It was in Rome on the 15th day of February, in the year we call 44 BC, that the ancient festival of The Lupercalia was celebrated. This ritual from the beginnings of Rome symbolized a renewal of civic order. It was performed by the Luperci, a group of priests composed of young men of the best Roman families. They ran through the streets of Rome clad in nothing but goatskin loin cloths lashing the crowds into order with long strips of rawhide in a parody of civic government bringing the gift of order to the people.

Caesar watched the spectacle that year from a high dais set up in the forum. He sat upon a gilded chair and wore robes of royal purple in the manner of the old kings of Rome. He had already been deified. his gold and ivory image was carried in the procession of statues of the gods which preceded the games and another statue of him stood in The Temple Of Romulus with the dedication, "To the invincible god." He had accepted the position of dictator of Rome for life. He was king in the long tradition of Hellenistic kings in all but name. He lacked but a crown.

One of the priests officiating in that year's Lupercalia was Caesar's friend, Marc Anthony. At 40, he was suspiciously old for that position creating some speculation that Caesar had pulled some strings to achieve his participation in the charade which was about to be staged for the watching crowd.

Marc Anthony wearing his goatskin loin cloth appeared at the foot of Caesar's dais holding a diadem wrapped with laurel leaves. The diadem, but a strip of white cloth, served the symbolic function which today the crown serves. It meant the wearer was a king. In an apparent gesture of spontaneity, others of the priests raised Marc Anthony on their shoulders so that he might place the diadem at the feet of Caesar. Cassius and Publius Servilius Casca who were on the dais with Caesar picked up the diadem and put it on Caesar's lap. Caesar gestured to the crowd that he would not accept it and although the claque near the foot of the dais urged him to take it, the great crowd roared their approval of his refusal to be named king.

Marc Anthony now went around the dais and mounted the steps. He took up the diadem and put it upon Caesar's head saying,"The people offer this to you through me." Caesar at once replied, "Jupiter alone is king of the Romans."and tossed the diadem into the crowd. Cassius Dio tells us that although the crowd clapped and shouted its approval, a group of Caesar's clients shouted loudly for him to take it back.

An early source reports that this pantomime continued for some time with the diadem being tossed back and forth until Caesar stood and exposed his throat saying that anyone who wished to cut his throat could do so. No one did.

The diadem was placed eventually in The Temple Of Jupiter by Marc Anthony and it was recorded in the archives of The Lupercalia that year that,"To Caius Caesar, Dictator of Rome for life, Marc Anthony, Counsel by command of the people, offered the kingship to Caesar: He was unwilling."

Much has been made of this engaging coup d' theatre over the millennia. It was quite transparently staged and no one of any degree of sophistication believed it from its inception. Cicero in his Orationes Philippicae 11:8 asks Marc Anthony how he happened to be carrying a diadem that day...or did he just find it in the streets? The spontaneity of the demonstration is not a possibility. Caesar's appearance seated upon a golden chair and dressed in the garb of a traditional Roman king is not likely to have been coincidental. It was done and purposely overdone for a reason. The question remains why.

Caesar needed no crown. He was Emperor in the modern sense, with or without a hat to prove it and the whole world knew it well. Would he risk the trouble which he knew would result from the hostility of the people for nothing more than a symbol of the reality which he knew full well that he already possessed?

Caesar lived with all the trappings of royalty. He did not move through Rome modestly or merely with the traditional lictors of an official elected by the republic. Cicero records that when Caesar came to visit his villa in Puteoli in the December previous to The Lupercalia Fiasco, he arrived with such a number of retainers that they completely filled Cicero's villa and Caesar slept in a neighboring one. Besides these, he traveled with a personal bodyguard of 2000 soldiers who had to be billeted in tents on the grounds. This was certainly an entourage worthy of any Hellenistic monarch.

By the time of the crowning pantomime of Lupercalia, Caesar was living in some great degree of state. Access to him was difficult and controlled. When Cicero's son tried to obtain an interview, even he needed to pull some strings and bide his time. Cicero cannot have been pleased by the fact that upon obtaining the audience, the young man knelt at Caesar's feet. This was not at all a republican gesture. as this was no longer a republic in anything but name.

In one of Caesar's villas on the far side of The Tiber awaiting his pleasure were both the queen and the king of Egypt. They had crowns aplenty, but little power. Caesar had plenty of power, but no crown. Surely he must have considered getting one. I would speculate that the entire fiasco of Lupercalia in 44 BC was nothing more than Caesar testing the waters of Roman opinion. He could not lose either way. If with a bit of imaginative manipulation, he could get the people to offer him the crown of Rome, he could reluctantly bow to the will of the people. If on the other hand, it appeared that the people were against it, he could make a great show of disdaining it. Win win, He couldn't lose and he knew it.