March 15, 44 BCE. Most of us think we know the scene. We’ve seen the plays and the movies where a dozen men in white togas surround a terrified dictator in the Senate. We hear the famous line, "Et tu, Brute?" and assume that Marcus Brutus was the mastermind, the primary executioner, and the guy who started the whole bloody mess.
He wasn't.
If you’re looking for who first stabbed Caesar, the answer isn't Brutus. It isn't even Cassius, the man often called the "moving spirit" of the conspiracy. The man who drew first blood—and honestly, who kind of fumbled the opening move—was a man named Servilius Casca.
It’s a name that gets lost in the shadow of the more famous assassins. But without Casca’s initial lunge, history might have looked very different. The conspiracy was a shaky, nervous thing. These weren't professional hitmen; they were politicians. They were sweating. They were terrified that Caesar’s "Master of the Horse," Mark Antony, would walk through the door at any second.
The Nerve-Wrecking Moments Before the Strike
The setting wasn't even the actual Senate house. The Curia Julia was under renovation, so the Senate met in the Portico of Pompey. Irony, right? Caesar was about to die at the feet of a statue of his greatest rival.
The conspirators had a plan, but like most plans involving sixty people, it was chaotic. They surrounded Caesar under the guise of presenting a petition for the recall of Publius Cimber’s brother from exile. Tillius Cimber grabbed Caesar’s toga, pulling it down from his neck. This was the signal. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for.
Casca was standing right behind Caesar.
According to Plutarch, Casca was shaking. You can imagine the tension. Caesar was a god-like figure to the Romans. Striking him wasn't just murder; it was sacrilege. Casca drew his dagger and aimed for Caesar’s neck or shoulder.
He missed the kill shot.
Instead of a deep, lethal wound, Casca’s blade grazed Caesar’s shoulder or struck just above the chest. It was a superficial wound. Caesar, a seasoned general who had survived years of brutal hand-to-hand combat in Gaul, didn't just collapse. He fought back. He grabbed Casca’s arm and shouted—historians like Suetonius and Plutarch record this—"Casca, you villain, what are you doing?"
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Why Casca’s First Blow Almost Failed
Imagine being Casca in that moment. You’ve just tried to assassinate the most powerful man in the world, you botched the first hit, and now he’s screaming at you and grabbing your arm. Caesar actually stabbed Casca back through the arm with his stylus (his metal writing implement).
Honestly, the whole thing could have ended right there if the other conspirators hadn't jumped in. Casca, panicked, yelled out in Greek to his brother: "Brother, help!"
Adelphe, boethei!
That cry was the real catalyst. It wasn't a noble call to liberty. It was a panicked shout for backup. Only then did the rest of the group—Cassius, Brutus, and the others—swarm Caesar. The "first stab" wasn't a masterstroke; it was a desperate, messy, and nearly failed attempt that required fifty-nine other people to finish what Casca started.
The Semantic Reality of the Ides of March
When we ask who first stabbed Caesar, we are looking for the spark. In Roman history, the first person to draw blood in a political assassination often bore the greatest spiritual "stain," but they also held the most power over the narrative.
Casca was a Tribune of the Plebs. He wasn't some backbench senator. He had a reputation to uphold, yet his role in the assassination effectively ended his career and his life shortly after. He died around the time of the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, likely by suicide after the Republican forces were defeated by Octavian and Antony.
Most people focus on Brutus because of the emotional betrayal. Brutus was Caesar’s friend. Some even whispered he was Caesar’s illegitimate son. But Casca represents the logistical reality of the event. Someone had to be the first to cross the line from "dissident" to "traitor."
The Medical Details of the Assassination
A physician named Antistius actually performed an autopsy on Caesar later—one of the first recorded in history. He determined that out of the twenty-three stab wounds Caesar received, only one was actually fatal.
It wasn't the first one.
The fatal blow was likely the second one, which entered the chest. By the time Brutus got his turn to strike (famously hitting Caesar in the groin or thigh), the dictator was already dying from blood loss and shock. Casca’s role was purely to break the seal. He was the one who turned a political meeting into a crime scene.
Misconceptions About the "Et Tu, Brute" Narrative
We have Shakespeare to thank for much of the confusion. In the play Julius Caesar, Casca is portrayed as a sour, cynical man who speaks in prose while others speak in verse. Shakespeare gets the order right—Casca strikes first—but he skips the messy struggle where Caesar almost overpowers his first attacker.
The reality is much more visceral.
- Caesar didn't just give up. He fought like a cornered animal until he saw Brutus.
- The conspirators stabbed each other. In the frenzy to hit Caesar, many of the senators, including Brutus, ended up wounded by their own friends' daggers.
- There were no long speeches. The Curia became a cacophony of shouting, metal hitting bone, and the sound of hundreds of senators fleeing the building in a blind panic.
What Happened to Servilius Casca?
If you're wondering why Casca isn't a household name like Brutus, it's because he didn't have a "brand." Brutus stood for the Republic. Cassius stood for the old aristocracy. Casca? He mostly just seemed to be a guy who was in over his head.
After the murder, the assassins realized they hadn't actually planned for what came after the death of the dictator. They thought they'd be greeted as liberators. They weren't. The Roman mob, fueled by Mark Antony’s funeral oration, turned on them. Casca fled Rome.
He didn't leave a legacy of philosophical writings or great speeches. He left a bloody dagger and a reputation for being the man who started a civil war by accident because he couldn't aim his first strike properly.
Practical Takeaways from the Assassination Narrative
Understanding the role of Servilius Casca changes how we look at history. It moves the needle from "inevitable destiny" to "human error and chaos."
If you're studying this period or writing about it, keep these nuances in mind:
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- Check the Primary Sources: Don't rely on Shakespeare. Read Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars or Plutarch’s Life of Caesar. They provide the gritty details that modern dramatizations leave out.
- Look for the "First Mover": In any historical event, the person who starts the action (Casca) is often very different from the person who becomes the symbol of the action (Brutus).
- Analyze the "Why": Casca’s strike was a signal. Assasinations in the ancient world were highly symbolic. By grabbing the toga and striking the neck, the conspirators were attempting to "sacrifice" a tyrant, not just kill a man.
The story of who first stabbed Caesar is a reminder that history is made by nervous people who often fumbled their way through the most significant moments of their lives. Casca wasn't a hero or a master assassin. He was a man with a knife who was just as scared as the man he was killing.
To truly understand the fall of the Roman Republic, you have to look past the "Et tu, Brute" myth and look at the trembling hands of Servilius Casca. He was the one who actually changed the world, one poorly-aimed thrust at a time.
For those looking to explore this further, visiting the Largo di Torre Argentina in Rome—the site of the Portico of Pompey—offers a haunting look at the actual ground where Casca stood. Today, it's a cat sanctuary, a quiet end for the place where the Republic breathed its last.
To get a better grip on the chaotic transition from Republic to Empire, your next step should be researching the Proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate, which details exactly how the followers of Caesar hunted down Casca and his fellow conspirators in the years following that bloody afternoon.