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Vincenzo Camuccini painted it in 1804 and got most of it wrong. I did not fall dramatically at the base of Pompey's statue — that detail is Plutarch's flourish and possibly not accurate. The wounds were twenty-three, of which only one was immediately fatal according to the physician Antistius. The others were superficial. My senators were not very good assassins.

What the painting captures correctly is the isolation. Twenty-three men with knives and I had no one beside me. I had dismissed my bodyguard the month before because I thought the gesture of trust would reduce the conspiracies. I was wrong about that.

I have thought since: was this the correct death for someone who had crossed the Rubicon? The man who rode at Darius, slept in the field with his soldiers, dictated letters while riding — perhaps this was the appropriate end. In the Senate. By the hands of men who called themselves his friends.