person
Lucius Minucius Basilus
Basilus
also: Basilus, L. Basilus, Minucius Basilus
A Roman officer who served under Caesar and held praetorian rank; one of the secondary conspirators in the assassination of Caesar on the Ides of March 44 BC. Cicero's cryptic one-line note (Fam. 6.15) is his immediate congratulation on that day.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 7.9 §1 near the tomb of Basilus
The monument of L. Minucius Basilus stood on the Via Appia just outside Rome; the spot was notorious for highwaymen, so it serves Cicero as a landmark for where his courier was robbed.
- Ad Atticum 11.5 §3 write, in my name, to Basilus
L. Minucius Basilus, a Caesarian (later one of Caesar's assassins). Too ill to write, Cicero asks Atticus to send letters in his name to such useful contacts to keep his standing intact.
- Ad Familiares 6.15 §1 I congratulate you, I rejoice for myself
Written on the Ides of March 44 BC — the day of Caesar's assassination — this is Cicero's immediate private congratulation to one of the conspirators, Lucius Minucius Basilus. The deliberate opacity ('I congratulate you … I rejoice for myself') is a precaution: if the note were intercepted before the deed's consequences were clear, it could be read as innocuous.