It is said that “revolutions never go backwards.” Brutus and his
fellow-conspirators struck down Cæsar in the name of liberty; but the
blow that leveled the master of Rome did not bring back the
republic,--it only insured the appearance of new claimants for supreme
power, and consequently new civil wars.
On the occasion of Cæsar’s funeral the consul, Mark Antony, delivered an
oration over the dictator’s body, and to such a height did the feeling
of the Romans against the plotters rise, that Brutus and Cassius were
obliged to escape forthwith from the city to avoid destruction.
The condition of affairs left Mark Antony in some respect the
representative of Cæsarean principles; but a more direct claimant to the
succession appeared in Cæsar’s great-nephew, Caius Octavius, then a
youth nineteen years old. The dictator had adopted Octavius as his son;
so his name became Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus. Octavius had all the
old soldiers on his side, and raised the standard of Cæsar’s vengeance.