IT was the Ides of March last Tuesday, and perhaps a few remarks about Julius Caesar and his demise may yet still be in order. An autopsy — history’s first recorded post-mortem examination, no less — revealed the Roman dictator had been stabbed 23 times but that only one of his wounds, in the chest and piercing the aorta, had been fatal.
This was according to the historian Suetonius, who wrote that the physician who examined his body ruled that Caesar had bled to death as a result of this single dagger thrust.
As many as 60 senators plotted the assassination and, on that fateful day, more than 40 actively took part in the attack on Caesar. That only about half of them got close enough to inflict some damage suggests it was a rather messy if furious free-for-all and it may well be that some senators had accidentally stabbed each other, and even themselves, in the melee.
Fast forward, then, to recent events and the troubles facing our own imperious Roman. We were wondering, here at the Mahogany Ridge, whether that single, telling blow that would cut short the Jacob Zuma presidency had already been delivered or if it was still on its way.
Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor may have been first with her allegation that the Guptas had offered her the public enterprises portfolio on condition she handed them South African Airways’ India operation.
But some Ridge regulars feel that Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas’s subsequent disclosure that the family offered him the job of finance minister shortly before Zuma fired Nhlanhla Nene would ultimately prove to have been the coup de grace.