What is the deification of Caesar, 42 BC?

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How did the Second Triumvirate and the defeat of the Liberators at Philippi in 42 BC bring the Roman Republic to its effective end?

The reconciliation of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus and the formation of the Second Triumvirate by the lex Titia (27 November 43 BC); the proscriptions and the killing of Cicero; the deification of Caesar as Divus Iulius (42 BC); the campaign against the Liberators and the two battles of Philippi (October 42 BC) with the suicides of Cassius and Brutus; and the triumvirs' division of the Roman world that set up the eventual clash of Octavian and Antony

The reconciliation of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus and the formal Second Triumvirate under the lex Titia of 43 BC, the proscriptions and the death of Cicero, the deification of Caesar in 42 BC, and the destruction of the Republican cause at the two battles of Philippi where Cassius and then Brutus died.

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After a year as enemies, Octavian, Antony and Lepidus reconciled near Bononia and formalised the Second Triumvirate by the lex Titia on 27 November 43 BC, this time a legally constituted five-year magistracy with power to legislate and judge without appeal, unlike the informal First Triumvirate of 60 BC. Their proscriptions killed the senatorial opposition, most famously Cicero (7 December 43 BC), and raised cash for war; the ancient toll of about 300 senators and 2,000 equites (Appian) is tradition, not audited fact. On 1 January 42 BC Caesar was deified as Divus Iulius, making Octavian divi filius. Brutus and Cassius, holding the East with some nineteen legions, were confronted at Philippi in Macedonia in October 42 BC: in the first battle Cassius killed himself by mistake, and about three weeks later (traditionally 23 October) Brutus was defeated and died, destroying the last Republican army. The triumvirs then divided the Roman world, Antony taking the East, Octavian Italy and Lepidus a marginal Africa, a settlement that set up the eventual clash of Octavian and Antony at Brundisium (40 BC) and Actium (31 BC), beyond this period. As Syme argues, after Philippi no one fought to restore the Republic; the only question left was which Caesarian would rule, which is why 42 BC marks its effective death.

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What this dot point is asking

This is the closing slice of the period "The fall of the Roman Republic 78-42 BC," and it asks you to explain HOW the Caesarian leaders turned their post-Ides rivalry into a formal partnership, WHAT that partnership did to their enemies and to the memory of Caesar, and WHY the defeat of the Liberators at Philippi in 42 BC amounts to the effective death of the Republic. That means handling the reconciliation of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus and the creation of the Second Triumvirate by the lex Titia (27 November 43 BC), this time a legally constituted five-year magistracy rather than the informal pact of 60 BC; the proscriptions and the killing of Cicero (December 43 BC); the deification of Caesar as Divus Iulius (42 BC); the campaign against Brutus and Cassius and the two battles of Philippi (October 42 BC); and the triumvirs' division of the Roman world that set up the eventual clash of Octavian and Antony, noted here as beyond this period. It is partly narrative, but the exam always wants you to ARGUE about significance and consequence, above all the claim that the Republic died in fact in 42 BC.

In plain English

Picture three ambitious managers who spent a year fighting one another after their boss was murdered, then realise they will all lose unless they team up. So they sign a formal contract carving the company between them and, to make sure nobody can undo it, they draw up a hit-list of every rival executive and have them removed, the most famous of them a brilliant old lawyer who had denounced one of them in public. They also declare their dead boss an actual god, which is very handy for the youngest partner, because it lets him call himself "son of a god." Two of the murderers, meanwhile, have fled overseas and raised a private army to win the company back for the old board. The three partners chase them down and beat them in two battles; both murderers kill themselves rather than surrender. With the last opposition army gone, the old board is finished for good. The three partners then split the firm between them, and everyone can already see that the deal will not hold and that the two strongest will eventually fight it out. The old way of running the company is dead; only the question of who will be sole boss remains.

The answer

The reconciliation and the lex Titia, 43 BC

Through 44 and early 43 BC, Octavian and Antony had been open enemies. Cicero's Philippics had branded Antony a public enemy, and at the war around Mutina in April 43 BC Octavian and the two consuls defeated him. But both consuls died, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies and unwilling to be discarded by a Senate that had used him against Antony. Rather than destroy one another, the Caesarian leaders combined. In November 43 BC, near Bononia (modern Bologna), Octavian, Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus met and agreed to share power, reportedly haggling over the proscription lists as part of the bargain.

The alliance was made law by the lex Titia on 27 November 43 BC, proposed by the tribune Publius Titius. This is the decisive constitutional point of the dot point. Unlike the First Triumvirate of 60 BC, which was an informal, private and initially secret pact between Caesar, Pompey and Crassus with no legal standing, the Second Triumvirate was a formal, publicly enacted magistracy. The three became the triumviri rei publicae constituendae, "the three men for the restoration of the Republic," for a fixed five-year term, with consular-level imperium and the power to make law, nominate magistrates and dispense justice without appeal. The Republic's own machinery had legalised its own suspension.

The proscriptions and the death of Cicero, 43 BC

The triumvirs' first act was terror. Reviving the method Sulla had used in 82 BC, they issued proscriptions: published lists of the condemned, whose property was confiscated by the state and whose killers were rewarded, while anyone sheltering a victim shared his fate. The purpose was double. Politically, the lists eliminated the senatorial opposition and ended the amnesty compromise that had followed the Ides of March in 44 BC. Financially, the confiscated estates were meant to help fund the enormous armies the triumvirs needed for the coming war, though the sales worked poorly as revenue in a frightened market.

The most famous victim was Cicero, killed on 7 December 43 BC on Antony's insistence after the Philippics; his head and hands were nailed to the Rostra from which he had denounced Antony. The ancient tradition (Appian, Civil Wars 4.5) puts the toll at around 300 senators and 2,000 equites; these are ancient estimates, dramatised for effect, not audited figures, and should be flagged as such.

The deification of Caesar, 42 BC

While the proscriptions cleared the triumvirs' rear, Caesar's memory was raised to divine status. During the funeral games of July 44 BC a comet had blazed for several days and was interpreted as Caesar's soul ascending to the gods, becoming known as the sidus Iulium, the "Julian Star." On 1 January 42 BC the state formally recognised Caesar as Divus Iulius, the Deified Julius. This mattered most for Octavian: as the adopted son of a god he could now style himself divi filius, "son of a god," a supernatural sanction advertised on his coinage and available to no rival, neither Antony nor the Liberators. The deification bound Caesar's veterans and the plebs more tightly to his heir on the eve of Philippi.

The campaign against the Liberators and the two battles of Philippi, 42 BC

While the triumvirs consolidated the West, Brutus and Cassius had built a formidable power base in the East, seizing Macedonia and Syria, extracting money from the provinces (Cassius from Rhodes, Brutus from Lycia) and raising some nineteen legions. Their existence meant the lex Titia was, as Syme put it, a claim rather than a settled fact: a Republican victory could still have swept the triumvirs away. Antony and Octavian therefore crossed the Adriatic to force a decision, though Octavian was ill for much of the campaign.

The armies met near Philippi in Macedonia in October 42 BC in two engagements. In the first battle, in early October, Antony stormed Cassius's camp while Brutus's wing broke through and overran Octavian's; Cassius, on high ground and unable to see that Brutus had in fact won on the other flank, wrongly believed the whole day lost and had his freedman kill him. Brutus mourned him as "the last of the Romans" (Plutarch, Brutus 44). About three weeks later, in the second battle (traditionally 23 October 42 BC), Brutus was pressed by his impatient soldiers into another engagement, was defeated, and took his own life with the help of a companion. With him died the last army of the Republic.

Common exam traps

Confusing the First and Second Triumvirates: The First (60 BC) was an informal private pact; the Second (lex Titia, 27 November 43 BC) was a legally constituted magistracy with a five-year term. This contrast is examined again and again.
Merging the two battles of Philippi: There were two, roughly three weeks apart. Cassius died in the first (by mistake, believing all lost); Brutus died in the second. An answer that describes "the battle of Philippi" as a single event loses precision.
Stating the proscription figures as fact: Around 300 senators and 2,000 equites is the ancient tradition (Appian); flag it as an ancient estimate, not a verified count.
Treating the deification as a religious footnote: Its point in the exam is political: it made Octavian divi filius, a claim no rival could match. Say what it did for him.
Narrating instead of arguing: "Assess" and "to what extent" questions want the events of 43 to 42 BC used to argue about the death of the Republic, not simply retold.

The division of the Roman world and the end of the period

Philippi did not restore the Republic; it decided who would inherit its ruins. In the settlement that followed, the triumvirs re-divided the Roman world along lines that already contained the seeds of their final quarrel. Antony, the victor of Philippi, took the wealthy East, with the prestige of the coming war against Parthia and the resources to pay for it. Octavian returned to Italy and the West with the thankless, dangerous task of settling tens of thousands of veterans on confiscated Italian land, which soon produced the Perusine War of 41 to 40 BC. Lepidus, suspected of intriguing with Sextus Pompeius, was steadily marginalised and reduced to Africa, the junior partner heading for eventual expulsion.

That division is where this period closes. The rivalry it built between Antony in the East and Octavian in the West would eventually erupt, through the Treaty of Brundisium (40 BC) and the propaganda war of the 30s, into the final civil war and the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and Octavian's sole rule as Augustus, all of which lie beyond "the fall of the Roman Republic 78-42 BC." Within the period, the point is that after Philippi no one fought to bring the Republic back; the contest was now only over which Caesarian would rule.

How to read a source on this topic

The evidence for 43 to 42 BC divides into groups with very different reliability profiles, and the exam rewards candidates who flag the difference. The near-contemporary voice is Cicero, whose Philippics and letters capture the crisis of 44 to 43 BC in real time, but always from a committed partisan of the Liberators and an enemy of Antony; his account ends, grimly, with his own proscription in December 43 BC. The main narratives, Appian (Civil Wars, especially Book 4, on the proscriptions and Philippi), Plutarch (Lives of Brutus and Antony) and Cassius Dio (Roman History 47), were written one to three centuries later, drawing on earlier sources now lost and often shaping events into moral or dramatic set-pieces, the horrors of the proscriptions, the omens before Philippi, the noble suicides. Archaeological evidence, above all the coinage of the Liberators (whose famous EID MAR issue celebrated the Ides) and of Octavian (the Divus Iulius and divi filius types), is contemporary and precisely datable, but it is designed propaganda, not neutral record.

Three habits for using any such source: identify WHO produced it and WHEN relative to 42 BC; separate what it claims from what it can prove; and move from content, to reliability, to usefulness, to perspective before reaching a judgement. A proscription death-toll in Appian is best treated as tradition; a coin type is best used to argue about propaganda rather than popular belief.

Model exam responses

1. Source-analysis response (using a reconstructed Divus Iulius coin). "A denarius pairing the deified Caesar (DIVVS IVLIVS) with Octavian as son of the god is useful evidence for how Octavian exploited the deification of 42 BC: it advertises a supernatural sanction, divi filius, that no rival could match, aimed at Caesar's veterans and the plebs on the eve of Philippi. Its reliability as a guide to what Romans actually believed is limited, because as official propaganda struck by the beneficiary it shows only what the regime wished promoted, not how the claim was received. Read against the literary tradition on the comet in Suetonius and Dio, the coin is best used as evidence of Octavian's self-presentation, not of popular sentiment."

Marker's note: markers reward using the coin for what it can show (the regime's claim) rather than treating it as proof that Romans accepted Octavian's divine descent.

2. Essay paragraph (why 42 BC ends the Republic in fact). "The lex Titia announced the end of the Republic in law, but Philippi enforced it in fact. So long as Brutus and Cassius held the East with nineteen legions and the treasuries of Asia, the triumviral settlement of 43 BC was contestable, and every proscribed name was an argument for their cause. The double battle of October 42 BC removed that possibility: after the suicides of Cassius and Brutus (Plutarch, Brutus), no Republican army existed anywhere. As Syme argues, the revolution had triumphed, and what remained was a struggle among Caesar's heirs for the inheritance, not a struggle to restore the Senate's rule."

Marker's note: this paragraph scores because it uses named evidence and a historian to argue a specific claim (that Philippi, not the law, made the Republic's death final) rather than narrating the battle.

Command words and how to use a source

Outline/identify wants a small number of clearly separated, correctly dated points. Explain wants a point, its evidence, and why it matters. Assess/evaluate/to what extent wants a sustained argument reaching a supported judgement, weighing more than one answer.

Using a source properly always means four things: (1) content, what it shows or claims; (2) reliability, who produced it, when and for what purpose; (3) usefulness, what specific question it can answer; (4) perspective, whose viewpoint it carries and what it omits. For this dot point, always flag whether a source is contemporary and partisan (Cicero, the coinage) or a later narrative shaped for effect (Appian, Plutarch, Dio), because that single fact usually decides how much weight it can bear.

Weaving in historiography means using a historian's named position to build your case, for example "as Syme argues, after Philippi the only question was which Caesarian would rule," used to support a claim about the death of the Republic, not dropped in as decoration.

Historians

Ronald Syme (The Roman Revolution, 1939) reads the whole period as the replacement of an oligarchy by a monarchy. For Syme the proscriptions destroyed the old nobility and Philippi buried the Republican cause; the lex Titia and the deification of Caesar are steps in the triumph of a new ruling group, with Octavian's rise as the real story.

Erich Gruen (The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 1974) resists any sense of inevitability. He argues that the Republic's institutions were resilient and that its fall was the contingent product of civil war rather than long-term internal decay; on this reading the killings of 43 to 42 BC were decisive precisely because they were not predestined, which makes the human choices of the triumvirs and the Liberators matter.

Christian Meier (Res Publica Amissa; Caesar, English translation 1995) argues that the Republic had already lost the capacity to imagine alternatives to itself, a "crisis without alternative"; by 42 BC the system could no longer be repaired, so Philippi confirmed a death long in preparation rather than causing it outright.

Used together, these positions let you argue a graded answer: 42 BC marks the effective death of the Republic (Syme), whether one stresses deep structural change (Meier) or the contingency of the wars that delivered it (Gruen).

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation4 marksSource A: a reconstructed public edict of this type, in the style of a triumviral proclamation posted in the Forum in late 43 BC, declares that the named men are "enemies of the state, whose lives are forfeit and whose goods pass to the treasury; whoever brings the head of one shall be paid, and whoever shelters one shares his fate." Using Source A and your own knowledge, outline what the proscriptions of 43 BC were and how they worked.

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A 4-mark "outline" needs the definition, the mechanism, a named consequence, and use of the source.

What the proscriptions were: Published lists of citizens declared outlaws by the triumvirs, whose property was confiscated by the state and who could be killed with impunity; the method revived Sulla's proscriptions of 82 BC (1 mark).
How they worked (using the source): As Source A shows, a reward was paid to the killer who produced a victim's head, and anyone sheltering a proscribed man shared his punishment, so the terror turned households and slaves against the condemned (1 mark).
The dual purpose: They eliminated political enemies and raised cash from confiscated estates to fund the triumvirs' armies before Philippi (1 mark).
A named consequence: The most famous victim was Cicero, killed on 7 December 43 BC, his head and hands displayed on the Rostra (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward using the edict's own terms (reward for a head, punishment for shelter) rather than a general recall of "they killed their enemies."

foundation4 marksOutline the legal basis of the Second Triumvirate formed in 43 BC and explain how it differed from the First Triumvirate of 60 BC.

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A 4-mark answer needs the law, the office, the powers, and the contrast.

The law: The lex Titia, proposed by the tribune Publius Titius and passed on 27 November 43 BC, created the office (1 mark).
The office: Octavian, Antony and Lepidus became the triumviri rei publicae constituendae, "the three men for the restoration of the Republic," for a fixed five-year term (to the end of 38 BC) (1 mark).
The powers: They held consular-level imperium and could issue edicts with the force of law, nominate magistrates and dispense justice without appeal (1 mark).
The contrast: The First Triumvirate of 60 BC (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus) was an informal, private and secret political pact with no legal standing; the Second was a formal, publicly enacted magistracy with defined powers (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward the precise contrast between an informal pact and a legally constituted office, not just naming the members of each.

foundation4 marksOutline the events of the two battles of Philippi in October 42 BC.

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A 4-mark "outline" needs the setting and four accurate developments across the two engagements.

The setting: Brutus and Cassius, holding the East, met the armies of Antony and Octavian near Philippi in Macedonia in October 42 BC (1 mark).
The first battle: In early October Antony overran Cassius's camp while Brutus's wing broke into Octavian's; Cassius, on high ground and wrongly believing the whole day lost, had his freedman kill him (1 mark).
The irony: Brutus had in fact beaten Octavian's wing; he mourned Cassius as "the last of the Romans" (Plutarch, Brutus 44) (1 mark).
The second battle: About three weeks later, traditionally on 23 October 42 BC, Brutus was pressed by his men into a second engagement, was defeated, and took his own life; the Republican army dissolved (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward keeping the two battles distinct and getting Cassius's mistaken suicide in the first battle right, not merging Philippi into a single fight.

core6 marksSource B: a reconstructed coin type of this kind, a denarius minted for Octavian around 42 BC, shows the veiled head of the deified Caesar on one side with the legend DIVVS IVLIVS, and on the other Octavian with the legend describing him as son of the god. Using Source B and your own knowledge, explain how the deification of Caesar was used politically in 42 BC, and assess the usefulness and reliability of such coinage as evidence.

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A 6-mark "explain and assess" needs the political use, the evidence, and a usefulness/reliability judgement.

The deification: On 1 January 42 BC the state formally recognised Caesar as Divus Iulius, "the Deified Julius," building on the comet (the sidus Iulium) seen at his funeral games in July 44 BC and read as his soul ascending (2 marks).
The political use (using the source): As Source B shows, Octavian advertised himself as the son of a god (divi filius); no rival, not Antony nor the Liberators, could match a supernatural sanction of this kind, and it bound Caesar's veterans and the plebs to his heir on the eve of Philippi (2 marks).
Usefulness and reliability: Coinage is contemporary, precisely datable and reached soldiers and civilians across the empire, so it is strong evidence of how Octavian wished to be seen; but it is official propaganda struck by the beneficiary, so it shows the regime's claim, not how ordinary Romans received it, and must be read alongside Appian and Dio (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward separating what the coin promotes (the divi filius claim) from what it can prove, and using it to argue about propaganda rather than describing its imagery.

core6 marksExplain the significance of the proscriptions of 43 BC for the position of the triumvirs.

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A 6-mark "explain" needs the actions, why they mattered, and their significance for interpretation.

Political surgery: From late 43 BC the triumvirs posted lists condemning their enemies; the ancient tradition (Appian, Civil Wars 4.5) gives around 300 senators and 2,000 equites, figures to be treated as tradition rather than an audited count. The deaths, above all Cicero on 7 December 43 BC, decapitated the senatorial opposition in Italy and ended the amnesty politics of 44 BC (2 marks).
War finance: Confiscated estates were auctioned to help pay the triumvirs' huge armies before Philippi; the measure worked poorly as revenue (frightened markets, depressed prices), which itself shows the motive mixed money with terror and revenge for Caesar (2 marks).
Significance for interpretation: The proscriptions reveal the Triumvirate operating as an extra-legal terror despite its legal form under the lex Titia, and set a Sullan precedent that Octavian's later regime worked to distance itself from in its own propaganda (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward the ancient figures flagged as tradition, Cicero named and dated, and the dual purpose (eliminating enemies and financing the war) rather than a catalogue of horrors.

exam20 marksTo what extent was the formation of the Second Triumvirate, rather than the Battle of Philippi, the decisive step in ending the Roman Republic? In your response, refer to relevant sources and historians' interpretations.

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A Band-6 response needs a clear thesis, argument lines tied to dated evidence, historiography, a model paragraph, and a judgement answering "to what extent."

Thesis: The two steps were complementary, but the Triumvirate was the more decisive break in principle while Philippi was the more decisive break in fact: the lex Titia legalised autocracy, but Philippi destroyed the only army that could have reversed it, so the Republic died in practice on the field in October 42 BC.
Argument line 1: the Triumvirate legalised one-man (three-man) rule: The lex Titia of 27 November 43 BC created a formal magistracy with power to legislate and appoint magistrates without the Senate or the people; unlike the informal First Triumvirate of 60 BC, it openly suspended the Republican constitution. The proscriptions that followed, killing Cicero on 7 December 43 BC, silenced the senatorial voice of the old order.
Argument line 2: but the settlement was still contestable: So long as Brutus and Cassius held the East with some nineteen legions and the treasuries of Asia, the lex Titia was, in Syme's phrase, a claim rather than a fact; every proscribed name was an argument for their cause, and a Republican victory at Philippi could have unwound the whole arrangement.
Argument line 3: Philippi converted the claim into a monopoly of force: The two battles of October 42 BC ended with the suicides of Cassius and then Brutus (Plutarch, Brutus 43-52; Appian, Civil Wars 4). After Philippi no Republican army existed anywhere; what remained was a contest among Caesarian dynasts for the inheritance, not a struggle for the Republic.
Historiography: Ronald Syme (The Roman Revolution, 1939) treats Philippi as the grave of the Republican cause and the true beginning of the new monarchy. Erich Gruen (The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 1974) cautions that the Republic fell through the accident of civil war rather than through inevitable internal decay, which sharpens the case that the military decision, not the paper settlement, was decisive.
Model paragraph: The lex Titia announced the end of the Republic; Philippi enforced it. A law passed by an intimidated assembly could be repealed by a victorious army, and that is precisely what Brutus and Cassius represented as they gathered legions and gold in the East. The double battle of October 42 BC removed that possibility for good, so that the settlement of 43 BC, contestable while its enemies had soldiers, became irreversible once they did not. As Syme argues, after Philippi the only question left was which Caesarian would rule, not whether the Republic would return.
Judgement: To a large extent both steps were needed, but the Triumvirate created the autocracy in law while Philippi made it permanent in fact; the Republic's effective death is best dated to the field of Philippi.

Marker's note: markers reward weighing the two steps rather than choosing one, precise dated evidence (lex Titia 43 BC, Cicero's death, Philippi 42 BC), named historians used to build the case, and a judgement that answers "to what extent."

exam25 marksESSAY. Assess the view that 42 BC marks the effective death of the Roman Republic. In your response, refer to relevant sources and historians' interpretations.

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A Band-6 essay assesses the claim, weighs what died and what survived, uses dated evidence and historiography, and reaches a judgement.

Thesis: 42 BC marks the effective, not the formal, death of the Republic: the institutions and slogans of the res publica survived on paper and in propaganda, but the events of 43 to 42 BC destroyed the free constitution in substance, and after Philippi no force existed that fought to restore it.
Argument line 1: the constitution was suspended in law: The lex Titia of 27 November 43 BC gave three men the power to legislate, appoint magistrates and judge without appeal for five years; the collegial, annual, accountable magistracies at the heart of the Republic were set aside by open agreement, not merely strained.
Argument line 2: the political class of the Republic was destroyed: The proscriptions from late 43 BC killed the senatorial opposition, above all Cicero on 7 December 43 BC, whose death silenced the last great Republican orator; the ancient tradition (Appian, Civil Wars 4.5) counts around 300 senators, a figure to be flagged as tradition. The men and the debate that made the Republic work were gone.
Argument line 3: the Republican cause died in the field: At Philippi in October 42 BC Cassius and then Brutus took their own lives (Plutarch, Brutus 43-52). Their army was the last that fought for the old order; after it dissolved, the wars of the next decade (Perusia, Brundisium 40 BC, Actium 31 BC, all beyond this period) were struggles between Caesarian dynasts over the inheritance, not attempts to restore the Senate's rule.
Counter-argument: The Republic was not formally abolished in 42 BC: consuls were still elected, the Senate still met, and Octavian in 27 BC claimed to have "restored the Republic." A strong answer concedes that the forms endured and that Octavian's settlement was dressed in Republican language, so 42 BC ends the Republic in substance while the shell continued.
Historiography: Ronald Syme (The Roman Revolution, 1939) reads the period as the replacement of an oligarchy by a monarchy, with Philippi the decisive moment for the old nobility. Christian Meier argues the Republic had already lost the capacity to imagine alternatives to itself, a "crisis without alternative," so the killings of 42 BC only confirmed a system that could no longer be repaired. Erich Gruen (1974) resists any sense of inevitability, insisting the fall was the contingent product of civil war; used together, they let you argue that 42 BC was decisive without being predestined.
Model paragraph: The clearest sign that 42 BC ended the Republic is what did not happen afterwards. When Brutus fell, no new Brutus rose; the proscriptions had killed the senators who might have led, and Philippi had killed the army that might have won. The very language of libertas that had justified the Ides of March in 44 BC now had no constituency and no soldiers behind it. As Syme argues, the revolution had triumphed; what remained was to decide which of Caesar's heirs would inherit the ruins, and that, not the survival of the Republic, was the real question of the years that followed.
Judgement: 42 BC is the effective death of the Republic: its constitution was suspended, its leaders killed and its last army destroyed, and though the forms lingered until Octavian's dressed-up settlement of 27 BC, the substance of free Republican government did not survive Philippi.

Marker's note: markers reward distinguishing the formal shell (which survived) from the substance (which died), precise dated evidence across 43 to 42 BC, named historians used to build and qualify the argument, and a judgement that engages the exact wording "effective death."