's assassination is a special case it's really a challenge but i am sure that
02:58we can use forensic science strategy to try to find a solution on why and how he was killed
03:07garrafano believes there are several things about the case which don't add up how are the assassins
03:15able to plot against and murder julius caesar the most powerful and well-informed man in rome
03:23our knowledge of the crime is entirely based on ancient sources but by analyzing each of these for
03:29clues and using all the tools available to a 21st century murder case can garrafano rewrite history
03:35and solve a 2 000 year old crime in the hunt for evidence he will gain unprecedented access to key
03:42locations in the conspiracy and he'll call in specialist expert witnesses this way on the back
03:52including a former secret service agent who saved president ronald reagan from assassination
03:57with caesar it was planned ahead of time they brought the weapons they planned to do when he came there
04:01and he came without bodyguards and made it pretty easy using computer generated models he will
04:05recreate the crime scene and blow by blow garrafano will reconstruct the murder itself in order to
04:11find out what really happened and examine the means and motivations of the conspirators but he will
04:18also consider an entirely new suspect caesar himself consulting one of the world's foremost forensic psychiatrists
04:30scarafano will attempt to uncover caesar's state of mind could he have played a role in his own death
04:38caesar seems to me to be one of the great puzzles of history how could such a man who is always prepared
04:45for everything seem to be so unprepared for his own death i was that itself an illusion an illusion
04:51perpetrated by the fact that we are seeing caesar through the eyes of the conspirators rather than through
04:58the eyes of caesar himself yet amidst all the uncertainty the basic details of the murder are undisputed
05:07on march 15 44 bc julius caesar rome's greatest and shrewdest general traveled to the senate unguarded
05:15having dismissed several warnings the senators await their head of state the first item on the agenda is
05:24caesar's murder as bystanders look on in horror caesar is stabbed to death the deed is quick bloody and
05:34public the identity of the culprits beyond doubt but did the famous conspirators brutus and cassius
05:42really mastermind caesar's murder or were they just the pawns of an unseen hand
05:57born in 100 bc caesar grew up during rome's twilight years as a republic
06:03a state ravaged by civil war it seemed it was clear to caesar from an early age that rome needed a strong
06:09leader he made it his life's work to become that man
06:18caesar was a military tactician without equal he never lost a battle and his conquests pushed back
06:24rome's borders across europe but his success and increasing arrogance infuriated some members of
06:31the senate and sparked a civil war
06:37caesar defeated his enemies but ignited a hostility in rome's aristocracy that was to prove deadly
06:45caesar was one of the most ambitious people of whom we know he was a master political manipulator
06:51somebody who starts from next to nothing he comes from a famous old family that is has not been so
06:57successful anymore but through marriage connections through a certain amount of toughness and through
07:03a great deal of luck he manages to rise to the top of the tree an ambitious man with a calculating mind
07:10boundless energy and an overcharged libido caesar wrote prolifically glorifying his achievements
07:18but one thing he never wrote about was a flaw he feared might be his undoing
07:23shakespeare called it the falling sickness today we call it epilepsy
07:33caesar worked hard to overcome his illness and at 56 shortly before his death he was made perpetual
07:39dictator of rome living in the legal religious and political heart of the roman republic a complex known
07:46as the forum
07:54but when garofano decides to begin the investigation he wants to try and pinpoint the exact location of caesar's
08:02death the crime scene
08:08it's always important the area where a crime took place
08:12it's sometimes stated that caesar was killed in the roman forum he wasn't assassinated in the roman forum
08:32he was assassinated in the portico of pompey which was attached to the theater of pompey which was where
08:38the senate was meeting how come the senate had uh been burned and it there was a project underway to
08:45rebuild the senate and the senate house which was in the forum had not been rebuilt yet and so the senate
08:50was meeting elsewhere and on this particular day it was meeting in uh the portico of pompey
08:59to locate the crime scene garofano turns to his first expert witness
09:03joe crawley quinn is an authority on the layout of ancient rome
09:08colonel garofano hi joe thank you very much she can take garofano to the exact location where the
09:13ancient theater once stood
09:17joe leads garofano to the temporary senate house in the eastern end of pompey's theater complex
09:22an area ignored by most of today's romans and closed to the public
09:33this is the place where 2 000 years ago caesar was murdered in cold blood
09:40you can see behind what remains we think of the senate house at the back of the portico
09:44and that's where the senators would have been waiting for hours probably on the morning of the ides of march
09:53garofano records the crime scene to help in his analysis
09:58i was amazed to find the crime scene area after 2 000 years still in place
10:06using computer generated models garofano tries to visualize the interior of the senate house
10:17where up to 900 senators would have been waiting for caesar that morning
10:21i wonder how many of them were directly involved in the assassination
10:31it gives garofano an insight into just how much chaos and confusion must have accompanied the murder
10:38in a modern case garofano's next step would be to analyze the body by conducting a post-mortem
10:45he sets out to discover what happened to caesar's corpse and what it might tell him about the crime
10:50we know analyzing the historical account that the body was not in place we have to ask why and how it
10:59happened and where the body was moved
11:06garofano is in luck for the historical sources reveal that several hours after the murder caesar's
11:12corpse was carried to his house and an autopsy performed can garofano glean any information from
11:18the reports of his ancient counterpart the first in recorded history will the post-mortem provide him
11:24with any of the forensic details he needs to solve the case so if we're coming up to the area where
11:31caesar actually lived in the domus publico the chief priest actually lived seeking his first piece of
11:37hard evidence garofano gains access to the site of the home of caesar himself lying in the heart of the
11:44forum its location has only recently been identified today it is a complex ruin so we are here just
11:54outside the house it's even difficult to say what exactly will be inside and outside unfortunately for
11:58sure yeah okay can we go down we can try yeah garofano may be standing on the very spot where the autopsy
12:07took place according to roman historians it was carried out by a doctor called antistius
12:18one of the most striking things found during the autopsy was a note still held in caesar's hand it
12:24warned him of the conspiracy against him it's an extraordinary piece of evidence how important
12:31was the note for investigation what was written on it the note will become key later in the investigation
12:41but the most immediate thing to strike garofano from the autopsy report are the details about caesar's injuries
12:48he had 23 stab wounds but according to antistius only one was fatal could this be a clue as to how many
12:56assailants there were and how could so many wounds have caused so little damage
13:11for colonel garofano just as in a modern murder case he enlists forensic pathologist dr roberto testi
13:17to help analyze caesar's wounds this is a roman dagger very interesting yeah this is like the one
13:26they used against caesar or similar working from the historical accounts they create a computer model
13:31of the body to help evaluate the pattern of wounding
13:34we know that the first strike was against the region of the neck and the shoulder in this way
13:48in this way this is not a vital reason
13:53testi knows from the autopsy that it was the second stab wound which was thought to be the fatal one
13:58testi can tell where the fatal blow landed
14:26and why it was lethal but what he can't tell us is who might have dealt it the wound on the right
14:34garofano has analyzed the historical accounts as he would witness his statements
14:40plutarch tells us that each conspirator had agreed to stab caesar at least once
14:45garofano has seen this before in mafia slayings the assailants also performed such
14:50gestures of shared responsibility but whilst another account claims there were over 60
14:56conspirators the autopsy recorded only 23 stab wounds if this source is to be believed it would seem
15:03many of the attackers failed to make the symbolic cuts they had promised
15:11garofano decides to conduct a series of simulations to try and get to the truth
15:17it's the sort of technique he's used before on modern murder cases
15:21i'm going to select people that has to be to stop caesar
15:29you you you you you and you all right okay caesar please enter in the scene in this kind of cases
15:39we normally use simulation to better understand the type of organization and how many people was
15:47directly involved
15:52garofano begins with 23 assailants one for each of the stab wounds found on caesar's body
15:58the man in the white coat plays caesar
16:02as in the real murder the senators greet caesar before the attack
16:17the result was chaos confusion the first simulation tells garofano it would have been almost impossible
16:32for 23 people to attack caesar simultaneously and experience on modern murder cases tells him that
16:39each of the attackers probably stabbed caesar more than once
16:43an average in this kind of crime could be 40 to 60 stab wounds but it's really important because
16:53it tells us that the action was fast so garofano restages the simulation this time with 11 men
17:06buddy realizes that even 11 men are causing many more stab wounds than the 23 mentioned in the autopsy
17:13he remembers that the historical sources all mentioned five wounds in detail could this be a clue
17:20guys pay attention please we did the last simulation and any just no more than five people to stop caesar
17:29all right
17:38the results are intriguing with five assailants all have good access to the victim
17:44acting fast the five men easily inflict 23 wounds
17:47i think that the number of people who directly assaulted caesar was
17:58among five to ten people no more but if there were really so few attackers then what did the other
18:05conspirators do again garofano sees parallels with his mafia cases i think that the assassination of julius caesar
18:15was a well-organized crime different people had different tasks when one conspirator gave the signal
18:23it's likely that the others performed crowd control vital given the number of senators loyal to caesar who would have
18:30witnessed the crime
18:34free from interference a small group of assassins could quickly close in on him
18:41none of the historical sources records who struck the fatal blow
18:44but they do name the conspiracy's ringleaders cassius and brutus
18:52garofano now needs to investigate their motives
18:57in search of evidence garofano returns to the forum where caesar dominated both military and political life
19:03here a physical remnant of caesar's rules still exists
19:11his rostra or speaker's platform
19:15well it's important to understand that this is caesar's brand new rostra finished just a few months before his death
19:20and what's interesting about the fact that he built it here square onto the forum is that for the first time
19:25it wasn't part of the same complex as the senate house over there and so what caesar's doing in a sense
19:31is taking the practice of politics out of the hands of the politicians and aristocrats and bringing
19:36it down to the people in the forum here garofano understands how caesar's popularity with the masses
19:42could have infuriated the aristocrats who had ruled rome for five centuries could this be the motive for murder
19:51the whole notion of the roman elite is one of sharing power caesar's point of view was
19:58i as the wisest and greatest general should be the leader of the republic when you have a caesar
20:05who wants to be number one he doesn't want to share his success and then you go ask
20:10but the people have to deal with him do you like this guy i hate him of course
20:15though adored by the public caesar was loathed by the aristocracy
20:20but garofano's examination of the evidence finds that it took a senator with a personal grudge to
20:25instigate the murder plot plutarch's account says that the conspiracy began with senator gaius cassius
20:35longinus a hot-tempered gambler during the civil war in which caesar had triumphed cassius had fought
20:44for the losing side he had expected to be executed
20:48instead caesar pardoned and promoted him
20:57but his generosity backfired cassius resented men with power
21:07garofano reads that he began plotting murder
21:10but in order for his scheme to succeed cassius would need to have powerful allies
21:19he turned to another man with a grudge against caesar the one whose support could transform a
21:25political assassination into an act of patriotism in the eyes of the senate
21:29his respected brother-in-law senator marcus junius brutus
21:41married three times caesar was a notorious womanizer
21:46one ancient source describes him as having slept with the finest women of rome
21:51including brutus's mother and that she was caesar's greatest love
21:59his entire life brutus was dogged by rumors that he was not descended from heroes
22:05but was in fact caesar's illegitimate son
22:09caesar seemed to give credence to these claims by singling brutus out for honors and promotion
22:16after serious consideration brutus decided to honor his family's republican roots and join cassius
22:22the two men began to recruit other resentful senators to their conspiracy to kill caesar in the name of the republic
22:38luciano garofano believes that in order to find out the truth
22:42it may be as important to investigate the victim as closely as the killers
22:46in the ancient sources he uncovers an incident which seems like an act of outright provocation on caesar's part
22:58a snub which may have been key in turning the senate against caesar
23:02and one which raises questions about the victim's state of mind
23:06in the spot where the incident took place garofano tries to recreate the scene minute by minute
23:11in the weeks before his death caesar was visited by a group of senators
23:21they came to bestow on him the only honor greater than that of dictator
23:27they made him a living god
23:32but caesar repaid them with an unthinkable insult
23:35when a delegation of senators comes to see caesar to tell him that he's been deified
23:43he commits the enormous faux pas of staying in his seat he doesn't get up to show respect to
23:49the senators it's like not kissing the mafia don's ring and this has taken extremely poorly on the part
23:56of the senate they say this man is someone who has no respect
23:59caesar's failure to rise played right into the hands of cassius and brutus
24:06angry senators rushed to join their conspiracy furious at caesar's behavior
24:12but did the senators get it wrong in a little red account by the scholar dio
24:18garofano finds a surprising explanation for caesar's behavior not arrogance but illness
24:25caesar said that he couldn't do it because he suffered from terrible diarrhea and had
24:32he gotten up there would have been a scene whose ugliness can only be imagined is that the truth
24:37was he a sick man or was this the excuse afterwards when he realized he'd let his arrogance go a bit too
24:43far in another version of the story this time by plutarch garofano finds a clue which seems to support
24:51the illness theory in this account caesar not only failed to rise for the senators he had a fit
25:01afterwards he flung back his cloak bared his throat and cried out
25:08kill me now i won't resist
25:15kill me now i won't resist
25:22in plutarch's account caesar blamed the incident on his illness epilepsy
25:32but that term can be used to describe a broad range of conditions
25:36many people have attempted to diagnose precisely what caesar had what was the caesar syndrome but so
25:43far it has proven impossible to do that
25:45in order to find out which version of events is the true one garofano wants to better understand caesar's
25:54illness he travels to meet a man who may be able to give him a specific diagnosis
25:59the doctor
26:03can you tell me dr benstein
26:08garofano arrives at harvard medical school where profiler and forensic psychiatrist dr harold
26:13berstein joins the investigation okay let's do it
26:18epilepsy involves a disturbance of the electrical rhythm of the brain the disturbance of consciousness
26:26which occurs is terrifying to those people who suffer from it
26:34luciano you have collected a remarkable set of evidence
26:39garofano presents his growing case file to dr berstein
26:44his first priority is to discover whether caesar's epilepsy could have played a part in his failure
26:49to rise for the senators who are honoring him this is where he failed to rise and he humiliated them
26:56that's right and this is what we want to understand that's right
27:00can the two separate accounts one describing diarrhea and the other a fit point dr berstein towards a
27:06specific diagnosis
27:10the area of the brain i want you to look at is this area the temporal lobe of the brain
27:16and we know that julius caesar was having a loosening of the bowels on the day that he failed
27:22to rise we also know he was spacing out
27:27putting it together we wonder about the temporal lobe epilepsy because spacing out and loosening the
27:32bowels would indicate the possibility of temporal lobe epilepsy was the caesar syndrome temporal lobe epilepsy
27:40the diagnosis fits both historical accounts but luciano garofano wants to know if there would have
27:46been broader implications to this condition so he's asked dr berstein to create a psychological
27:53profile of caesar what did affect his behavior yes even in between the seizures we may see psychiatric
28:02symptoms such as irritability as i understand it after he failed to rise over here he in an exaggerated
28:08fashion offered his throat to the senators to be cut which be consistent with him suffering the
28:15psychiatric after effects of a temporal lobe seizure for garofano something clicks into place it seems the
28:23diagnosis could also explain some of caesar's well-documented character traits temporal lobe epilepsy is a
28:30progressive condition it gets worse and worse over time and what happens is it begins to have associated
28:37with it psychiatric conditions such as if someone is grandiose to begin with they'll become more grandiose
28:46the fact that caesar wrote incessantly he was active incessantly was seeking sexuality almost
28:53desperately would all be consistent with someone who is struggling with the effects of temporal lobe epilepsy
28:59the strange behavior presents me with a different picture of caesar what is going on in his mind and
29:08is there a glue in his illness for a proud old man the treatments he would have endured bindings and
29:14bitter medicines were embarrassing enough but losing control of himself in public would have been unbearable
29:22garofano wonders how much more a man of caesar's vanity would have been prepared to take
29:39after his meeting with dr berstein he concludes caesar's epilepsy was probably getting worse and decides to
29:46re-examine the events leading up to the murder the first is caesar's famous refusal of the crown
29:54garofano thinks it demonstrates that caesar's epilepsy was exaggerating his behavior
29:59and sets in motion a train of events that would ultimately lead to his death
30:05caesar always denied he wanted to be king but he surrounded himself with the trappings of royalty
30:10even adopting the traditional purple robes of kings
30:16his actions spoke louder than his words he wore purple he installed the queen of egypt as his mistress
30:23in a mansion in the city of rome well if she was the queen it was quite clear what he wanted
30:31rumors circulated that caesar intended to marry cleopatra and move the roman capital to egypt
30:36the one thing guaranteed to infuriate the aristocracy was the suggestion they would be ruled by a king
30:53then during one of rome's many festivals caesar was offered a crown
31:01humbly he waved the honor aside the crowd roared their approval
31:06but the senators were outraged caesar not so subtly kept refusing the crown
31:18it was clear to those in the know that this was a setup that he really wanted the crown
31:22instead of soothing his enemies caesar drove them to strike
31:27by now the conspiracy had grown to more than 60 senators
31:32but something is bothering garofano how did caesar the all-seeing all-knowing dictator fail to uncover the plot
31:42his suspicions are reinforced by reports of another incident
31:47weeks before his death caesar was warned by a soothsayer that he faced grave danger on the ides
31:53the 15th of march
31:54and the analysis of the ancient sources has uncovered that caesar even voiced suspicion of cassius and brutus
32:03yet shortly before his death caesar dismissed his bodyguards
32:09a baffling move according to expert witness and former secret service agent timothy mccarthy
32:14and turned out to be a very foolish act leading to his death i don't believe uh that there's been a
32:22president in modern times that would dismiss his security and take that type of risk and still be
32:28considered to be responsible
32:32did history's greatest tactician walk blindly into an ambush
32:36or was caesar in fact the plotter's greatest ally
32:51garofano wonders was caesar deliberately forcing the conspiracists to act
32:56suddenly he finds an extraordinary piece of evidence which seems to support his idea
33:01in the writings of ancient historian suetonius caesar gave his friends the suspicion that he did not
33:07want to live any longer because of his failing health and that therefore he ignored the warnings
33:16garofano returns to caesar's home to try and piece together his final hours
33:22caesar had had a troubled night his wife calpurnia was plagued by nightmares foretelling his death
33:27but although she begged him not to leave the house he ignored her desperate pleas
33:36garofano retraces caesar's final journey to the senate
33:45the countdown to murder had begun
33:50at the senate the conspirators waited nervously for caesar's arrival
33:57without his bodyguards caesar was beset at every corner by supporters with petitions and requests
34:08all of these were passed to his aides except one
34:14the records say that a greek teacher artemidorus thrust a note into caesar's hand telling him read
34:20this alone and quickly for it contains matters of great importance
34:24but the ancient texts tell us that caesar never read the note
34:32garofano recalls the autopsy which said that the note was found in caesar's hand after his death
34:38how could he not have read it dr berstein who has been profiling caesar thinks he must have
34:45what's the only piece of paper that he actually keeps with him
34:48the piece of paper which tells him that he is going to be murdered at the senate meeting
34:56is this a man who's walking blindly to his death
35:00is this a man who's acting on an unconscious death wish
35:03no i think the evidence points to a man who's very conscious and very aware
35:09that he is going to be killed
35:17garofano returns to the crime scene his entire perception of the murder has been turned upside down
35:28had caesar the great general actually been orchestrating his final campaign
35:33had he made the extraordinary decision to let himself be killed
35:47garofano tries to imagine caesar's last moments
35:53how would he have felt facing death
35:55for even if he had known of the conspiracy against him
36:03he could not have known exactly when they would strike
36:15he could not have known exactly when they would strike
36:23it's reported that when caesar saw brutus the man he had treated as a son he gasped you too my child
36:37in their frenzy some of the conspirators were also wounded
36:41brutus himself was slashed on the hand
36:53the analysis of the sources has revealed that cassius stabbed caesar in the face
36:58brutus stabbed him in the groin
37:06garofano remembers that the conspirators had taken to the streets after the murder
37:10proclaiming their triumph over tyranny
37:13but now he wonders had they actually won a hollow victory had the killers actually just been doing caesar's bidding
37:30garofano weighs up the evidence
37:32he believes that caesar must have known of the conspiracy against him
37:41he ignored all warnings the soothsayer the dreams and the note
37:46he dismissed his bodyguards leaving himself exposed
37:53caesar deliberately provoked his enemies with insults and acts of supreme vanity
38:00and he had set them a deadline by announcing his departure for war
38:04from his medical investigations of caesar garofano believes he had faced a stark choice
38:12wait for his epilepsy to rob him of his dignity or use the conspirators to end his pain
38:19was caesar's death actually the suicide of a sick and aging man or was there still more to it
38:27garofano returns to the findings of the psychiatric profile to understand the victim's state of mind
38:32is it so out of the question to suppose that caesar might wish to use the conspirators agenda to serve
38:40his own agenda he needed to find an executioner and the conspirators were his perfect tool just as
38:49people who seek to commit suicide will find policemen to shoot them we call it suicide by cop but suicide
38:56by cop which serves a very specific personal and political agenda
39:05what was caesar's agenda was death the master tactician's final move this is a man who's seeking
39:13to accomplish in his death what he also wanted to accomplish in his life to achieve immortality in
39:21the only two ways that he can achieve immortality by naming his successor making sure that his successor
39:28it does in fact become his successor and making sure that his death is remembered to assure his eternal fame
39:41it's a bold new theory but garofano wants proof
39:45is there any evidence in the events that occurred after caesar's death
39:52garofano returns to the ancient sources and hits the jackpot
39:59he finds that just before his death caesar made substantial changes to his will
40:03in a political masterstroke he adopted his grand nephew octavian making him his successor
40:13it was a fitting choice octavian just like caesar fought to be number one
40:20within three years of the murder brutus cassius and all the other conspirators were dead
40:25some were killed in battle others took their own lives their plan to preserve the republic in tatters
40:35for with caesar's death any remaining sense of shared rule ended from then on one man would reign supreme
40:44over the entire empire drawing all the threads of the complex case together garofano is stunned at how
40:51he underestimated caesar's cunning for him it is now beyond doubt caesar used the conspirators to serve his own ends
41:02i've done what i wanted to do and now i feel really closer to the truth of this extraordinary man
41:13science and modern investigative techniques have finally allowed us to see behind the myths
41:19surrounding caesar's death he left an indelible mark on history even two thousand years later caesar's
41:27military achievements and writings are studied by those hoping to understand the strategic thinking
41:33of a genius but what is not recorded is what may have been his greatest scheme of all engineering his own
41:42assassination his successors would honor him after his death by taking the title caesar and with that his
41:52ultimate goal immortality was achieved