Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: First in Recorded History - The Autopsy of Julius Caesar

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: First in Recorded History - The Autopsy of Julius Caesar · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. I think a lot of
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: us have heard that phrase at two Brute. That term
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: is actually a phrase that Shakespeare pentn when he was
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: writing one of his best known plays regarding Caesar. It
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: played during the Elizabethan times, and it captivated the crowd
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: because it was the story of a leader that was
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: slain by those in his inner circle. Of course, the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: phrase itself points to Brutus, who was certainly in Caesar's
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: inner circle, But is it really how his death happened?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And of course we like to talk about death, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about the assassination of Julius
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Caesar and his autopsy. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: is Body Backs, Great Caesar's Ghost, Dave mac I want
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to have a conversation with you today about a historical
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: figure going back a couple of thousand years. Now we're
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: going to talk about the death of Julius Caesar at
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the hands of those that surrounded him in a very
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: public area otherwise known as the forum. You up for this,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Dave mac IDEs of march Is upon us and a
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: lot of people like me. All we know about Julius
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Caesar is what Shakespeare wrote? When did Shakespeare write Julius
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Caesar fifteen ninety nine sixteen hundred somewhere in there for
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the opening of the Globe Theater. You're talking about something
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that was written a long time after the event took place.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: So you've got a lot of memories, you've got a
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: lot of scattered stories, and you don't know the truth
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: from the lie. And that's why it's so fascinating. When
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you told me that this autopsy, I thought you were
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: making it up. But I thought they don't do autopsy's back.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Then he's making this up. What if we did an
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: autopsy that kind of thing. When you told me that
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: this was the first autopsy, I thought, Holy moly, we've
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: got a conspiracy. We've got being stabbed in the back
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: by his best friends, by people he trusted, by people
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: he believed in. That's what the setting is for all
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of the rigamarroll that then proceeded. Everything that took place
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: centered around politics, power, money, throw sex in there, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: if they had rock and roll, they'd be rock and roll.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: This had everything. One of the interesting things here is
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it brings us to this big question, what's the purpose
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: of an autopsy. I probably misspoke when I said that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: was the first autopsy. People have been examining human remains
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: for hundreds and hundreds of years. Isn't that how we've
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: learned biology. There have been times where it was forbidden
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: by law to actually dissect or what's referred to as
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: a pro section of human remains. It was forbidden. That's
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: where grave robbin came from. Many times, medical students would
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: pay grave robbers to go out and grab bodies and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: disinter bodies and bring them in so that they could
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: look and begin to understand human anatomy. Can you imagine
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: being a physician and not understanding how we function. You've
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: got a medical practice, Okay, I get it. They're practicing medicine,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: but they're not allowed to actually look at a real body.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: So they're assuming and guessing as certain things. And their
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: best thing is get that blue jay over here, and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: let's see if we can get him to peck on
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that eyebrow to fix his eyesight. Well, I haven't thought
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: about it that way, but yeah, you're absolutely right. There
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: are many locations, I think now in medical education where
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: they're using three dimensional digital autopsies or digital gross dissections
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in some instances where these are replacing actual dissection by
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: medical students. I have a problem with that. I think
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: there's a tactile nature to this. There's also a bigger reason,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I think in the case of Caesar, when he was
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: this victim of homicide, and it was a brutal homicide.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: This is something that was done on the fifteenth of March,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the IDEs of March. As you mentioned, this is something
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: that was done in kind of a closed area. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: when I said closed, I'm saying the general public was
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: not allowed to be within this space. You're talking senators
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that were in this environment. He was seated on a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: gold throne. He'd made entrance into this location called the Portico,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: where they had a throne set aside for him there.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: People think a lot about Caesar crossing the Rubicon and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: all those things that he had done. He was a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: masterful general. He was a beloved figure among the common
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: people of that time, and the senators were very elitist.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: They truly words hard to frame it any other way.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: This was very threatening to them. One of the interesting
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: parts to Caesar's life is that he had adjusted apparently
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: his will just prior to his assassination, almost like a
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: portent of what was to come to guarantee that all
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: citizens within Rome had three months worth of salary upon
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: his death in order to grieve him properly. You can
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: imagine how that kind of resonated with common folk. They're
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: looking at senators and they're thinking, these people aren't doing
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: anything for us. Here we have our supreme leader that
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: even upon his debt, he's going to leave us money.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: He had a real common touch apparently, so when they
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: did this autopsy, the purpose of this, I think, and
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: we can explore this further, but the purpose of this
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: was to demonstrate first off, that Caesar was dead. Because
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: they didn't have mass media, obviously, many people would not
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: believe that he was dead. They had to confirm that
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: he was in fact dead, and then to kick it
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: up a notch. It was done in such a manner
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: that the public were made aware of how horrendous this
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: attack was when he was set upon by these people
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that were occupying the space in the Senate that day.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: An amazing conspiracy that when into taking out one of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the most beloved leaders at the time in the world.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like Rome was an island off to itself.
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  Speaker 1: It was a big part of what was taking place
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: around the world. Everybody knew Julius Caesar. The Roman expansion
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: had not occurred to the point where we finally know
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it at its peak, but it was from a Western perspective.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: It was a world that had people from the former
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Persian Empire that were part of it, and you had
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: people as far away as where modern day Frances. He
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: had made his name by going out with his armies
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and defeating what they referred to as barbarians and keeping
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the hordes at bay, if you will. That was part
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: of his entry into the pantheonon He achieved almost a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: godlike status through his actions. As a general. He was known,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and the fact that this was done in such a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: public way was really bold upon the people that were
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: conspiring to do this. You have these areas in your
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: life where you don't necessarily believe any harm can come
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to you. But Caesar had been warned. He had been
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: warned in the days leading up to this fatal attack
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Beware the odds of March, which is actually the fifteenth
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of March. He was told that great harm was going
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to come to me. As a matter of fact, it
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is told that his wife had troubling nightmares in the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: immediate nights preceding his death, and he had gone some
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: links to try to reassure her that he was going
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to be okay. There were people that were begging him
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: not to go to the Senate. So it was in
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the air. It was floating about how is it possible
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: for this many people to keep a secret. Have you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: ever shared something with someone and you want to keep
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: it hush hush, and then all of a sudden you
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: get wind of it. How is it possible? But he's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: surrounded by nest of vipers by the time he walks
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: into that room. I'm glad you said that, because the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: amazing thing about the secret keeping that went on is,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: even now, all these years later, we actually don't know
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: how many people were involved in the conspiracy. This autopsy
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: had a purpose beyond just cause of death each one
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of the conspiracs and putting them in air quotes. Each
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: one of these conspirators had to leave their mark. And
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I'm curious as to how, all these years later we're
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: looking at this and going, okay, well, wait a minute.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: You mentioned his wife having dreams. She had blood dreams,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: which were commonly associated with death. Dreams. She's telling him,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: don't go anywhere, just don't go to the Senate because
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: he was lured into an area where he would not
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: have bodyguards to show the people he was a common man.
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  Speaker 1: He already relieved his guards of duty right that had
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: been documented that he had done that to try to
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  Speaker 1: show that he had the common touch. I don't need
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: brutes along with me to demonstrate I'm this powerful person.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I just want to demonstrate I feel very secure in
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: this environment. And maybe that's the ultimate and arrogance. Who knows,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: but I do know that when he was meant to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: rise from his throne in the Senate, there was a
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: group of these senators that descended upon him and put
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: hands on him. And as the story is told, one
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  Speaker 1: senator actually grabbed hold of his outer vestments as they're
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: called his toga, and grabbed hold of the toga that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: he was wearing in order to secure him in place. Forensically,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: when you're looking at an environment where you have this
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: dynamic movement that's going on, particularly when you're talking about
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  Speaker 1: edged weapons because he was stabbed, you have to be
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: able to corral this individual, hold them in place, and
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  Speaker 1: guarantee that they cannot escape. You would not just have
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: had a group of attackers. It is alleged that there
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: would have been a peripheral group that were acting almost
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like an outer defense rank to keep him contained in
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  Speaker 1: that small space so that the attackers could do their
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  Speaker 1: worst at that point in time. And it all initiates
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  Speaker 1: with one senator grabbing hold of his toga. He's defenseless
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: at that point in time. He was also overpowered. Depending
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: on which historical documents one looks at, we know that
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: there was only one Julius Caesar and the people he
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: trusted the closest ones to him were part of the conspiracy.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: He had maybe sixty to seventy senators. Each one of
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: them had a different agenda. Some we're kind of playing
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: lookout to make sure that Julius Caesar didn't get any help,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and as you mentioned, using the toga to hold him down.
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  Speaker 1: And my question though, is we know that he was
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: stabbed twenty three times the autopsy. Was this a normal
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: process when there was a criminal act? Joke? That's the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: vague part of this. We don't really know. There's not
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a lot in the written record, but his examination, his
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: postmortem examination was famously documented and It wasn't just documented.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: They believe this gentleman was his attending physician, Anti Sias.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: They had physicians, and the physicians back then had a
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: true understanding of human anatomy. You move forward in history, though,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: and some of that knowledge was lost. The ancients possessed it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: They didn't necessarily have a problem with examining bodies, I
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: don't think, and trying to understand form and function. As
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: we moved through history, suddenly it's frowned upon to dissect
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: human remains. But back then they would have had an understanding.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: This idea of a pathologist who studies disease and then
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you kick it up another level to where they're studying
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  Speaker 1: fatal trauma. It wasn't like this, but it was a physician,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Anti Sias was his name, and he conducted autopsy. An
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: interesting little turn here is that what we understand, Caesar
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: lay where he fell, they approximate for about three hours, Dave.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: That means that you would have had a lot of
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: postmortem changes that were taking place. He would have not
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: been in full rider Morris, but he would have been
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: stiff postmorm ravidity, which we've talked about extensively on bodybags settling,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a blood would have occurred. We have to understand that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: his toga, these sorts of things in the undergarments, they
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: just walk around nude with a toga thrown on him.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: They did have undergarments that they would wear. All the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: clothing would have probably have still remained intact. It is
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: told that senators actually fled. There's two hundred known senators
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that were there. Of course, not all of them are
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in on the assassination. Interestingly, Caesar had actually expanded the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: size of the Senate in order to represent more people.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So you had slaves there, he had secretaries, you had aids.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: We don't know how many of those were there. They
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: fled out, and the conspirators, allegedly with him lying there,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: were going to try to explain themselves, and suddenly the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: whole thing went sideways. You mentioned that he expanded it.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: There were over six hundred senators at the time this happened,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: only two to three hundred actually there. I was looking
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: at this, Joe. They were talking about sixty to seventy
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: involved in the actual conspiracy, and they all had different roles,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And that actually makes a good point. If they were
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: say two hundred active senators that you would have to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: have a number of other senators involved in conspiracy were
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: able to hold them back until the deed was done.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: When somebody has stabbed that many times, Joe, and they're
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: laying there, as you said, for hours, does the blood
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: just keep pouring out until there is no more blood
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: or does it stop? At some point it will stop.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: You'll have the seepage that takes place initially because it
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: is a liquid. I've alluded to this before, but viscosity
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: goes to thickness. So one of the reasons that blood
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: remains a viscous liquid or thick it is because it's
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: moving to our body. But once that movement begins to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: seize and blood begins to settle, it begins to separate.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: There's kind of a coagulation that goes on and it
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: becomes very thick from those initial insults to the body.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yet he would have been coming out blood, certainly from
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: those while his heart was still going, and then he
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: would have fallen to the floor. There would have been
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: seepits from those immediate areas where the estab wounds took place,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: but after a period of time it would have ceased.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And so the slaves think maybe three to four actually
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: came into this area three hours later and gathered his
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: remains and took him back to his apartments. It's there
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: that Antsias went and conducted his examination. It's really quite fascinating.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: What was the physician's purpose in this. Did he take
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: it upon himself to say, I'm going to do a
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: post mortem examination on Caesar's remains, and I'm going to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: determine what happened. And this is what's fascinating about this.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Guess what he may have been trying to achieve a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: sequencing of wounds, a sequencing of injuries. And you've got
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: so many eyes on the scene, people that are not
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: part of the conspiracy. And if he can establish a sequence,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: it can actually establish whose hand was in the actual death,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: who thrust that dagger forward. Dagger implies double edged, so
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: this is a very destructive instrument. You're not just cutting
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: on one side. You've got now two sharp edges that
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: are going into the body. And it was not uncommon
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: for people to walk around with a dagger in their belt.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily because you're afraid you're going to be robbed.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: They had utility. You could peel fruit with them, or
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you could chop things up, you could cut rope, you
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: could probably crack up an oysters. Oysters were part of
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the diet back then. Dagger would have been very well
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: suited to that because it's got a double edge on it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: But they could be used for defense, and so you
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily know that someone had a dagger, but they
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: could reach inside their cloak and pull this thing out
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and deploy it. This sequencing is very key here because
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: what Antisias determined was this, though Caesar was stabbed so
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: many times twenty three, there was only one of these
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: days that actually fatal. If you think about your left
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: shoulder blade and kind of move up your shoulder blade
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: till you're near your spine, I think people forget that
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: we have ribs on our posterior as well as our anterior,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: so they kind of wrap around between his first and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: second rib Posteriorly the dagger entered, and this dagger probably
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: was in the range of about seven to eight inches.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: It makes it concealable. It's not like a standard dagger
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that like a Roman soldier would have carried. It's a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: little bit shorter, but it would have been buried in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: his back and it passes between that intercostal space, the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: meaty muscle area between the ribs. Based upon the autopsy results,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it would seem that his a order may have been clipped,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and the order is the big vessel that comes off
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of the heart. They think that it may have been clipped,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: or his lung may have been clipped, or maybe both.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: It would have been an unusual injury because most of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the time when we see insults like this, where you've
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: got penetrative events where there's a gun chat, unstab, when
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: those are going to come in from the front or anteriorly.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Here this is coming from the back, which is fascinating
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to me. But you mentioned the blood loss. Does that
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: mean that the doctor could have ruled his death due
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to blood loss? I'm so glad you asked this. This
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: is a fancy word that doctors use. It's called exanguination,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and it merely means to bleed out when Antesias would
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: have opened. If he did, in fact open, there's no
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: guarantee that he opened Caesar's body. The autopsy merely means
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that he did a post mortum exam. If he did
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: open the chest cavity, what he would have been greeted
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: by Caesar's lungs would have been literally floating in blood,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and we refer to this as plural effusion. When you
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: bleed out internally in your chest. In particular, the lungs
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: are going to be a washing blood because there's not
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: enough holes, if you will, defects for the blood to
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: pour out, so it's contained. In that environment. It would
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: have been literally he would have understood enough about human
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: physiology and certainly trauma. I would think to understand that
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: there's something internally going on here. Something has been nicked,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: a vessel has been nicked, and he would have bled
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: out in this environment. Aortic injuries are not the most survivable,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: but you can have people that will survive chest injuries
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: like this if you can get them to the doctor
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: so that they can open up the chest cavity and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: drain blood out. That's not something that would have been
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: done here. First off, they didn't have a wherewithal at
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that moment in time. They left his body there. He
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: apparently had died pretty quickly. There was no signs of life.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: By their estimation, his chest would have filled with blood.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And when you open people's chest up at autopsy like this,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I have been standing at the autopsy table and have
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: been a washing blood where it pours out depended upon
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: how the body has been handled and this sort of thing,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and you will literally see almost like a cork in
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the water when you're fishing, the lungs floating in blood
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: like this. And that's what actually led to his day
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: thinking about these injuries that Caesar sustained. Either these guys
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: were not very handy with sharp instruments because you've got
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a guy that's being held down, or maybe there was
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: some other purpose as to why twenty three. I've had
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a hard time trying to make my way through this logically, David.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: It's because it's not logical. You would think that as
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy unfold, that each person has a designed part
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of the plan. I'm gonna hold his arms back, He's
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: going to stab him. But the problem is when you
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: get into the guilt base, if this turns south, who's
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: going to get blamed for this event? I'm thinking first stab,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: last stab, fatal stab. Surely they had to have done
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: more than just stick him. Weren't they beating him? I mean,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: what did he look like when this was done? There
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: would have been some blunt force trauma. I can only
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: imagine that's not really part of the record, but have
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to understand that they're going to be applying direct force
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: in addition to the stab wounds. But here's something curious.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: There is a gentleman that was a death investigator and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a criminalist, an Italian gentleman named Commander Gropeveno. He went
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to great links to try to reconstruct the crime scene.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: This location actually still stands. You can see it. It's
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: called the Portico. I've never been there. I've always wanted
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to go to Italy. That's going to be on the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: list to get to. This is very significant in forensics,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and we'll get to that in just a second. But
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the commander, when he went back through to assist, he
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: also consulted with forensic psychiatrist. His conclusion was based upon
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the record that they have and the report that he
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: had kind of gone through it with us, that there
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: was an attempt Dave to disfigure Caesar because the wound
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that we had talked about that under the left shoulder blade.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: These other wounds were apparently survivable wounds, but they were horrific.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: He had wounds to his face and to his groin.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: So many times we talk about sharp force injuries in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: these cases on body bags, and when you have a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: case where disfigurement is involved, that's an indication of a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: lot of anger. You're trying to send a message. If
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I can't have you, no one else can. All these
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: other things, we're going to make you look horrible, even
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: in death. And then you go to this great man
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: being the focus here. The commander and the psychiatrist believe
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: that this was an attempt to emasculate it, this attempt
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to attack his manhood in a physical demonstration. That's key here,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: because they wanted to demonstrate that they were going to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: be the dominant force, certainly in the ruling class in Rome,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and demonstrate to everybody in the Senate. Now. I always
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: come back to this with this assassination. It's one thing
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: where you've got an individual that is quote unquote assassinated,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: but when you do it in front of a group
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of people, there's more to it than merely a homicide.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: You're demonstrating something to somebody, You're sending a message to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: everybody else where. Did they actually do the autopsy. We're
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: left with him laid out on the floor, blood has coagulated.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: It's a couple hours later, what do they do Now
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: They've taken him back to the palace and to what
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: would have been referred to as his apartments, and they
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: would have done the autopsy there. Antsias would have spent
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a considerable amount of time. I can only imagine while
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: he's doing this, he probably has a scribe with him,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and this is interesting going forward to modern autopsies. One
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: of my initial jobs in the Morgue was to work
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: as a scribe, and they still use that term. And
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: physicians will look at you and they will say, will
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you scribe for me? And what that means is that
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the physician is covered in blood. Even today, you're covered
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in blood and they will have blood surgical gloves on,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: they'll have it over their arms, and many times there
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: will be a person seated on a chair that will
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: have a clipboard and a pen. And you have to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: be able to speak the physicians language now, because they
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: all have different things that they like to indicate, from
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: measurements to the organ description as injury descriptions, and there's
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: actually a scribe that sits there and they will write
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: this stuff down. Some people record it and by voice
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: where they have a mic haying down, which is really
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: horrible because you pick up all the other noises in
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the room. Imagine ant Sizery would have been barehanded. He's
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: got blood all over him, the blood of Caesar, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: he's got this person that's sitting there with him describe,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and he's writing all of this down as he's going
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: through these injuries and making note of it. And he
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: made such great notes by their standard. Then he actually
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: developed something that we use now, and that's three D modeling.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Remember how I was saying that they wanted to demonstrate
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: that this event actually took place. They created a wax
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: effigy of Caesar, and Antisias indicated on the wax effigy
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: of Caesar where his injuries were. Now that's something that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: we do with computers Nowaday. This is over two thousand
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: years ago. They created this model in wax. After he
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: had set this thing up, they took it into a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: public location known as the Forum and had it on
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: this wheel and turned it so that everybody in the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: crowd could see it. They said that when the people
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that witnessed this display this is a godlike figure to
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: these people. When they witnessed and he suddenly becomes mortal, right,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: they witnessed what had happened to their beloved Caesar. There
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: were people weeping, screaming. It infuriated the crowd. It was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: at that moment time that something happened, because it's from
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that moment time when this physician over two thousand years
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: ago created this wax model, stood before a crowd in
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the forum and began to describe Caesar's injuries and how
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: he died. This is where we get the word forensic from.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It's rooted in the same word as forum, and that's
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: what we do in forensics day. We debate science, we
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: debate in front of a court. Still to this day,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: we talk about the science of death. This is amazing. Yeah,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: it is that we've got these kinds of threads through
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: time that lead all the way back to the death
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of Caesar. I would need a wax model because you
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: describe things or I read them, and I'm not a doctor.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just a guy. I don't know all the terminology,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and I certainly don't know what these things mean. But
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: you show me a wax body that looks like mine,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and you're showing me where these stab wounds were and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: what other damage was done. Now I have a good
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: understanding of what took place, and what they have done,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: those who did this, the conspirators, that blows me away
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that even to this day, I could see this exact
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: same thing happening right now with forensic stuff that is
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: named after this, which blows me away. It is quite amazing.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And it's not like the ancients were ignorant people, and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: it's arrogance on our part if we dismiss them and
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: their ability to understand and comprehend. Just because we're modern
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: in our own context doesn't mean that we're brighter than
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: they were. They still felt the same things that we do.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: They could still understand intellectually form and function, and this
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: model itself and the presentation of it in this court
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: like setting really drove the crowd and the momentum of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: everything that was happening in Rome at that time to
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: go after these people. There was an entire war that
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: was fought in the face of this. The famous Mark
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Antony rose to power at this point in time, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: it all kind of turned on this one event. And
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: we have Antisias to thank for this to be able
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: to take an event that was so tragic in Roman
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: history and their great leader that had fallen and almost
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: like we do with it. Dead today, conjure them, bring
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: them back to life, and again it holds true today,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: just like it did all those years ago. Where we
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: begin and understand that we speak for those that can
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: no longer speak for themselves. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: this is Body Backs