A-List Funerals

The funeral for the great Roman emperor was as dramatic as the way he died—assassinated at the mutinous hands of fellow senators in 44 B.C. A written play-by-play of the funeral survived. Mark Antony gave an emotional speech: "It is not fitting, fellow citizens, that the funeral oration of so great a man should be pronounced by me alone, but rather by his whole country.” Onlookers devastated by his death couldn’t control themselves: “They groaned, and girding themselves, they burned the Senate chamber, where Caesar had been slain, and ran hither and thither searching for the murderers, who had fled some time previously."