Political climate Cicero was taken by surprise when Gaius Julius Caesar, the effective dictator of the Roman Republic, was assassinated on the fifteenth day of March, 44 BC, (known as the Ides of March) by a group of Roman senators who called themselves Liberatores. Cicero was not included in the conspiracy, even though the conspirators were sure of his sympathy. When Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the killers, lifted his bloodstained dagger after the assassination, he called out Cicero's name, beseeching him to "restore the Republic!".[1] A letter Cicero wrote in February 43 BC to Trebonius, one of the conspirators, began, "How I wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March!"[2] Cicero became a popular leader during the period of instability after the assassination.