[Footnote 593: Dion Cassius (44. c. 9) speaks of the honours conferred
on Cæsar and his supposed ambitious designs.]
[Footnote 594: The Latin word "brutus" means "senseless," "stupid."
The Cumæi, the inhabitants of Cume in Æolis, were reckoned very
stupid. Strabo (p. 622) gives two reasons why this opinion obtained;
one of which was, that it was not till three hundred years after the
foundation of the city that they thought of making some profit by the
customs duties, though they had a port.]
[Footnote 595: Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 1, Dion Cassius (44. c.
12), and Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Junii, p. 2. This Brutus was not
a descendant of him who expelled the last king.]
[Footnote 596: Plutarch means the office of Prætor Urbanus, the
highest of the offices called prætorships. There was originally only
one prætor, the Prætor Urbanus. There were now sixteen. The Prætor
Urbanus was the chief person engaged in the administration of justice
in Rome; and hence the allusion to the "tribunal" ([Greek: bêma] βῆμα)
where the Prætor sat when he did business.]
[Footnote 597: I have translated this according to the reading of
Sintenis. Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 8. Cæsar was very lean. As to
the writings compare Dion Cassius (44, c. 12).]
[Footnote 598: See the Life of Brutus, c. 89.]
[Footnote 599:
_Cæsar_. Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Shakspere, _Julius Cæsar_, Act i. Sc. 2.]
[Footnote 600: The passage was in the Historical Memoirs. See the Life
of Sulla, c. 26; and the Life of Lucullus, c. 28. Notes.]
[Footnote 601: The Ides of March were the 15th, on which day Cæsar was
murdered.]
[Footnote 602: Compare Dion Cassius (44. c. 17). Cæsar also had a
dream.]
[Footnote 603: I have kept Plutarch's word, which is Greek. Suetonius
(Cæsar, c. 81) expresses it by the Latin word "fastigium," and also
Florus (iv. 2), Cicero (_Philipp._ ii. 43), and Julius Obsequens (c.
127), who enumerates the omens mentioned by Plutarch. The passage of
Livius must have been in the 116th Book, which is lost. See the
Epitome. The word here probably means a pediment. But it also
signifies an ornament, such as a statue placed on the summit of a
pediment.]
[Footnote 604: Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus was the son of Decimus
Junius Brutus, Consul B.C. 77, and grandson of Decimus Junius Brutus
Callaicus, Consul B.C. 138. He was adopted by Aulus Postumius Albinus,
Consul, B.C. 99, whence he took the name Albinus. He served under
Cæsar in Gaul, during which campaign he destroyed the fleet of the
Veneti. (_Gallic War_, iii. 12, &c.) Decimus Brutus was a great
favourite with Cæsar, who by his will placed him in the second degree
of succession; he also gave him the province of Cisalpine Gaul, which
Brutus held after Cæsar's death, and appointed him to be consul for
B.C. 42. In the year B.C. 43, after M. Antonius had united himself
with M. Lepidus, the governor of Gallia Narbonensis, and L. Munatius
Plancus and Asinius Pollio had also joined M. Antonius, Decimus Brutus
attempted to make his escape into Macedonia to Marcus Brutus; but he
was overtaken in the Alps by the cavalry of Antonius, and put to death
after abjectly praying for mercy. This was the just punishment of a
treacherous friend who helped Cæsar to the supreme power and then
betrayed him (Vell. Paterculus, ii. 61). Like many other men, he did
well enough when he was directed by others, but when he was put in
command, he lost his head and threw away the opportunities that he
had. There are extant several of his letters to Ciecro and letters of
Cicero to him. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 53, and the references in the
notes; Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Junii.)]
[Footnote 605: It was usual for the Romans in their wills to
substitute an heres, one or more (in the Roman sense), to take the
property in case the person who was first named in the will for any
reason did not take it. Cæsar's first heres was his great nephew, C.
Octavius, afterwards Augustus.]
[Footnote 606: It was the general opinion that some roll or writing
was put into Cæsar's hands, which informed him of the conspiracy; but,
as is usual in such cases, there were different statements current
about the particulars of this circumstance. Compare Dion Cassius, 44.
c. 18.]
[Footnote 607: According to Dion Cassius (41. c. 52) the Senate was
assembled in the curia ([Greek: synedrion] συνέδριον), which Pompeius
had built.]
[Footnote 608: The two sects of Greek philosophy that had most
adherents among the Romans were those of the Epicureans and the
Stoics. Cassius, as an Epicurean, would have no faith in any
superhuman powers; but in the moments of danger a man's speculative
principles give way to the common feelings of all mankind. I have kept
Plutarch's word "enthusiasm," which is here to be understood not in
our sense, but in the Greek sense of a person under some superhuman
influence.]
[Footnote 609: This is a mistake of Plutarch, who has stated the fact
correctly in his Life of Brutus (c. 17). It was Caius Trebonius who
kept Antonius engaged in talk, as we learn from Dion Cassius (44. c.
10), Appianus (_Civil War_, ii. 117), and Cicero, who in a Letter to
Trebonius (_Ad Diversos_, x. 28) complains that Trebonius had taken
Antonius aside, and so saved his life.]
[Footnote 610: Some would write Tullius Cimber. See the note of
Sintenis. Atilius may be the true name.]
[Footnote 611: P. Servilius Casca was at this time a tribune of the
Plebs (Dion Cassius, 44. c. 52).]
[Footnote 612: Dion Cassius adds (44. c. 19) that Cæsar said to M.
Brutus, "And you too, my son." Probably the story of Cæsar's death
received many embellishments. Of his three and twenty wounds, only one
was mortal according to the physician Antistius (Suetonius, _Cæsar_,
82): but though the wounds severally might not have been mortal, the
loss of blood from all might have caused death. Suetonius (c. 82)
adds, that Cæsar pierced the arm of Cassius (he mentions two Cassii
among the conspirators) with his graphium (stylus). See the notes in
Burmann's edition of Suetonius.
The circumstances of the death of Cæsar are minutely stated by
Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Julii, p. 728, &c. The reflections of Dion
Cassius (44. c. 1, 2) on the death of Cæsar are worth reading. He
could not see that any public good was accomplished by this murder;
nor can anybody else.]
[Footnote 613: Cicero was among them. He saw, as he says himself (_Ad
Attic._ xiv. 10), the tyrant fall, and he rejoiced. In his letters he
speaks with exultation of the murder, and commends the murderers. But
he was not let into the secret. They were afraid to trust him. If he
had been in the conspiracy, he says (_Philipp._ ii. 14) he would have
made clean work; he would have assassinated all the enemies of
liberty; in other words, all the chief men of Cæsar's party. He had
abjectly humbled himself before Cæsar, who treated him with kind
respect. Like all genuine cowards he was cruel when he had power.]
[Footnote 614: M. Æmilius Lepidus, son of M. Lepidus, consul B.C. 78.
He afterwards formed one of the Triumviri with M. Antonius and
Octavianus Cæsar. This was the Lepidus with whom Cæsar supped the day
before he was murdered. He was a feeble man, though something of a
soldier. Shakspere has painted him in a few words:
_Antony_. This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands.
_Julius Cæsar_, Act iv. Sc. 1.