I was flipping through sources yesterday, trying to confirm an impression my aging mind has . . . thought perhaps someone here could help me.

AS I recall, one of the honors granted by the Senate to Caesar in the last months of his life was the right to hold special games in the month of his birth, the new month of Julius, in 44 BC. THAT was the reason Augustus was so particularly determined to hold those games after Caesar's murder, as a posthumous salute to an honor already granted Caesar. And of course, we all know what happened THAT July - Brutus has his (official) games early in July, with lots of intellectual and literary propaganda about removing tyrants, and gets a large ho-hum from the crowd at large and strong approval from the intellectuals. Then Octavian has HIS games in Caesar's memory in later July, comet appears, divinity confirmed.

Must have been a very nervous July in Rome that year!