Caesar knew...!

I happened to tune into Discovery Channel this morning and stopped surfing channels on seeing what the programme was about. Unfortunately I missed the first part of the programme and only got to see the last 20 minutes. It was about a man in search of the truth.

This man was studying the life and death of Julius Caesar and trying to unravel and unearth some truths associated with the latter. When I tuned in, 'the man in search of the truth' was busy catching up with different versions of documented stories of Caesar. He then consulted a forensic psychiatrist who alluded to some of Caesar’s behaviour and said it seemed like he (Caesar) was suffering from epilepsy. But the programme was not about this but more about the likely mysteries behind Caesar’s death. The man in search of the truth goes on to study many documented episodes just before Caesar’s death and comes to realize that Caesar was well informed about the risks that he was subjecting himself to. He discovers that Caesar was well aware of the impending doom and knew of his enemies’ plans to kill him (Caesar). The programme anchor also discovers that there were enough signs of Caesar’s enemies targeting his life and one last sign was indeed a letter that was delivered to Caesar on his last journey to death. The programme anchor believes that evidence proves that Caesar did not even open the letter and was found dead with the unread letter in his hands. If there was one thing that took Caesar by surprise then it was Brutus’s involvement in the plot. Of course, we all know it as the unforgettable story of deceit and disbelief and the immortal line “You too, Brutus!?” Apparently it was in reality, “You too, my son!?” as Caesar considered Brutus to be his son. It is heart-rending to listen to a story of one man reposing so much faith in someone that he considered to be his son and the latter killing him ruthlessly. But the conclusion of the story in the programme is even more intriguing and perplexing.

The man in search of the truth goes on to conclude and declare that Caesar knew all along that he would be killed by his enemies and actually walked into their trap consciously. He says Caesar couldn’t have been a fool to present himself on a platter and be killed - therefore it must have been a voluntary submission. The programme pulls in a psychiatrist who says that “Caesar’s aim was immortality. He wanted to achieve it at any cost and he knew that there were two ways to do it. In life and in death! In life, he did it through his famous successes and in death he decided that he would have to be killed/assassinated to be remembered for ever by the world.” And so, he gave in to ‘suicide by enemies’! Isn’t this a hard-hitting revelation? How hard does it hit you? To me, the story brings to light the mysterious and baffling ways of the human mind. One person who killed his ‘father’ despite the latter’s unshakeable faith in him and another person who wanted to be killed to stay immortal! It sometimes scares me to think that human mind can be so devious and ‘unearthly’ and what’s more petrifying is that man (except for a few) hasn’t learned to control his mind as yet.