101 B.C.
Last night, at around 2:30 in the morning, two brothers Cleolius Jr., 25, and Tiberius, 29, silently slipped into their 44-year old sleeping father’s bedroom with a club in hand and bludgeoned him to death. The force of the blows was so powerful that it must’ve killed him almost immediately. With a caved in skull on one side, Cleolius Sr. stood no chance of waking up and fighting off the attack. Subsequently, after the vicious murder the brothers fell asleep, together laying on a bed opposite to where their father’s bloodied body lay. The household servant found them early the next morning still sleeping peacefully in their nightgowns. Horrified, she ran outside to get a patrol officer’s attention.
The motive for the brutal murder is unknown as neither of the brothers gave an explanation to the police officers who arrived at the home. All is known is that Cleolius Sr. was beaten over the head over 25 times with the heavy 2-foot long wooden club. It was considered overkill by both the officers at the scene.
The brothers will face justice in the coming weeks where we’ll see what the judge thinks of the duo, and whether they’ll be sacked from Rome.
Note: Patricide (the act of killing one’s parents, step-parents, grandparents, or children) was seen as the ultimate crime that deserved the toughest punishment in Rome.
