be betrayed; but on Cæsar's entrance into the senate house, C. Tillius
(not Tullius) Cimber made his way up to him, and insulted him with his
importunities, and Casca gave the first stroke. Cæsar fell covered with
twenty-three wounds. He was either in his fifty-sixth year or had
completed it; I am not quite certain on this point, though, if we judge
by the time of his first consulship, he must have been fifty-six years
old. His birthday, which is not generally known, was the 11th of
Quinctilis, which month was afterward called Julius, and his death took
place on the 15th of March, between eleven and twelve o'clock.
PLUTARCH
At one time the senate having decreed Cæsar some extravagant honors, the
consuls and prætors, attended by the whole body of patricians, went to
inform him of what they had done. When they came, he did not rise to
receive them, but kept his seat, as if they had been persons in a
private station, and his answer to their address was, "that there was
more need to retrench his honors than to enlarge them." This haughtiness
gave pain not only to the senate, but the people, who thought the
contempt of that body reflected dishonor upon the whole Commonwealth;
for all who could decently withdraw went off greatly dejected.
Perceiving the false step he had taken, he retired immediately to his
own house, and, laying his neck bare, told his friends "he was ready for
the first hand that would strike." He then bethought himself of alleging
his distemper as an excuse; and asserted that those who are under its
influence are apt to find their faculties fail them when they speak
standing, a trembling and giddiness coming upon them, which bereave them
of their senses. This, however, was not really the case; for it is said
he was desirous to rise to the senate; but Cornelius Balbus, one of his
friends, or rather flatterers, held him, and had servility enough to
say, "Will you not remember that you are Cæsar, and suffer them to pay
their court to you as their superior?"
These discontents were greatly increased by the indignity with which he
treated the tribunes of the people. In the Lupercalia, which, according
to most writers, is an ancient pastoral feast, and which answers in many
respects to the _Lycaea_ among the Arcadians, young men of noble
families, and indeed many of the magistrates, run about the streets
naked, and, by way of diversion, strike all they meet with leathern
thongs with the hair upon them. Numbers of women of the first quality
put themselves in their way, and present their hands for stripes--as
scholars do to a master--being persuaded that the pregnant gain an easy
delivery by it, and that the barren are enabled to conceive. Cæsar wore
a triumphal robe that day, and seated himself in a golden chair upon the
_rostra_, to see the ceremony.
Antony ran among the rest, in compliance with the rules of the festival,
for he was consul. When he came into the Forum, and the crowd had made
way for him, he approached Cæsar, and offered him a diadem wreathed with
laurel. Upon this some plaudits were heard, but very feeble, because
they proceeded only from persons placed there on purpose. Cæsar refused
it, and then the plaudits were loud and general. Antony presented it
once more, and few applauded his officiousness; but when Cæsar rejected
it again, the applause again was general. Cæsar, undeceived by his
second trial, rose up and ordered the diadem to be consecrated in the
Capitol.
A few days after, his statues were seen adorned with royal diadems; and
Flavius and Marullus, two of the tribunes, went and tore them off. They
also found out the persons who first saluted Cæsar king, and committed
them to prison. The people followed with cheerful acclamations, and
called them Brutuses, because Brutus was the man who expelled the kings
and put the government in the hands of the senate and people. Cæsar,
highly incensed at their behavior, deposed the tribunes, and by way of
reprimand to them, as well as insult to the people, called them several
times _Brutes_ and _Cumceans_.
Upon this, many applied to Marcus Brutus, who, by the father's side, was
supposed to be a descendant of that ancient Brutus, and whose mother was
of the illustrious house of the Servilli. He was also nephew and
son-in-law to Cato. No man was more inclined than he to lift his hand
against monarchy, but he was withheld by the honors and favors he had
received from Cæsar, who had not only given him his life after the
defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, and pardoned many of his friends at his
request, but continued to honor him with his confidence. That very year
he had procured him the most honorable prætorship, and he had named him
for the consulship four years after, in preference to Cassius, who was
his competitor; on which occasion Cæsar is reported to have said,
"Cassius assigns the strongest reasons, but I cannot refuse Brutus."
Some impeached Brutus after the conspiracy was formed; but, instead of
listening to them, he laid his hand on his body and said, "Brutus will
wait for this skin"; intimating that though the virtue of Brutus
rendered him worthy of empire, he would not be guilty of any ingratitude
or baseness to obtain it. Those, however, who were desirous of a change
kept their eyes upon him only, or principally at least; and as they
durst not speak out plain, they put billets night after night in the
tribunal and seat which he used as prætor, mostly in these terms: "Thou
sleepest, Brutus," or, "Thou art not Brutus."
Cassius, perceiving his friend's ambition a little stimulated by these
papers, began to ply him closer than before, and spur him on to the
great enterprise; for he had a particular enmity against Cæsar. Cæsar,
too, had some suspicion of him, and he even said one day to his friends:
"What think you of Cassius? I do not like his pale looks." Another time,
when Antony and Dolabella were accused of some designs against his
person and government, he said: "I have no apprehensions from those fat
and sleek men; I rather fear the pale and lean ones," meaning Cassius
and Brutus.
It seems, from this instance, that fate is not so secret as it is
inevitable; for we are told there were strong signs and presages of the
death of Cæsar. As to the lights in the heavens, the strange noises
heard in various quarters by night, and the appearance of solitary birds
in the Forum, perhaps they deserve not our notice in so great an event
as this. But some attention should be given to Strabo the philosopher.
According to him there were seen in the air men of fire encountering
each other; such a flame appeared to issue from the hand of a soldier's
servant that all the spectators thought it must be burned, yet, when it
was over, he found no harm; and one of the victims which Cæsar offered
was found without a heart. The latter was certainly a most alarming
prodigy; for, according to the rules of nature, no creature can exist
without a heart. What is still more extraordinary, many report that a
certain soothsayer forewarned him of a great danger which threatened him
on the ides of March, and that when the day was come, as he was going to
the senate house, he called to the soothsayer, and said, laughing, "The
ides of March are come"; to which he answered softly, "Yes; but they are
not gone."
The evening before, he supped with Marcus Lepidus, and signed, according
to custom, a number of letters, as he sat at table. While he was so
employed, there arose a question, "What kind of death was the best?" and
Cæsar, answering before them all, cried out, "A sudden one." The same
night, as he was in bed with his wife, the doors and windows of the room
flew open at once. Disturbed both with the noise and the light, he
observed, by moonshine, Calpurnia in a deep sleep, uttering broken words
and inarticulate groans. She dreamed that she was weeping over him, as
she held him, murdered, in her arms. Others say she dreamed that the
pinnacle was fallen, which, as Livy tells us, the senate had ordered to
be erected upon Cæsar's house by way of ornament and distinction; and
that it was the fall of it which she lamented and wept for. Be that as
it may, the next morning she conjured Cæsar not to go out that day if he
could possibly avoid it, but to adjourn the senate; and, if he had no
regard to her dreams, to have recourse to some other species of
divination, or to sacrifices, for information as to his fate. This gave
him some suspicion and alarm; for he had never known before, in
Calpurnia, anything of the weakness or superstition of her sex, though
she was now so much affected.
He therefore offered a number of sacrifices, and, as the diviners found
no auspicious tokens in any of them, he sent Antony to dismiss the
senate. In the mean time Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, came in. He
was a person in whom Cæsar placed such confidence that he had appointed
him his second heir, yet he was engaged in the conspiracy with the other
Brutus and Cassius. This man, fearing that if Cæsar adjourned the senate
to another day the affair might be discovered, laughed at the diviners,
and told Cæsar he would be highly to blame if by such a slight he gave
the senate an occasion of complaint against him. "For they were met," he
said, "at his summons, and came prepared with one voice to honor him
with the title of king in the provinces, and to grant that he should
wear the diadem both by sea and land everywhere out of Italy. But if
anyone go and tell them, now they have taken their places, they must go
home again, and return when Calpurnia happens to have better dreams,
what room will your enemies have to launch out against you? Or who will
hear your friends when they attempt to show that this is not an open
servitude on the one hand and tyranny on the other? If you are
absolutely persuaded that this is an unlucky day, it is certainly better
to go yourself and tell them you have strong reasons for putting off
business till another time." So saying he took Cæsar by the hand and led
him out.
He was not gone far from the door when a slave, who belonged to some
other person, attempted to get up to speak to him, but finding it
impossible, by reason of the crowd that was about him, he made his way
into the house, and putting himself into the hands of Calpurnia desired
her to keep him safe till Cæsar's return, because he had matters of
great importance to communicate.
Artemidorus the Cnidian, who, by teaching the Greek eloquence, became
acquainted with some of Brutus' friends, and had got intelligence of
most of the transactions, approached Cæsar with a paper explaining what
he had to discover. Observing that he gave the papers, as fast as he
received them, to his officers, he got up as close as possible and said:
"Cæsar, read this to yourself, and quickly, for it contains matters of
great consequence and of the last concern to you." He took it and
attempted several times to read it, but was always prevented by one
application or other. He therefore kept that paper, and that only, in
his hand, when he entered the house. Some say it was delivered to him by
another man, Artemidorus being kept from approaching him all the way by
the crowd.
These things might, indeed, fall out by chance; but as in the place
where the senate was that day assembled, and which proved the scene of
that tragedy, there was a statue of Pompey, and it was an edifice which
Pompey had consecrated for an ornament to his theatre, nothing can be
clearer than that some deity conducted the whole business and directed
the execution of it to that very spot. Even Cassius himself, though
inclined to the doctrines of Epicurus, turned his eye to the statue of
Pompey, and secretly invoked his aid, before the great attempt. The
arduous occasion, it seems, overruled his former sentiments, and laid
them open to all the influence of enthusiasm. Antony, who was a faithful
friend to Cæsar, and a man of great strength, was held in discourse
without, by Brutus Albinus, who had contrived a long story to detain
him.
When Cæsar entered the house, the senate rose to do him honor. Some of
Brutus' accomplices came up behind his chair, and others before it,
pretending to intercede, along with Metillius Cimber, for the recall of
his brother from exile. They continued their instances till he came to
his seat. When he was seated he gave them a positive denial; and as they
continued their importunities with an air of compulsion, he grew angry.
Cimber, then, with both hands, pulled his gown off his neck, which was
the signal for the attack. Casca gave him the first blow. It was a
stroke upon the neck with his sword, but the wound was not dangerous;
for in the beginning of so tremendous an enterprise he was probably in
some disorder. Cæsar therefore turned upon him and laid hold of his
sword. At the same time they both cried out, the one in Latin, "Villain!
Casca! what dost thou mean?" and the other in Greek, to his brother,
"Brother, help!"
After such a beginning, those who knew nothing of the conspiracy were
seized with consternation and horror, insomuch that they durst neither
fly nor assist, nor even utter a word. All the conspirators now drew
their swords, and surrounded him in such a manner that, whatever way he
turned, he saw nothing but steel gleaming in his face, and met nothing
but wounds. Like some savage beast attacked by the hunters, he found
every hand lifted against him, for they all agreed to have a share in
the sacrifice and a taste of his blood. Therefore Brutus himself gave
him a stroke in the groin. Some say he opposed the rest, and continued
struggling and crying out till he perceived the sword of Brutus; then he
drew his robe over his face and yielded to his fate. Either by accident
or pushed thither by the conspirators, he expired on the pedestal of
Pompey's statue, and dyed it with his blood; so that Pompey seemed to
preside over the work of vengeance, to tread his enemy under his feet,
and to enjoy his agonies. Those agonies were great, for he received no
less than three-and-twenty wounds. And many of the conspirators wounded
each other as they were aiming their blows at him.
Cæsar thus despatched, Brutus advanced to speak to the senate and to
assign his reasons for what he had done, but they could not bear to hear
him; they fled out of the house and filled the people with inexpressible
horror and dismay. Some shut up their houses; others left their shops
and counters. All were in motion; one was running to see the spectacle;
another running back. Antony and Lepidus, Cæsar's principal friends,
withdrew, and hid themselves in other people's houses. Meantime Brutus
and his confederates, yet warm from the slaughter, marched in a body
with their bloody swords in their hands, from the senate house to the
Capitol, not like men that fled, but with an air of gayety and
confidence, calling the people to liberty, and stopping to talk with
every man of consequence whom they met. There were some who even joined
them and mingled with their train, desirous of appearing to have had a
share in the action and hoping for one in the glory. Of this number were
Caius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther, who afterward paid dear for their
vanity, being put to death by Antony and young Cæsar; so that they
gained not even the honor for which they lost their lives, for nobody
believed that they had any part in the enterprise; and they were
punished, not for the deed, but for the will.
Next day Brutus and the rest of the conspirators came down from the
Capitol and addressed the people, who attended to their discourse
without expressing either dislike or approbation of what was done. But
by their silence it appeared that they pitied Cæsar, at the same time
that they revered Brutus. The senate passed a general amnesty; and, to
reconcile all parties, they decreed Cæsar divine honors and confirmed
all the acts of his dictatorship; while on Brutus and his friends they
bestowed governments and such honors as were suitable; so that it was
generally imagined the Commonwealth was firmly established again, and
all brought into the best order.
But when, upon the opening of Cæsar's will, it was found that he had
left every Roman citizen a considerable legacy, and they beheld the
body, as it was carried through the Forum, all mangled with wounds, the
multitude could no longer be kept within bounds. They stopped the
procession, and, tearing up the benches, with the doors and tables,
heaped them into a pile, and burned the corpse there. Then snatching
flaming brands from the pile, some ran to burn the houses of the
assassins, while others ranged the city to find the conspirators
themselves and tear them in pieces; but they had taken such care to
secure themselves that they could not meet with one of them.
One Cinna, a friend of Cæsar's, had a strange dream the preceding night.
He dreamed--as they tell us--that Cæsar invited him to supper, and, upon
his refusal to go, caught him by the hand and drew him after him, in
spite of all the resistance he could make. Hearing, however, that the
body of Cæsar was to be burned in the Forum, he went to assist in doing
him the last honors, though he had a fever upon him, the consequence of
his uneasiness about his dream. On his coming up, one of the populace
asked who that was? and having learned his name, told it to his next
neighbor. A report immediately spread through the whole company that it
was one of Cæsar's murderers; and, indeed, one of the conspirators was
named Cinna. The multitude, taking this for the man, fell upon him, and
tore him to pieces upon the spot. Brutus and Cassius were so terrified
at this rage of the populace that a few days after they left the city.
An account of their subsequent actions, sufferings, and death may be
found in the life of Brutus.
Cæsar died at the age of fifty-six, and did not survive Pompey above
four years. His object was sovereign power and authority, which he
pursued through innumerable dangers, and by prodigious efforts he gained
it at last. But he reaped no other fruit from it than an empty and
invidious title. It is true the divine Power, which conducted him
through life, attended him after his death as his avenger, pursued and
hunted out the assassins over sea and land, and rested not till there
was not a man left, either of those who dipped their hands in his blood
or of those who gave their sanction to the deed.
The most remarkable of natural events relative to this affair was that
Cassius, after he had lost the battle of Philippi, killed himself with
the same dagger which he had made use of against Cæsar; and the most
signal phenomenon in the heavens was that of a great comet, which shone
very bright for seven nights after Cæsar's death, and then disappeared;
to which we may add the fading of the sun's lustre; for his orb looked
pale all that year; he rose not with a sparkling radiance, nor had the
heat he afforded its usual strength. The air, of course, was dark and
heavy, for want of that vigorous heat which clears and rarefies it; and
the fruits were so crude and unconcocted that they pined away and
decayed, through the chilliness of the atmosphere.
We have a proof still more striking that the assassination of Cæsar was
displeasing to the gods, in the phantom that appeared to Brutus. The
story of it is this: Brutus was on the point of transporting his army
from Abydos to the opposite continent; and the night before, he lay in
his tent awake, according to custom, and in deep thought about what
might be the event of the war; for it was natural for him to watch a
great part of the night, and no general ever required so little sleep.
With all his senses about him, he heard a noise at the door of his tent,
and looking toward the light, which was now burned very low, he saw a
terrible appearance in the human form, but of prodigious stature and the
most hideous aspect. At first he was struck with astonishment; but when
he saw it neither did nor spoke anything to him, but stood in silence by
his bed, he asked it who it was? The spectre answered: "I am thy evil
genius, Brutus; thou shalt see me at Philippi." Brutus answered boldly,
"I'll meet thee there"; and the spectre immediately vanished.
Some time after, he engaged Antony and Octavius Cæsar at Philippi, and
the first day was victorious, carrying all before him, where he fought
in person, and even pillaging Cæsar's camp. The night before he was to
fight the second battle the same spectre appeared to him again, but
spoke not a word. Brutus, however, understood that his last hour was
near, and courted danger with all the violence of despair. Yet he did
not fall in the action; but seeing all was lost, he retired to the top
of a rock, where he presented his naked sword to his breast, and a
friend, as they tell us, assisting the thrust, he died upon the spot.
ROME BECOMES A MONARCHY
DEATH OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
B.C. 44-30
HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL
(After the death of Cæsar, Rome was in confusion; consternation seized
the people, and the "liberators" failed to rally them to their own
support. In possession of Cæsar's treasure, Antony, the surviving
consul, bided his time. His oration at Cæsar's funeral stirred the
populace against the "liberators," and made him for the moment master of
Rome; but his self-seeking soon turned the people against him. The young
Octavius, Cæsar's heir, had become popular with the army. He returned to
Rome and claimed his inheritance, demanded from Antony Cæsar's moneys,
but in vain, and assumed the title of Cæsar. The rivalry between the two
leaders rapidly approached a crisis. The partisans of Antony and
Octavius began to clash, and civil war followed. Defeated, Antony
retreated across the Alps. Octavius was elected consul, and began
negotiations with Antony and Lepidus, which resulted in the three new
masters constituting themselves a triumvirate--the Second
Triumvirate--to settle the affairs of the Commonwealth. They divided the
powers of government, and a partition of territory was made between
them. Their next business was to put out of the way, by proscription,
the enemies of this new order of things. Three hundred senators,
including Cicero, were massacred, as well as two thousand knights.
When the terrified senate had legalized the self-assumed authority of
the triumvirs, they turned their attention to Brutus and Cassius in the
East, whither they had gone after the assassination of Cæsar and
established and maintained themselves in power. At the battle of
Philippi in Macedonia [B.C. 42] Antony and Octavius defeated Brutus and
Cassius, both of whom died by their own hands. The Roman world was now
in the hands of the triumvirs. Antony ruled in the East, Octavius in the
West, and Lepidus in Africa, B.C. 42-36. In the latter year Lepidus was
deposed by Octavius after a short conflict. And only a year after
Philippi a war between Octavius and Antony was threatened because of a
revolt in Italy, raised by Antony's brother Lucius and Fulvia, wife of
Antony; but it was prevented by a treaty of peace, sealed by the
marriage of Antony to Octavia, sister of Octavius. This peace lasted for
ten years, during which time, however, there was constant friction
between them.
At Tarsus, in B.C. 41, Antony received a visit from Cleopatra, to whose
charms he had yielded years before. This was the turning-point in his
career; he went with her to Alexandria. By his oppression of the people
of the East, and his dalliance with Cleopatra, he made himself the
object of hatred and contempt. His army met with a series of defeats. In
the mean time Octavius was constantly strengthening himself. The rivalry
between them finally reached the point where both prepared for war. The
great sea fight near Actium, September 2d, B.C. 31, resulted in the
destruction of Antony's fleet after he had followed Cleopatra in her
flight. A year later occurred the death of both. This important battle
established Octavius as the sole ruler of the Roman possessions, and
historians regard it as marking the end of the republic and the
beginning of the empire.)