“Those who had prepared themselves for the murder bared each of them his dagger, and Caesar, hemmed in on all sides, whichever way he turned confronting blows of weapons aimed at his face and eyes, driven hither and thither like a wild beast, was entangled in the hands of all … although Caesar defended himself against the rest and darted this way and that and cried aloud, when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he pulled his toga down over his head and sank”Plutarch relates that Julius Caesar, being stabbed by Brutus, covered his head with his toga before slumping to the floor of the Roman Senate, cloaking his death throes.

Brutus and his co-conspirators took their bloodied daggers to the Capitol. Today they just post the video.

Saddam Hussein was spared being stabbed to death by a mob, but instead, reports the New York Times, was hanged in a foul smelling, badly lit concrete gallery.

Had they cut Saddam’s throat instead of hanging him, it would have been more appropriate to the genre of video killings from contemporary Iraq‘s library of horrors. The clumsy ceremony surrounding this particular execution bore none of the formality and ritual so beloved of Hollywood moviemakers. Still, almost every moment was caught by flashlight and camera.

The comparison with Caesar is a little unfair. Rome tended to parade its defeated provincials for public humiliation before strangling them in an underground jail. A trial, and a hanging organized by the locals, shows that we’ve come at least some way in two thousand years.

Incidentally, I’m against the death penalty.