THE CONSPIRACY.
Caesar's greatness and glory came at last to a very sudden and violent
end. He was assassinated. All the attendant circumstances of this deed,
too, were of the most extraordinary character, and thus the dramatic
interest which adorns all parts of the great conqueror's history marks
strikingly its end.
[Sidenote: Jealousies awakened by Caesar's power.]
[Sidenote: The Roman Constitution.]
[Sidenote: Struggles and Conflicts.]
His prosperity and power awakened, of course, a secret jealousy and ill
will. Those who were disappointed in their expectations of his favor
murmured. Others, who had once been his rivals, hated him for having
triumphed over them. Then there was a stern spirit of democracy, too,
among certain classes of the citizens of Rome which could not brook a
master. It is true that the sovereign power in the Roman commonwealth
had never been shared by all the inhabitants. It was only in certain
privileged classes that the sovereignty was vested; but among these the
functions of government were divided and distributed in such a way as
to balance one interest against another, and to give all their proper
share of influence and authority. Terrible struggles and conflicts often
occurred among these various sections of society, as one or another
attempted from time to time to encroach upon the rights or privileges of
the rest. These struggles, however, ended usually in at last restoring
again the equilibrium which had been disturbed. No one power could ever
gain the entire ascendency; and thus, as all _monarchism_ seemed
excluded from their system, they called it a republic. Caesar, however,
had now concentrated in himself all the principal elements of power, and
there began to be suspicions that he wished to make himself in name and
openly, as well as secretly and in fact, a king.
[Sidenote: Roman repugnance to royalty.]
[Sidenote: Firmness of the Romans.]
The Romans abhorred the very name of king. They had had kings in the
early periods of their history, but they made themselves odious by their
pride and their oppressions, and the people had deposed and expelled
them. The modern nations of Europe have several times performed the same
exploit, but they have generally felt unprotected and ill at ease
without a personal sovereign over them and have accordingly, in most
cases, after a few years, restored some branch of the expelled dynasty
to the throne The Romans were more persevering and firm. They had
managed their empire now for five hundred years as a republic, and
though they had had internal dissensions, conflicts, and quarrels
without end, had persisted so firmly and unanimously in their
detestation of all regal authority, that no one of the long line of
ambitious and powerful statesmen, generals, or conquerors by which the
history of the empire had been signalized, had ever dared to aspire to
the name of king.
[Sidenote: Caesar's ambitious plans.]
There began, however, soon to appear some indications that Caesar, who
certainly now possessed regal power, would like the regal name.
Ambitious men, in such cases, do not directly assume themselves the
titles and symbols of royalty. Others make the claim for them, while
they faintly disavow it, till they have opportunity to gee what effect
the idea produces on the public mind. The following incidents occurred
which it was thought indicated such a design on the part of Caesar.
[Sidenote: American feeling.]
There were in some of the public buildings certain statues of kings; for
it must be understood that the Roman dislike to kings was only a dislike
to having kingly authority exercised over themselves. They respected and
sometimes admired the kings of other countries, and honored their
exploits, and made statues to commemorate their fame. They were willing
that kings should reign elsewhere, so long as there were no king of
Rome. The American feeling at the present day is much the same. If the
Queen of England were to make a progress through this country, she would
receive, perhaps, as many and as striking marks of attention and honor
as would be rendered to her in her own realm. We venerate the antiquity
of her royal line; we admire the efficiency of her government and the
sublime grandeur of her empire, and have as high an idea as any, of the
powers and prerogatives of her crown--and these feelings would show
themselves most abundantly on any proper occasion. We are willing, nay,
wish that she should continue to reign over Englishmen; and yet, after
all, it would take some millions of bayonets to place a queen securely
upon a throne over this land.
[Sidenote: Regal power.]
Regal power was accordingly, in the abstract, looked up to at Rome, as
it is elsewhere, with great respect; and it was, in fact, all the more
tempting as an object of ambition, from the determination felt by the
people that it should not be exercised there. There were, accordingly,
statues of kings at Rome. Caesar placed his own statue among them. Some
approved, others murmured.
[Sidenote: Caesar's seat in the theater.]
There was a public theater in the city, where the officers of the
government were accustomed to sit in honorable seats prepared expressly
for them, those of the Senate being higher and more distinguished than
the rest. Caesar had a seat prepared for himself there, similar in form
to a throne, and adorned it magnificently with gilding and ornaments of
gold, which gave it the entire pre-eminence over all the other seats.
He had a similar throne placed in the senate chamber, to be occupied by
himself when attending there, like the throne of the King of England in
the House of Lords.
[Sidenote: Public celebrations.]
[Sidenote: Caesar receives the Senate sitting.]
[Sidenote: Consequent excitement.]
He held, moreover, a great many public celebrations and triumphs in the
city in commemoration of his exploits and honors; and, on one of these
occasions, it was arranged that the Senate were to come to him at a
temple in a body, and announce to him certain decrees which they had
passed to his honor. Vast crowds had assembled to witness the ceremony
Caesar was seated in a magnificent chair, which might have been called
either a chair or a throne, and was surrounded by officers and
attendants When the Senate approached, Caesar did not rise to receive
them, but remained seated, like a monarch receiving a deputation of his
subjects. The incident would not seem to be in itself of any great
importance, but, considered as an indication of Caesar's designs, it
attracted great attention, and produced a very general excitement. The
act was adroitly managed so as to be somewhat equivocal in its
character, in order that it might be represented one way or the other on
the following day, according as the indications of public sentiment
might incline. Some said that Caesar was intending to rise, but was
prevented, and held down by those who stood around him. Others said that
an officer motioned to him to rise, but he rebuked his interference by a
frown, and continued his seat. Thus while, in fact, he received the
Roman Senate as their monarch and sovereign, his own intentions and
designs in so doing were left somewhat in doubt, in order to avoid
awakening a sudden and violent opposition.
[Sidenote: Caesar's statute crowned.]
Not long after this, as he was returning in public from some great
festival, the streets being full of crowds, and the populace following
him in great throngs with loud acclamations, a man went up to his
statue as he passed it, and placed upon the head of it a laurel crown,
fastened with a white ribbon, which was a badge of royalty. Some
officers ordered the ribbon to be taken down, and sent the man to
prison. Caesar was very much displeased with the officers, and dismissed
them from their office. He wished, he said, to have the opportunity to
disavow, himself, such claims, and not to have others disavow them
for him.
[Sidenote: Caesar's disavowals.]
Caesar's disavowals were, however, so faint, and people had so little
confidence in their sincerity, that the cases became more and more
frequent in which the titles and symbols of royalty were connected with
his name. The people who wished to gain his favor saluted him in public
with the name of _Rex_, the Latin word for king. He replied that his
name was Caesar, not _Rex_, showing, however, no other signs of
displeasure. On one great occasion, a high public officer, a near
relative of his, repeatedly placed a diadem upon his head, Caesar
himself, as often as he did it, gently putting it off. At last he sent
the diadem away to a temple that was near, saying that there was no king
in Rome but Jupiter. In a word, all his conduct indicated that he wished
to have it appear that the people were pressing the crown upon him,
when he himself was steadily refusing it.
[Sidenote: Some willing to make Caesar king.]
[Sidenote: Others oppose it.]
This state of things produced a very strong and universal, though
suppressed excitement in the city. Parties were formed. Some began to be
willing to make Caesar king; others were determined to hazard their
lives to prevent it. None dared, however, openly to utter their
sentiments on either side. They expressed them by mysterious looks and
dark intimations. At the time when Caesar refused to rise to receive the
Senate, many of the members withdrew in silence, and with looks of
offended dignity When the crown was placed upon his statue or upon his
own brow, a portion of the populace would applaud with loud
acclamations; and whenever he disavowed these acts, either by words or
counter-actions of his own, an equally loud acclamation would arise from
the other side. On the whole, however, the idea that Caesar was
gradually advancing toward the kingdom steadily gained ground.
[Sidenote: Caesar's pretexts.]
[Sidenote: His assumed humility.]
And yet Caesar himself spoke frequently with great humility in respect
to his pretensions and claims; and when he found public sentiment
turning against the ambitious schemes he seems secretly to have
cherished, he would present some excuse or explanation for his conduct
plausible enough to answer the purpose of a disavowal. When he received
the Senate, sitting like a king, on the occasion before referred to,
when they read to him the decrees which they had passed in his favor, he
replied to them that there was more need of diminishing the public
honors which he received than of increasing them. When he found, too,
how much excitement his conduct on that occasion had produced, he
explained it by saying that he had retained his sitting posture on
account of the infirmity of his health, as it made him dizzy to stand.
He thought, probably, that these pretexts would tend to quiet the strong
and turbulent spirits around him, from whose envy or rivalry he had most
to fear, without at all interfering with the effect which the act itself
would have produced upon the masses of the population. He wished, in a
word, to accustom them to see him assume the position and the bearing of
a sovereign, while, by his apparent humility in his intercourse with
those immediately around him, he avoided as much as possible irritating
and arousing the jealous and watchful rivals who were next to him
in power.
[Sidenote: Progress of Caesar's plans.]
If this were his plan, it seemed to be advancing prosperously toward
its accomplishment. The population of the city seemed to become more and
more familiar with the idea that Caesar was about to become a king. The
opposition which the idea had at first awakened appeared to subside, or,
at least, the public expression of it, which daily became more and more
determined and dangerous, was restrained. At length the time arrived
when it appeared safe to introduce the subject to the Roman Senate.
This, of course, was a hazardous experiment. It was managed, however, in
a very adroit and ingenious manner.
[Sidenote: The Sibylline books.]
[Sidenote: Declaration of the Sibylline books.]
[Sidenote: Plan for crowning Caesar.]
There were in Rome, and, in fact, in many other cities and countries of
the world in those days, a variety of prophetic books, called the
Sibylline Oracles, in which it was generally believed that future events
were foretold. Some of these volumes or rolls, which were very ancient
and of great authority, were preserved in the temples at Rome, under the
charge of a board of guardians, who were to keep them with the utmost
care, and to consult them on great occasions, in order to discover
beforehand what would be the result of public measures or great
enterprises which were in contemplation. It happened that at this time
the Romans were engaged in a war with the Parthians, a very wealthy and
powerful nation of Asia. Caesar was making preparations for an
expedition to the East to attempt to subdue this people. He gave orders
that the Sibylline Oracles should be consulted. The proper officers,
after consulting them with the usual solemn ceremonies, reported to the
Senate that they found it recorded in these sacred prophecies that the
Parthians could not be conquered except by a _king_, A senator proposed,
therefore, that, to meet the emergency, Caesar should be made king
during the war. There was at first no decisive action on this proposal.
It was dangerous to express any opinion. People were thoughtful,
serious, and silent, as on the eve of some great convulsion. No one knew
what others were meditating, and thus did not dare to express his own
wishes or designs. There soon, however, was a prevailing understanding
that Caesar's friends were determined on executing the design of
crowning him, and that the fifteenth of March, called, in their
phraseology, the _Ides of March_, was fixed upon as the coronation day.
[Sidenote: The conspiracy.]
In the mean time, Caesar's enemies, though to all outward appearance
quiet and calm, had not been inactive. Finding that his plans were now
ripe for execution, and that they had no, open means of resisting them,
they formed a conspiracy to assassinate Caesar himself, and thus bring
his ambitious schemes to an effectual and final end. The name of the
original leader of this conspiracy was Cassius.
[Sidenote: Cassius.]
Cassius had been for a long time Caesar's personal rival and enemy. He
was a man of a very violent and ardent temperament, impetuous and
fearless, very fond of exercising power himself, but very restless and
uneasy in having it exercised over him. He had all the Roman repugnance
to being under the authority of a master, with an additional personal
determination of his own not to submit to Caesar. He determined to slay
Caesar rather than to allow him to be made a king, and he went to work,
with great caution, to bring other leading and influential men to join
him in this determination. Some of those to whom he applied said that
they would unite with him in his plot provided he would get Marcus
Brutus to join them.
[Sidenote: Marcus Brutus.]
Brutus was the praetor of the city. The praetorship of the city was a
very high municipal office. The conspirators wished to have Brutus join
them partly on account of his station as a magistrate, as if they
supposed that by having the highest public magistrate of the city for
their leader in the deed, the destruction of their victim would appear
less like a murder, and would be invested, instead, in some respects,
with the sanctions and with the dignity of an official execution.
[Sidenote: Character of Brutus.]
[Sidenote: His firmness and courage.]
Then, again, they wished for the moral support which would be afforded
them in their desperate enterprise by Brutus's extraordinary personal
character. He was younger than Cassius, but he was grave, thoughtful,
taciturn, calm--a man of inflexible integrity, of the coolest
determination, and, at the same time, of the most undaunted courage. The
conspirators distrusted one another, for the resolution of impetuous men
is very apt to fail when the emergency arrives which puts it to the
test; but as for Brutus, they knew very well that whatever he undertook
he would most certainly do.
[Sidenote: The ancient Brutus.]
[Sidenote: His expulsion of the kings.]
There was a great deal even in his name. It was a Brutus that five
centuries before had been the main instrument of the expulsion of the
Roman kings. He had secretly meditated the design, and, the better to
conceal it, had feigned idiocy, as the story was, that he might not be
watched or suspected until the favorable hour for executing his design
should arrive. He therefore ceased to speak, and seemed to lose his
reason; he wandered about the city silent and gloomy, like a brute. His
name had been Lucius Junius before. They added Brutus now, to designate
his condition. When at last, however, the crisis arrived which he judged
favorable for the expulsion of the kings, he suddenly reassumed his
speech and his reason, called the astonished Romans to arms, and
triumphantly accomplished his design. His name and memory had been
cherished ever since that day as of a great deliverer.
[Sidenote: The history of Brutus.]
They, therefore, who looked upon Caesar as another king, naturally
turned their thoughts to the Brutus of their day, hoping to find in him
another deliverer. Brutus found, from time to time, inscriptions on his
ancient namesake's statue expressing the wish that he were now alive. He
also found each morning, as he came to the tribunal where he was
accustomed to sit in the discharge of the duties of his office, brief
writings, which had been left there during the night, in which few words
expressed deep meaning, such as "Awake, Brutus, to thy duty;" and "Art
thou indeed a Brutus?"
[Sidenote: His obligations to Caesar.]
[Sidenote: Caesar's friendship for Brutus.]
Still it seemed hardly probable that Brutus could be led to take a
decided stand against Caesar, for they had been warm personal friends
ever since the conclusion of the civil wars. Brutus had, indeed, been on
Pompey's side while that general lived; he fought with him at the battle
of Pharsalia, but he had been taken prisoner there, and Caesar, instead
of executing him as a traitor, as most victorious generals in a civil
war would have done, spared his life, forgave him for his hostility,
received him into his own service, and afterward raised him to very high
and honorable stations. He gave him the government of the richest
province, and, after his return from it, loaded with wealth and honors,
he made him praetor of the city. In a word, it would seem that he had
done every thing which it was possible to do to make him one of his most
trustworthy and devoted friends. The men, therefore, to whom Cassius
first applied, perhaps thought that they were very safe in saying that
they would unite in the intended conspiracy if he would get Brutus to
join them. They expected Cassius himself to make the attempt to secure
the co-operation of Brutus, as Cassius was on terms of intimacy with him
on account of a family connection. Cassius's wife was the sister of
Brutus. This had made the two men intimate associates and warm friends
in former years, though they had been recently somewhat estranged from
each other on account of having been competitors for the same offices
and honors. In these contests Caesar had decided in favor of Brutus.
"Cassius," said he, on one such occasion, "gives the best reasons; but I
can not refuse Brutus any thing he asks for." In fact, Caesar had
conceived a strong personal friendship for Brutus, and believed him to
be entirely devoted to his cause.
[Sidenote: Interview between Brutus and Cassius.]
Cassius, however, sought an interview with Brutus, with a view of
engaging him in his design. He easily effected his own reconciliation
with him, as he had himself been the offended party in their
estrangement from each other. He asked Brutus whether he intended to be
present in the Senate on the Ides of March, when the friends of Caesar,
as was understood, were intending to present him with the crown. Brutus
said he should not be there. "But suppose," said Cassius, "we are
specially summoned." "Then," said Brutus, "I shall go, and shall be
ready to die if necessary to defend the liberty of my country."
[Sidenote: Arguments of Cassius.]
Cassius then assured Brutus that there were many other Roman citizens,
of the highest rank, who were animated by the same determination, and
that they all looked up to him to lead and direct them in the work which
it was now very evident must be done. "Men look," said Cassius, "to
other praetors to entertain them with games, spectacles, and shows, but
they have very different ideas in respect to you. Your character, your
name, your position, your ancestry, and the course of conduct which you
have already always pursued, inspire the whole city with the hope that
you are to be their deliverer. The citizens are all ready to aid you,
and to sustain you at the hazard of their lives; but they look to you to
go forward, and to act in their name and in their behalf, in the crisis
which is now approaching."
[Sidenote: Effect on Brutus.]
[Sidenote: Brutus engages in the conspiracy.]
Men of a very calm exterior are often susceptible of the profoundest
agitations within, the emotions seeming to be sometimes all the more
permanent and uncontrollable from the absence of outward display. Brutus
said little, but his soul was excited and fired by Cassius's words.
There was a struggle in his soul between his grateful sense of his
political obligations to Caesar and his personal attachment to him on
the one hand, and, on the other, a certain stern Roman conviction that
every thing should be sacrificed, even friendship and gratitude, as
well as fortune and life, to the welfare of his country. He acceded to
the plan, and began forthwith to enter upon the necessary measures for
putting it into execution.
[Sidenote: Ligurius.]
There was a certain general, named Ligurius, who had been in Pompey's
army, and whose hostility to Caesar had never been really subdued. He
was now sick. Brutus went to see him. He found him in his bed. The
excitement in Rome was so intense, though the expressions of it were
suppressed and restrained, that every one was expecting continually some
great event, and every motion and look was interpreted to have some deep
meaning. Ligurius read in the countenance of Brutus, as he approached
his bedside, that he had not come on any trifling errand. "Ligurius,"
said Brutus, "this is not a time for _you_ to be sick." "Brutus,"
replied Ligurius, rising at once from his couch, "if you have any
enterprise in mind that is worthy of you, I am well." Brutus explained
to the sick man their design, and he entered into it with ardor.
[Sidenote: Consultations of the conspirators.]
[Sidenote: Their bold plan.]
[Sidenote: Final arrangements.]
The plan was divulged to one after another of such men as the
conspirators supposed most worthy of confidence in such a desperate
undertaking, and meetings for consultation were held to determine what
plan to adopt for finally accomplishing their end. It was agreed that
Caesar must be slain; but the time, the place, and the manner in which
the deed should be performed were all yet undecided. Various plans were
proposed in the consultations which the conspirators held; but there was
one thing peculiar to them all, which was, that they did not any of them
contemplate or provide for any thing like secrecy in the commission of
the deed. It was to be performed in the most open and public manner.
With a stern and undaunted boldness, which has always been considered by
mankind as truly sublime, they determined that, in respect to the actual
execution itself of the solemn judgment which they had pronounced, there
should be nothing private or concealed. They thought over the various
public situations in which they might find Caesar, and where they might
strike him down, only to select the one which would be most public of
all. They kept, of course, their preliminary counsels private, to
prevent the adoption of measures for counteracting them; but they were
to perform the deed in such a manner as that, so soon as it was
performed, they should stand out to view, exposed fully to the gaze of
all mankind as the authors, of it. They planned no retreat, no
concealment, no protection whatever for themselves, seeming to feel that
the deed which they were about to perform, of destroying the master and
monarch of the world, was a deed in its own nature so grand and sublime
as to raise the perpetrators of it entirely above all considerations
relating to their own personal safety. Their plan, therefore, was to
keep their consultations and arrangements secret until they were
prepared to strike the blow, then to strike it in the most public and
imposing manner possible, and calmly afterward to await the
consequences.
[Sidenote: The place and the day.]
In this view of the subject, they decided that the chamber of the Roman
Senate was the proper place, and the Ides of March, the day on which he
was appointed to be crowned, was the propel time for Caesar to be slain.