44 BC

Year 44 BC was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Events

Consuls: Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Antonius
March 15 — (the Ides of March) — Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, is assassinated by a group of Roman senators, amongst them Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Caesar's Massilian naval commander, Decimus Brutus. Caesar's famous last quote — coined by William Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar — was most likely not spoken (see: "Et tu, Brute?").
March 20 — Caesar's funeral.
Early April — Octavian returns from Apollonia in Dalmatia to Rome to take up Caesar's inheritance, against advice from Atia (his mother and Caesar's niece) and consular stepfather Phillipus.
April 18 to April 21 — Octavian engages in charm offensive with consular Cicero who is fulminating against Mark Antony.
June — Antony granted a five-year governorship of northern and central Transalpine Gaul (France) and Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy).
September 2 — Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.
September 2 — First of Cicero's Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Antony. He will make 14 of them over the next several months.
December — Antony besieges Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus in Mutina (Modena), with Octavian, an ally of Decimus, one of his uncle's assassins, close by.