While generally abhorred, assassination has been an important means of politics since the ancient times. Its popularity was rising and falling as political circumstances changed - for example, regicide was rare during the Middle Ages while it was rampant in Roman courts - but it was always present. Assassinations were not always motivated by political struggle; they could be a form of sabotage, warfare, or terrorism. Among the most widely known victims of assassination are Julius Caesar, Holofernes, Conrad of Montferrat, Abraham Lincoln, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Leon Trotsky, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and John F. Kennedy.