Good points, Demetrios, but it STILL doesn't make sense IMO. Why on earth would Caesar do this? You've got a guy running around 37 years after the fact, why on earth make an example of him, let alone with an arcane and archaic (but still legal) trial procedure that was bound to create a buzz? All that stuff about having to break off the case because a red flag was raised on the Janiculum Hill announcing that enemies were at hand?

I think this is another peculiarity, like the flamen issue, that we're just missing part of the picture and our sources have proved insufficient. Unless he was making a political point doing this, it seems stupid and pointless - and if we know anything about our boy, he was neither.