Cæsar, however, was not destined even to set out for Parthia. On March 15 (44 B. C.), the Senate met to take the last measures preparatory to his departure. The place of session was the Senate House which Pompey had built near his theater. Scarcely had Cæsar entered and taken his seat when a throng of about sixty senators gathered round him, pretending to greet him and to offer a petition. They were conspirators who had engaged in a plot for his assassination, through no especial love for the Republic, but for various personal reasons. Many had gained office and wealth under his patronage; but in their greed for greater wealth and political glory they lost all sense of gratitude. The best among them was Marcus Brutus, in his own social circle a philosopher and an idealist, but in business a hard, relentless usurer. Caius Cassius, the brain of the conspiracy, was a plunderer of the provinces and a robber of temples, whom envy drove into the plot. By such men was Cæsar slain. It was a crime perpetrated upon the civilized world, which had to endure thirteen more years of desolating civil war (44-31 B. C.), before Octavius, the young heir to Cæsar, could gain the mastery and bring the empire to peace. This young man, known to history as Augustus, though less brilliant than his granduncle, possessed a far greater degree of practical wisdom. It was he, rather than Cæsar, who gave the Roman world an organization under which it was to enjoy more than two centuries of prosperity and happiness. Viewed in this light, the wisest act of the great Cæsar was the choice of this youth of delicately modeled features and frail body as his son and successor.
OCTAVIUS
Called “Augustus.” In the Vatican Museum, Rome
MARCUS BRUTUS
In the National Museum, Naples. Found at Pompeii
The Passing of Cæsar—“On March 15 (the Ides of March), 44 B. C., Cæsar entered the Senate Chamber and took his seat. His presence awed men, in spite of themselves, and the conspirators had determined to act at once, lest they should lose courage to act at all. He was familiar and easy of access. They gathered round him. He knew them all. There was not one from whom he had not a right to expect some sort of gratitude, and the movement suggested no suspicion. One had a story to tell him; another some favor to ask. Tullius Cimber, whom he had just made governor of Bithynia, then came close to him with some request which he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught his gown, as if in entreaty, and dragged it from his shoulders. Cassius, who was standing behind, stabbed him in the throat. He started up with a cry, and caught Cassius’s arm. Another poinard entered his breast, giving a mortal wound. He looked round, and seeing not one friendly face, but only a ring of daggers pointing at him, he drew his gown over his head, gathered the folds about him that he might fall decently, and sank down without uttering another word. Cicero was present. Brutus, waving his dagger, shouted to Cicero, congratulating him that liberty was restored. The Senate rose with shrieks and confusion, and rushed into the Forum. The crowd outside caught the words that Cæsar was dead and scattered to their houses. The murderers, some of them bleeding from wounds which they had given one another in their eagerness, followed, crying that the tyrant was dead, and that Rome was free.”—James Anthony Froude.