[-16-] It had been decided by them to make the attempt in the senate, for they thought that there Caesar would least expect to be harmed in any way and would so fall an easier victim, while they would possess opportunity coupled with security by having their swords instead of documents brought in boxes, and that the rest being unarmed would be unable to make any resistance. In case any one should be so rash, they expected at least that the gladiators, many of whom they had previously stationed in Pompey's Theatre under the pretext that they were to practice with arms, would assist them. These were to lie in wait there in a certain room of the peristyle. The conspirators, when the appointed day had come, gathered in the senate-hall at dawn and called for Caesar. [-17-] As for him, he was warned of the plot in advance by the soothsayers, and was warned also by dreams. The night before he was slain his wife had a vision of their house fallen in ruins, her husband wounded by some men and taking refuge in her bosom, and of Caesar being raised aloft upon the clouds and grasping the hand of Jupiter. Moreover omens not few nor indistinct crossed his path. The arms of Mars, at that time deposited at his house by virtue of his position as high priest and by ancestral custom, made a great noise at night, and the doors of the chamber where he slept opened of their own accord. The sacrifices which he offered because of these occurrences indicated nothing favorable and the birds with which he practiced divination forbade him to leave the house. After his assassination, finally, some recalled a weighty incident in connection with his gilded chair,—that the servant, as Caesar was slow in coming, carried it out of the senate, thinking that he would have no further need of it.
[-18-] Caesar for this reason was so long in coming that the conspirators feared there might be a postponement (a rumor circulated, indeed, that he would remain at home that day), and their plot thus fall through and they themselves be detected. Therefore they sent Decimus Brutus, as one appearing to be a devoted friend, to secure his attendance. This man made light of Caesar's scruples and by adding that the senate was extremely anxious to behold him, persuaded him to go forward. At this an image of his which he kept set up in the vestibule fell of its own accord and was shattered to pieces. He ought then to have changed his purpose, but instead he paid no attention to this and would not listen to some one who was giving him information of the plot. He received from him a little roll in which all the preparations made for the attack had been accurately inscribed, but did not read it, thinking that it was some other not very pressing matter. In brief, he was so confident that to the soothsayer who had warned him to beware of that day he said jokingly: "Where are your prophecies? Don't you see that the day over which you were all of a tremble is here and I am alive?" And the other, they say, answered only this: "Yes, it is here, but not yet gone."
[-19-] Now when he finally reached the senate Trebonius delayed Antony somewhere at a distance outside. They had planned to kill both him and Lepidus. But fearing that they might be ill spoken of as a result of the number of those destroyed, and that it might be said that they had slain Caesar to gain power and not to free the city, as they pretended, they did not wish Antony even to be present at his slaughter. As for Lepidus, he had set out on a campaign and was in the suburbs. Antony was held by Trebonius in conversation. Meanwhile the rest in a body surrounded Caesar (he was as easy of access and ready to be addressed as any one could have wished), and some talked among themselves, while others presented petitions to him, so that suspicion might be as far from his mind as possible. When the right moment came, one of them approached him as if to express his thanks for some favor or other and pulled his cloak from his shoulder; for this, according to the agreement, served to the conspirators as a signal raised. Thereupon they attacked him from many sides at once and wounded him to death, so that by reason of their numbers Caesar was unable to say or do anything, but veiling his face was slain with many wounds. This is the truest account. In times past some have made a declaration like this, that to Brutus who struck him severely he said: "Thou, too, my child?"
[-20-] A great outcry naturally arose from all the rest who were inside and who were standing nearby outside at the suddenness of the event and because they were not acquainted with the slayers, their numbers, or their intention; and all were thrown into confusion, believing themselves in danger; so they themselves started in flight by whatever way each man could, and they alarmed those who met them by saying nothing definite, but merely shouting out these words: "Run, bolt doors! Run, bolt doors!" The rest, taking it up from one another as each one echoed the cries, filled the city with lamentations, and they burst into shops and houses to hide themselves. Yet the assassins hurried just as they were to the Forum, indicating both by their gestures and their shouts not to be afraid. At the same time that they said this they called continuously for Cicero: but the crowd did not believe that they were sincere, and was not easily calmed. Late in the day at last they gradually began to take courage and became quiet, as no one was killed or arrested. [-21-] When they met in the assembly the assassins had much to say against Caesar and much in favor of the democracy, and they bade the people take courage and not expect any harm. They had killed him, they declared, not to secure power or any other advantage, but in order that they might be free and independent and be governed rightly. By speaking such words they calmed the majority, especially since they injured no one. Fearing for all that that somebody might concert measures against them the conspirators ascended the Capitoline with the avowed intention of offering prayer to the gods, and there they spent the day and night. And at evening they were joined by some of the other prominent men who had not shared in the plot, but were anxious, when they saw the perpetrators praised, to secure the glory of it, as well as the prizes which those concerned expected. With great justice the affair happened to turn out the opposite way: they did not secure any reputation for the deed because they had not been partakers of it in any way, but they shared the danger which fell upon the ones who committed it just as much as if they themselves had been the plotters.
[-22-] Seeing this, Dolabella likewise did not see fit to keep quiet, but entered upon the consular office though it did not yet belong to him, and after a short speech to the people on the situation ascended the Capitol. While affairs were in this condition Lepidus, learning what had taken place, by night occupied the Forum with his soldiers and at dawn delivered a speech against the assassins. Antony immediately after Caesar's death had fled, casting away his robe of office in order to escape notice, and had concealed himself through the night. When, however, he ascertained that the assassins were on the Capitol and Lepidus in the Forum, he assembled the senate in the precinct of Tellus and brought forward the business of the hour for deliberation. Some said one thing, some another, as each of them thought about it: Cicero, whose advice they followed, spoke to this effect:—
[-23-] "On every occasion I think no one ought to say anything merely for the sake of winning favor or to show his spite, but to reveal just what the man in each case thinks to be the best. We demand that those who are praetors or consuls shall do everything from upright motives, and if they make any errors we demand an account from them even if their slip was accidental; and it will be unbearable if in debates, where we are complete masters of our own opinion, we shall abandon the common welfare with a view to private advantage. For this reason, Conscript Fathers, I have always thought that I ought to advise you on all matters with simplicity and justice, but especially under the present circumstances, when, if without being over-captious we come to an agreement, we shall be preserved ourselves and enable all the rest to survive, but if we wish to examine everything minutely, I fear ill fortune—but at the very opening of my address I do not wish to say anything displeasing. [-24-] Formerly, not very long ago, those who had arms usually also got control of the government and consequently issued orders to you as to the subjects on which you must deliberate, but you could not look forward and see what it was proper for them to do. But now practically all conditions are so favorably placed that the matter is in your hands and the responsibility rests upon you; and from your own selves you may obtain either concord and with it liberty, or seditions and civil wars again and a master at the close of them. Whatever you decide to-day all the rest will follow. This being the state of the case as I see it, I declare that you ought to abandon your mutual enmities or jealousies or whatever name should be applied to them, and return to that ancient condition of peace and friendship and harmony. For you should remember this, if nothing else, that so long as we enjoyed that kind of government, we acquired lands, fortunes, glory and allies, but ever since we were led into abusing one another, so far from growing better we have become decidedly worse off. I am so firmly convinced that nothing else at present could save the city that if we do not to-day, at once, with all possible speed, adopt some policy, we shall never be able to regain our position.
[-25-] "Notice carefully that I am speaking only the truth, of which you may convince yourselves if you regard present conditions and then consider our position in old times. Do you not see what is taking place,—that the populace is again being divided and torn asunder and that, some choosing this side, and some that, they have already fallen into two parties and two camps, that the one side has taken timely possession of the Capitol as if they feared the Gauls or somebody, and the other side with headquarters in the Forum is preparing to besiege them and so behaving like Carthaginians, and not as though they too were Romans? Do you not hear that though formerly citizens often differed, even to the extent of occupying the Aventine once, and the Capitol, and some of them the Sacred Mount, as often as they were reconciled one with another on equal terms (or by yielding but a small point) they at once stopped hating one another, to live the rest of their lives in such peace and harmony that in common they carried through successfully many great wars? As often, on the other hand, as they had recourse to murders and assassinations, the one side deceived by the justification of defending themselves against the encroachments of the other, and the other side by an ambition to appear to be inferior to none, no good ever came of it. Why need I waste time by repeating to you, who know them equally well, the names of Valerius, Horatius, Saturninus, Glaucia, the Gracchi? With such examples before you, not of foreign origin but native to this land, do not hesitate to strive after the right course and guard against the wrong. Having from the events of history received a proof of the outcome of the situation on which you are deliberating, regard my exhortation no longer as mere words but believe that the welfare of the community is at stake this instant. Do not for any doubtful theory cast away the certainty of hope, but trusting to a reliable pledge secure in advance a sure result for your calculations.
[-26-] "It is in your power, if you receive this evidence that I mentioned from your own land and your own ancestors, to decide rightly. And this is why I did not wish to cite instances from abroad, though I might have mentioned countless of them. One instance, nevertheless, I will offer from the best and most ancient city from which our fathers did not disdain to introduce certain laws; for it would be a disgrace for us who so far surpass the Athenians in strength and sense, to deliberate less well than they. They were once—of course you all know this—at variance, and as a result were overcome in war by the Lacedaemonians and endured a tyranny of the more powerful citizens; and they did not obtain a respite from evils until they made a compact and agreement to forget their past injuries, though many and severe, and never to allow a single reproach because of them or to bear malice against any one. Now when they had attained such a degree of wisdom, they not only ceased enduring tyrannies and seditions, but flourished in every way, regaining their city, laying claim to the sovereignty of the Greeks, and finally becoming powerful enough to decide frequently on the preservation or destruction both of the Lacedaemonians themselves and of the Thebans. Now notice, that if those men who seized Phyle and came home from the Peirseus had chosen to take vengeance on the city party for wrongs suffered, they would, to be sure, have seemed to have performed a justifiable action, but they would have undergone, as well as have caused, many evils. Just as they exceeded their hopes by defeating their foes, they might perhaps themselves have been in turn unexpectedly worsted. [-27-] In such matters there is nothing sure, and one does not necessarily gain the mastery as a result of being strong, but vast numbers who were confident have failed and vast numbers who were looking to defeat somebody have perished before they could strike. The party that is overreached in any transaction is not bound to be fortunate just because it is wronged, nor is the party which has the greater power bound to be successful just because it surpasses, but both are equally subservient to human uncertainty and the mutability of fortune, and the issue they secure is often not in accordance with the favorable prognostications of the one side, but proves to be what the other actually dared not expect. As a result of this, and of intense rivalry (for man is strongly given when wronged or believing himself wronged to become beyond measure bold) many are on many occasions inspired to undergo dangers even beyond their strength, with the determination to conquer or at least not to perish utterly without having shed some blood. So it is that partly conquering and partly defeated, sometimes gaining the mastery over others and again falling prostrate themselves, some are altogether annihilated and others gain a Cadmean victory, as it is called, and at a time when the knowledge can avail them nothing they perceive that their plans were ill drawn.
[-28-] "That this is so you also have learned by experience. Consider, Marius for some time had power in seditions; then he was driven out, collected a force, and accomplished what you know. Likewise Sulla—not to speak of Cinna or Strabo or the rest who intervene—influential at first, then subdued, then making himself ruler, authorized every possible terrible severity."
After that Lepidus, evidently with the intention of following in their footsteps, instituted a kind of sedition of his own and stirred nearly the whole of Italy. When we at last got rid of him too, remember what we suffered from Sertorius and from the exiles with him. What did Pompey, what did this Caesar himself do?—not to mention here Catiline or Clodius. Did they not at first fight against each other, and that in spite of their relationship, and then fill full of countless evils not only our own city or even the rest of Italy, but practically the entire world? Well, after Pompey's death and that great destruction of the citizens, did any quiet appear? Whence could it? By no means. Africa knows, Spain knows the multitudes who perished in each of those lands. What then? Did we have peace after this? How is it possible, when Caesar himself lies slain in this fashion, the Capitol is occupied, all through the Forum arms are seen, and throughout the city fear exists? [-29-] In this way, when men begin a seditious career and seek ever to repay violence with violence and inflict vengeance without care for propriety, without care for human limitations, but according to their desires and the power that arms give them, there necessarily arises in each such case a kind of circle of ills, and alternate requitals of outrages take place. The fortunate party abounds in insolence and sets no limits to the advantage it may take, and the party that is crushed, if it does not perish immediately, rages at the disaster and is eager to take vengeance on the oppressor, until it sate its wrath. Then the remainder of the multitude, even if it has not been previously involved in the transactions, now through pity of the beaten and envy of the victorious side, coöperates with the former, fearing that it may suffer the same evils as the downtrodden element and hoping that it may win the same success as the force temporarily in the ascendant. Thus the portion of the citizens that is not concerned is brought into the dispute and one class takes the evil up against another, through pretence of avenging the side which is for the moment at a disadvantage, as if they were repelling a regular, everyday danger; and individually they free themselves from it, but they ruin the community in every way. [-30-] Do you not see how much time we have lost in fighting one another, how many great evils we have endured meanwhile, and, what is worse than that, inflicted? And who could count the vast mass of money of which we have stripped our allies and robbed the gods, which furthermore we have contributed ourselves from what we did not possess, and then expended it against one another? Or who could number the mass of men that have been lost, not only of ordinary persons (that is beyond computation) but of knights and senators, each one of whom was able in foreign wars to preserve the whole city by his life and death? How many Curtii, how many Decii, Fabii, Gracchi, Marcelli, Scipiones have been killed? Not, by Jupiter, to repel Samnites or Latins or Spaniards or Carthaginians, but only to perish themselves in the end. And for those under arms who died, no matter how deep sorrow one might feel for them, there is less reason to lament. They entered the battles as volunteers, if it is proper to call volunteers men compelled by fear, and they met even if an unjust at least a brave death, in an equal struggle; and in the hope that they might even survive and conquer they fell without grieving. But how might one mourn as they deserve those who were pitiably destroyed in their houses, in the roads, in the Forum, in the senate-chamber even, on the Capitol even, by violence—not only men but also women, not only those in their prime, but also old men and children? And after subjecting one another to so many of these reprisals of such a nature as all our enemies put together never inflicted upon us (nor were we ever the authors of anything similar to them), so far from loathing such acts and manfully wishing to have done with them, we rejoice and hold festivals and term those who are guilty of them benefactors. Honestly, I cannot deem this life that we have been leading human; it is rather that of wild beasts which are consumed by one another.